Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 March 2009
Twelve-hour days persisted in British and U.S. iron and steel after most industrial workers worked eight-hour days. When shorter hours finally came, sooner in Britain, they came abruptly. This article presents a model of working hours as public goods; when job attributes are shared there is a collective choice problem. In Britain, a collective bargaining mechanism reconciled the preferences of workers and capital owners and facilitated the move to shorter hours. In the United States immigrants had been willing to work long hours. When immigration was cut off, the government intervened.
I am grateful to Joan Underhill Hannon and the editors of this JOURNAL for their valuable comments. Frank Stafford provided the initial idea that motivated the article, and most of the theoretical structure is borrowed from him and his coauthors. Gavin Wright did his best to ensure that the historical record was not sacrificed on theoretical altars. There remains little to take credit for except, of course, any remaining errors.Google Scholar
1 For example, “the iron and steel manufacturer … did not see how he could [reduce hours] without going in one step from twelve hours to eight hours …” American Engineering Council, The Twelve Hour Shift in Industry (New York, 1922), pp. 221–22.Google ScholarThis and other sources discuss the work schedules of individual firms or workers, but make no mention of unorthodox shift arrangements. For the United States, see Fitch, John A., The Steel Workers (1st edn., 1911; reprint edn., New York, 1969)Google Scholar; U.S. Congress, Senate, Report on Conditions of Employment in the United States Iron and Steel Industry, vols. 1–4, S.Doc. 110, 62nd Cong., 1st sess., 1911–1913Google Scholar; Interchurch World Movement, Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 (1st edn., 1920; reprint edn., New York, 1971).Google ScholarFor Great Britain, see [Pugh, Arthur], Men of Steel by One of Them (London, 1951)Google Scholar; Bowley, Arthur L., Prices and Wages in the United Kingdom, 1914–1920 (Oxford, 1921)Google Scholar; Carr, James Cecil and Taplin, W., History of the British Steel Industry (Cambridge, 1962).Google Scholar
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3 The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, which was strong in the iron industry until the 1890s, lost ground after Homestead and did not survive the changes in technology and industrial organization that accompanied the transition to steel. For discussions of comparative union development, see Holt, James, “Trade Unionism in the British and U.S. Steel Industries, 1880–1914: A Comparativé Study,” Labor History, 18 (Winter 1977), pp. 5–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wilkinson, Frank, “Collective Bargaining in the Steel Industry in the 1920s,” in Briggs, Asa and Saville, John, eds., Essays in Labor History, 1918–1939 (London, 1977), pp. 102–32.Google Scholar
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