https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the 16th century Spain,[1] but the modern movement dates back to the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. At that time, the working day could range from 10 to 16 hours, the work week was typically six days a week and the use of child labour was common.[2][3] The first country that introduced the 8-hour work day by law for factory and fortification workers was Spain in 1593.[1] In Contemporary Era, it was established for all professions by the Soviet Union in 1917.[4] History Edit Sixteenth century Edit In 1593, Philip II of Spain established an eight-hour work day by a royal edict known as Ordenanzas de Felipe II, or Ordinances of Philip II. This established: Título sexto. De las fábricas y fortificaciones. Ley VI Que los obreros trabajen 8 horas al día repartidas como convenga. Todos los obreros trabajaran ocho horas al día, cuatro á la mañana, y cuatro á la tarde en fortificaciones y fábricas, que se hicieren, repartidas á los tiempos más convenientes para librarse del rigor del sol, más o menos lo que á los ingenieros pareciere, de forma que no faltando un punto de lo posible, también se atienda à procurar su salud y conservación. Sixth title. From factories and fortifications. Law VI That the workers work eight hours a day distributed as appropriate. All the workers will work eight hours a day, four in the morning, and four in the afternoon in fortifications and factories, which [The hours] are to be made, distributed at the most convenient times to get rid of the rigor of the sun, [and] more or less what seems to [be right to] the engineers, so that not missing a point of the possible [work], it is also attended to ensure their health and conservation. — Recopilación de leyes de los reinos de las indias. Mandadas a Imprimir y Publicar por la majestad católica del rey Don Carlos II, nuestro señor. Libro Tercero.[5] An exception was applied to mine workers, whose work day was limited to seven hours. These working conditions were also applied to natives in the Spanish America, who also kept their own legislation organized in "Indian republics" where they elected their own mayors.[1] Industrial revolution Edit In the early 19th century, Robert Owen raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his "socialist" enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan: "Eight hours' labour, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest". Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February Revolution of 1848.[6] A shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organisation of trade unions. There were initial successes in achieving an eight-hour day in New Zealand and by the Australian labour movement for skilled workers in the 1840s and 1850s, though most employed people had to wait to the early and mid twentieth century for the condition to be widely achieved through the industrialised world through legislative action. The International Workingmen's Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its Congress in Geneva in 1866, declaring "The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive", and "The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day." Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers' health, writing in Das Kapital (1867): "By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself."[7][8] On 17 November 1915 Uruguay adopted an eight-hour working day, under the government of José Batlle y Ordóñez.[9] Nevertheless, the law was not effective on all type of works. On 3 April 1919, Spain introduced a universal law effective on all type of works, restricting the workday to a maximum of eight hours. The "Real decreto de 3 de abril de 1919" was signed by the prime minister, Álvaro de Figueroa, 1st Count of Romanones. The first international treaty to mention it was the Treaty of Versailles in the annex of its thirteenth part establishing the International Labour Office, now the International Labour Organization.[10] The eight-hour day was the first topic discussed by the International Labour Organization which resulted in the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 ratified by 52 countries as of 2016. The eight-hour day movement forms part of the early history for the celebration of May Day, and Labour Day in some countries.