The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-13
EIGHT HOURS A DAY.
The Agitation in Chicago-A Combined Eff
fort Tc Be Made the 1st of May.

The Agitation in Chicag0-A Combined Eff
fort Tc Be Made ON the 1st of May.
CHICAGO, March l2-One of the city papers
publishes an exceedingly interesting and COM
plete resume of the present status of the eight
hour agitation in this city. Joseph Gruenhet, a
Socialist and the recognized leader of the eight
hour movement in Chicago, is quoted as follows:
The Trade and Labor Unions, the Knights of
Labor assemblies, the Socialistic and Inter
national groups, are agitating harmoniously for
eight hours as full legal days work. Wages
are left out of the consideration, and will be set
tled by each of the several trades Labor has no
intrinsic value. and the rates of wages are sim
ply the result of a grab game. Stone-cutters,
orick-layers. cigar packers, engravers and plumb
ers, average during the busy season, 81 per
uay. There are dozen trades which
average from So to $3.50 day, but these
rates are upheld by the monopoly power of
their respective unions which take the question
OF wages out of the category of free competi
tion and hx them by force. The vast majority
OF regular trades and occupations are not organ
lzed at all and the individual workers run a
wiid competition for getting work, and are
tnereoy reduced to what is known cheap
labor. The late and the present strikes prove
tendency to level upward the wages, and it is
likely that in the very near future minimum
rate of wages of So day will be fixed for all
who are usually called unskied workers Or
ganlzed LABOR insists upon getting the benefit of
the general introduction of natural forces,
abor-saving machinery, the minute subdivision
OF labor and the enormous facilities of dstribu-
non; while employers and capitalists attempt to
conhscate ali these social benefits for their own
exclusive use, reducing the wage worker to the
bare necessities Of life Hence the revolt of
labor in the shape of strikes and general disar-
rangement OF business intercourse, with the an
archIstic threat OF physical force, dynamite. and
ASSASSINATION OF the oppressors of labor"
mn
The Daily News details the programme as one
fora combined effort on the 1st of May to make
eight hours days work, and the general pay is
to be scaled down in proportion as hours are re-
duced. To provide work for all is stated as the
ultimate object in view. According to the News
thsSEsrsfe 225s 600 working people in Chicago who
wo,sS.'os affected by the general adoption of the
elght-hours- -per-day law. OF these about 70 600
are enumerated as more or less organized, and it
is announced there is O determination on the
part of at least all the organized labor in Chica
go to enforce the eght.hour day. There has
been but little controversy the matter be-
tween employers and employees. The simple
method of inaugurating the change will be eight
hours work on the 1st day of May. The feeling
on the question is shown in an elaborate series
of interviews with the largest employers of labor
in Chicago and with prominent leaders of the
working classes. All the latter are confident the
plan is feasible, and that they will succeed The
employers express the most diverse views
Quite number favor the movement the bulk
are seemingly Indifferent and few declare it
viii ruin business.