State Senate Kills Eight-Hour Bill for Women Workers
Everett labor leaders blast the State Senate for killing protections for working women.
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The State Senate by a vote of 31 to 10 voted this week to indefinitely postpone the eight-hour bill for women wage workers. This effectively kills the bill. Shame on the men who put the importunities of the employers of this state, in their selfish desire to coin dollars out of the lives of working women, above all other considerations. It is a disgrace to civilization that our modern industrial system compels the women and girls who are to be the mothers of our future citizens to go out day by day to hard manual toil in factory, store and workshop. The working woman who in a spirit of independence courageously goes out to toil that she and her loved ones may have the necessaries of life, merits the respect of every decent man. Her hours should be made easy, her work as light as possible.
“Shame on the men who put the importunities of the employers of this state, in their selfish desire to coin dollars out of the lives of working women, above all other considerations.”
This 1909 editorial highlights the recurring struggle for labor protections in Washington, decades before the state became a national leader in worker rights. The tension between industrial profit and the well-being of the workforce remains a central theme in Everett's civic discourse.
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