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Theme about the 8-hour workday

Working 48 hours a week. It sounds like a lot for a Danish employee in 2019. But 100 years ago, it was a significant step forward for ordinary people. The introduction of the 8-hour day, which with six working days a week meant 48 hours a week, still stands today as a milestone in the history of the labor movement.

The struggle over working hours is one of the most fundamental expressions of the antagonism between workers and employers and is as old as wage labor and capitalism itself.

An important struggle

There are several reasons why the 8-hour struggle is so strong in the collective memory of the labor movement. There are several reasons why the 8-hour struggle is so strong in the collective memory of the labor movement. Firstly, the story of how the demand for an 8-hour working day was raised in the first place. Partly the many years of struggle, and partly the aesthetics of the struggle. The three 8s – 8 hours work, 8 hours freedom, 8 hours rest – in various configurations and patterns are iconic. Then there is the history of the labor movement’s internal contradictions between direct action and negotiation, between revolution and reformism. These contradictions played a crucial role in the process leading up to the introduction of the 8-hour workday. Why was the 8-hour day implemented at that particular time? Whose honor was it that after so many years the 8-hour day was brought to victory?