EIGHT hours to work, eight hours to play, eight hours to sleep, eight bob a day.
A fair day's work, for a fair day's pay.
So went the ditty that summarised the push to reduce and regulate working hours across the industrialising world in the 19th century.
Some workers with skills in short supply won their eight-hour days by mid-century, but for most it took much longer.
Hunter Workers - formerly known as Newcastle Trades Hall Council - traces its history back to a meeting of unionists in Newcastle on Saturday, November 20, 1869.
That meeting, 150 years ago today, and its part in the fight to win the eight-hour day, is being celebrated tonight at a function at the Hunter Workers Building in King Street, Newcastle.
As well as the function starting at 6.30pm, an exhibition of trades hall and union memorabilia, newly expanded by trades hall historian Rod Noble, will be on display until Friday, December 6.
A summary of the 1869 meeting produced by Hunter Workers for tonight's event says the gathering was convened by the Maitland Eight Hour Committee, which wanted to expand the eight-hour movement in the region.
Maitland delegates reported that employers were prepared to grant the eight-hour day "provided wages would be accordingly reduced".
At the close of the meeting, one of the Maitland committee members, George Galley, is recorded as saying: "If the workmen were, in a body, to combine together, they could do as they liked with their masters."
Some would say this realisation, and the ability of employers to hold their ground despite their numerical disadvantage, has been the basis of politics ever since.
Hunter Workers secretary Daniel Wallace says it would be pointless to deny the falling memberships and other pressures facing unions, but he says the eight-hour movement is as important as ever, as more employers are push their employees to work longer than eight hours a day, and often without proper payment.
"I know not everyone is interested in the history of these things but people forget the effort that previous generations of unionists put in to win the eight-hour day and the other conditions that until recently were almost taken for granted," Wallace said.
"The eight-hour day is being pushed to its limits. You've got employers of all sorts, across the board, trying to get their employees to work hours that do not line up with awards or agreements. And we need to resist that trend, and work with the community to remind employers and politicians that the eight-hour day is still the proper standard."
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