Public Choice Analyses of American Economic History by Joshua Hall & Marcus Witcher

Author:Joshua Hall & Marcus Witcher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

5.4 The Emergence of Protective Legislation

Despite the progressive decline in the length of the working day, direct industrial action seems to have been generally unsuccessful in securing shorter hours even where it had been the primary goal. As a result, labor looked increasingly to political agitation and lobbying for relief. Sometimes the mere threat of legislative action was sufficient to secure a reduction of hours.28 The widespread acceptance of changes in hours of work necessary for building a political consensus, however, was predicated on new social attitudes and these swung in labor’s favor only slowly. It is not difficult to understand why. After all, why should an employer demand less of his workers than the farmer expected of himself or his family (Commons 1918, p. 171–74)? However, the extension of the peak farm-day or farm-week to manufacturing produced a much longer work-year in industry. Moreover, whatever parallel there might have been between agricultural and industrial work disappeared as industry mechanized. In the one, the pace of work was set by man and the rhythms of nature; in the other, by inanimate and tireless machines. In addition, workers were increasingly concentrated in unlighted and poorly ventilated factories. The result was a marked deterioration in the conditions of workers and growing demands for change from many quarters including social reformers as well as workers directly affected by these conditions. Growing productivity and rising real wages also meant that there was little chance that the mass of workers and their dependents would fall below subsistence and so these new arguments were free to come to the fore (Towles 1908, p. 7).29

However, it may also be significant that much of the agitation for shorter hours and limits upon employment of women and children only began when the bargaining power of those directly affected had weakened. Adult male workers were thus in a much stronger position to press their case for shorter hours without competition from women and children and employers had less incentive to resist. Second, support for protective legislation for women and children often came from adult male-dominated labor organizations. For example, the New England Working Men’s Association meeting at Lynn in January 1846 offered a resolution “in behalf of the Lowell factory girls” for adoption of the ten-hour day (Commons 1918, p. 540). Commons viewed this as fraternal cooperation between labor organizations on behalf of those not yet organized but it is equally consistent with the rent-seeking hypothesis.

The feasibility of a political solution was clearly demonstrated when President Van Buren issued an Executive Order in 1840 establishing a ten-hour day—without reduction in pay—for all federal employees.30 The lesson was further reinforced by the adoption of the eight-hour day for federal workers in 1869.31 Rather than securing shorter hours through bargaining or industrial action on a workplace-by-workplace basis, legislation secured through political action represented a comprehensive and effective solution. The emerging coalition of labor with social, civic, philanthropic, and church groups; social reformers and humanitarians; and legislators and bureaucrats also made legislative action more certain and less risky for the individual worker.

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