The Eight-Hour Day Battle Reaches Seattle
As local carpenters and painters walk off the job to demand an eight-hour workday, the city faces a wave of labor unrest echoing across the Pacific Northwest.
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.
SEATTLE, April 1 — Eight hundred carpenters and painters struck for nine hours, beginning today. St. Louis: Twelve hundred carpenters struck this morning for eight hours a day and 40 cents per hour. Denver: Over 300 painters struck this morning for a reduction of hours, from nine to eight and $2.75 per day, as heretofore received. The employing firms refuse the demand and have telegraphed for men.
“The employing firms refuse the demand and have telegraphed for men.”
In 1889, Seattle's trades were fighting to standardize the eight-hour day, a core labor struggle of the industrial era. Today, the battle has shifted from total hours to wage stability and housing affordability for the very workers building the city's modern high-rises.
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