about the future is not popular on Eay-day, which has traditionally become a tine for reminiscence. But as our contribution to the festivities we would like to mobilise the past in order to assist the future to take its propoer course. Ry-day bean as a two-fold c#lebration, It celebreted the internationakism of the workingclanses, andi it deranded their freedom from wape slavery. ‘The owanner in which it attacked fapitalisn was precise in the extreme: ihe slosarn “aa simule: “for an eirht hour dayt" in Britain, the late eighteen-sighties saw the floweriay of this Jemand as a crucial unifying force. farxists like .'ann, Pabians Like ‘ebb, radicals Jike Cunningham Grahar, @ll came to find a com-an platform from which they could adtress the iasworkers, the Dockers, the great unoryvanised masses, as well as increasing numbers af these wie bad already become trade unionists lone aso, Years Later the Jebbs were to point out that tie cxapaien for shorter hours, unlike the strucle for better waces and other similar crusad#s, soliti“ied the werkers into a classconscious btedy. ae stroysles were apt to open we srobdl P Aiffereitials and to skim off rroun fron vroup. Jt shorter hours were uniformly desirable, und attainable cnly in common strugsle. Cn the soil of the eicht hour cempaicn, the medern Labour movement jut down its first fim. roots. But ay, if we accept the five day week as son, the si:ht-hours battle is still on,
editorial
Yet today the fight for shorter hours is not the simple unifying force it used to be, Piece rates, built-in overtime, and similar devices combine to separate skilled from semi«skilled, man on timeerates from pieceworkers, and so on. dere is a big part of the reason why the forty hour week, which is a demand of the 7T.U.C.'s conetitution and which it has been pursuing on and off since 1945, still eludes us. And here we see the relevance of the demands of the pioneers. The first kay-day rally, in 'yde Park, was about 2 legal eight-hour day: it called upon Farliament 1o leyrislate shorter hours for everyone without loss of pay. Now once more, with Labour poised to take up power asain, the legal forty-hour week becomes practical politics. it would liberate many thousands of workers from sweated work, and force the backwoodsmen in incustry to put their houses in order. It would share work, make wen freer, and win votes. But ancther reminder can speak to us from. the first Vay-day. Recently, Ted Hill nade a call for a curopean campaipn for shorter hours. «shy net?) Jdhy not a link up between the Unions of Lurope, regardless of their relisrious and political schisms, to synchreniss their gsins and eliminat» the strident cries of “foreign competition" which 3o up on all sides when workers ask for improvesents in their conditions? These are two key proolews of freedom for all workers everywhere: the probler of freedom in work and that of freedom from forced work. To build international unity of action on the second cannot but help us in coning to frivs with the first.