May Day and the Struggle for the Eight Hour Day in California by David
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May Day and the Struggle for the Eight Hour Day in California by J. David Sackman, Esq. California is one of the few states which requires employers to pay overtime after eight hours work in a day. 1/ Federal law only requires overtime after forty hours in a week. 2/ The Eight-Hour-Day (at least on public works) is even ensconced in the California Constitution. 3/ The Eight Hour Day was not won easily. Nationally, the movement for the Eight Hour Day gave birth to May Day, which is celebrated throughout the world as a day for Labor. In California, the Eight Hour Day is the result of a long struggle of what Carey McWilliams called the “total engagement” of labor: “The California labor movement has long occupied an altogether exceptional niche in the history of American labor. The California labor movement, to a degree that is not generally appreciated, has had an important influence on national labor trends. It has been the total engagement of labor in California that has, from the beginning, given the California labor movement its distinctive character. The labor struggle in the state has not been partial and limited, but total and indivisible; all of labor pitted against all of capital.” 4/ industries. Labor marched and struck, if necessary, to achieve this goal. Labor also took its cause back to the Legislature, and managed to pass California’s first 8-hour law. The first section of the 1868 law, similar to the 1853 law, provided that “Eight hours labor shall be deemed and held to be a legal day’s work, in all cases within this State, unless otherwise expressly stipulated between the parties concerned.” Again, it was up to workers to maintain the 8-hour day through their own bargaining power, in private employment at least. The 1868 law also mandated an 8- hour day for public works for the State, and required that “a stipulation to that effect shall be made of all contracts” for public work. Finally, it absolutely prohibited employment of minors for more than 8 hours a day. 8/ While Labor had some influence in the Legislature, the Courts were mostly on the side of business when it came to economic matters. So the 1868 law immediately ran into trouble in the courts. The California Supreme Court limited the law, as applied to public works, by reading it as requiring only that contractors agree to abide by the law, but not to actually give an 8-hour day to their workers, since the latter would be “an abridgement of, and a limitation upon, the powers of parties to contract about their Chinese laborers working on a railroad in California. own concerns.” 9/ Following this decision, Labor went back to the Legislature to obtain a stronger law. They did this by adding a Early Struggles to Limit the Hours provision that all workers on public works “shall be employed by the day, and no work upon any of said buildings shall be done by of Work in California contract.” 10/ Economic depression gripped the state through most of the As early as 1853, the brand-new state of California, still 1870s. As a result, many workers lost the 8-hour day they basking in the Gold Rush, passed one of the first laws limiting the previously had won through their bargaining power. They worked hours of labor. The original proposal, which received widespread longer hours, for shorter pay, and many more were unemployed. support, would have punished any employer who required 5/ Many workers blamed the Chinese for their problems. Chinese employees to work more than ten hours. Subsequent lobbying laborers were brought in to build the transcontinental railroad. by employers watered down the proposal, so that the law finally After the rail line was completed in 1869, many Chinese enacted provided only that “Ten hours shall be considered a legal 6/ remained in California, where they often competed with European day’s labor in any action in law, in any of the courts of the State.” workers for scarce jobs. As conditions worsened, workers This meant that the 10-hour day was only a presumption at law. gathered in “sandlot” meetings to hear speakers and protest their Employers could require more hours, if they made it an explicit conditions. Dennis Kearney, who had previously been hired as a part of the employment agreement. So this law was up to the goon to break up strikes, dominated these sandlot meetings as a workers to enforce through their own bargaining power. At the supposed advocate for Labor, blaming the Chinese for the time, labor was strong enough to maintain a ten hour day workers problems. He managed to take over the newly-formed maximum in most industries. But as the economy rose and fell, “Workingmen’s Party” and divert its agenda to anti-Chinese along with the bargaining power of labor, the maximum hours of agitation. work fell and rose accordingly. The Workingmen’s Party garnered a tremendous amount of Following the Civil War, Labor began agitating for an 8-hour support, and began fielding candidates throughout the state. day in California. In 1866, a bill was introduced for an 8-hour 7/ They led a successful effort to call a new Constitutional day, but it was killed after passing the Assembly. Unions then Convention, and won a large number of seats at the Convention began agitating for the 8 hour day through their economic power. itself. In the new Constitution drawn up at this Convention in An “Eight Hour League” was formed by a coalition of labor 1879, most of the Workingmen’s Party effort was directed organizations. Unfortunately, much of its activity was diverted to towards anti-Chinese provisions. But many pro-Labor provisions anti-Chinese agitation. were also added, including one for the 8 hour day. The 1879 The first “Labor Day” in California was June 3, 1867. This was California Constitution, as approved by the voters, provided that the deadline set by unions in the state, for an 8-hour day in all “Eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s work on all public work.” 11/ 2 The First May Day The 1880's saw renewed effort to obtain and keep an 8 hour day, throughout the nation. At its 1884 Convention, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada, which later became the American Federation of Labor (AFL), adopted this resolution: "Resolved, . that eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886, and that we recommend to labor organizations throughout this district that they so direct their laws as to conform to this resolution by the time named." 12/ This demand was meant to be backed up by stikes where necessary to achieve the 8-hour day by the May 1, 1886 deadline. It was promoted throughout the nation over the next two years. By the first May Day, 350,000 workers went on strike Artist depiction of bomb at Haymarket Square in Chicago, 1886 at 11,562 establishments. Approximately 185,00 achieved the 8- hour day as a result. 13/ This of course does not count the many Labor in California was too preoccupied with throwing out the more who had already achieved the 8-hour day, including many Chinese to pay much attention to their own working conditions. in California. According to Samuel Gompers, head of the AFL: That first May Day “received virtually no support from the 16/ Instead, labor supported a "I have no hesitation in expressing my conviction that the organized workers in California." pogrom of violence against the Chinese throughout the state. movement of 1886 resulted in a reduction of fully 1 hour's labor of 14/ Because they were caught up in racism, California labor missed the working people of the United States." this opportunity to advance the 8-hour day on the first May Day in Among those striking on the first May Day for the 8-hour day 1886. 17/ were workers at McCormick Harvester in Chicago. On May 3, 1886, the workers were still out on strike when strikebreakers The Progressive Era and the Eight were brought through the picket lines by police. The crowd of strikers and supporters tried to block the scabs, and police fired Hour Day for Women into the crowd, killing four and wounding many others. A mass demonstration against the killings was immediately organized, Revolution was in the air when the Second Decade of the and set for Haymarket Square the next day, May 4. The Twentieth Century dawned on California. Labor was on the rise, organizers included anarchist labor activists Albert R. Parsons, especially in Los Angeles, where class warfare literally exploded August Spies and Samuel J. Fielden. By the time the speeches with the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building. Job were wrapping up and the crowd breaking up that evening, the Harriman, one of the lawyers representing the union officers police returned, and ordered the crowd to immediately disperse. accused of the bombing, was nearly elected mayor of the city, on As if on cue, a bomb was thrown. One of the police was killed, a Labor-Socialist ticket. A few blocks away, some of Harriman’s and many more in the crowd were wounded. other clients, refugees from the Diaz regime in Mexico, were planning the takeover of Baja California by the Partido Liberal de The next day, police swept through Chicago and arrested Mexico (PLM), which would be known as the precursor of the hundreds - mostly union leaders and anarchists.