Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-08-08
HOLIDAYS FOR WORKERS.


What the Operatives and Laborers in
England Get in This Way.
A recent letter from London CORE
spondent of New York daily paper
contains the following:
The demand for an ''eig mt hours day."
which just now in some thirty-five or
forty constituencies is causing much
more commoSon than the home rule
question, is only one of the many indi-
cations of the change which has of late
years come over the English working
classes.
Until the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers inaugurated the nine hours
movement on Tyneside, nearly twenty
years ago, the ten hours day was the
rule, and artisans and day laborers
worked until as late as or o'clock
on Saturday evening. The nine hours
movement, however, quickly extended
itself to other industries than that of
engineering, and before it had been in
force five years with the men whose
action had brought it about tifty-four
hours had almost universally come to be
regarded as the working week; wages
were fixed upon that basis and overtime
paid at extra rates on all time worked
beyond that limit.
When the change was first brought
about work was usually continued un-
til o'clock on Saturday afternoons;
but by series of rearrangements things
have been SO adjusted that in nearly
every industry work now ceases at noon
on Saturday. 1t is while this movement
toward a shorter working week and to
the Saturday half holiday has been 60
ing ON that the bank holiday has firmly
established itself with artisans and day
laborers, and ceased to be what 1t was
in the earlier years os 1.-The operation of
the Lubbock act-a holiday mainly with
the business and clerking classes. Nor
has the holiday movement among the
industrial classes ended with the adop-
tion of the bank holiday act.
AS the evidence which has been given
before the labor commission has shown,
the midsummer vacation has extended
itself beyond the counting room to
which it was confined up to ten years
ago, and in many industries now ap-
plies to the humblest of workers. Mr..
Livesey, who is the general manager of
the South Metropolitan Gas company,
stated in his evidence last week that it
was now the rule with that company to
give every laborer in their employ one
weeks holiday in the summer at the ex-
pense Of the company.
The same rule applies with most of
the railway companies and with many
of the wholesale dry goods concerns;
and in London it is common in the COM
posing rooms of many Of the newspaper
offices. In all these cases the men are
paid their weeks wages before they go
on their holidays. Even where this gen.
erosity is not extended to the rank and
file of the work people, it is now grow
ing practice to stop work in the summer
time for week in order that the work
people may have holiday and that the
machinery may be overhauled
In the manufacturing districts of Lam
cashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Derby
shire these summer holidays for work
people are recognized institutions. Their
coming is looked forward to with pleas
ure, and weeks stoppage does not al
ways mean the loss of an entire weeks
pay. Overtime is usually worked for
two or three weeks before the stoppage
to clear out the orders, so that the over
time and the extra pay received for it
about equalize the loss from the weeks
cessation of work. 1t Is an arrangement
which works we'll for both employers
and employed and never seems to give
rise to any friction.
In Manchester and many of the neigh
boring cotton manufacturing towns and
villages work is at standstill for
week, and the cotton operatives betake
themselves in their thousands to the
watering places on the Lancashire and
Welsh coast and also to the Isle of Man.
workIngmen In the House of Commons.