Senate Rejects Eight-Hour Workday for Women
Legislators kill labor reform, prioritizing industrial profits over the well-being of working women.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As was generally expected and feared by the labor movement, the senate has killed the bill making eight hours the legal workday for women in certain vocations. The senate consigned the measure to a two-year rest by a vote of 22 to 18 yesterday. The senate holds that the economic disadvantage of this shortened day for women would cause greater harm than the resultant social amelioration could repair. It came to the senate to choose between business and the betterment of class conditions, and business—ruthless, relentless business—prevailed. The women's eight-hour bill is dead for this session. It will be revived two years from now and perhaps be enacted into a law. All it entails upon the weary girl before the mangle or at the stitching machine in the overall factory is two years of patience. There will be many a weary hour of toil in deference to business in that time, but the trend is toward the eight-hour law and no obstacle will permanently prevail against it.
“It came to the senate to choose between business and the betterment of class conditions and business—ruthless, relentless business—prevailed.”
This 1909 legislative defeat reflects the recurring struggle between corporate interests and labor protections in Washington. Similar debates regarding fair scheduling and worker safety continue to define the legislative session in Olympia today.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.