ABSTRACT
The success of the craft unions helped inspire the "new unionism" of the 1880s. The "new unions" of the unskilled or semiskilled were able to disrupt work temporarily by striking, but lacked the leverage craft unions could exert through the scarcity of their skills. Thus the new unions sought to establish the eighthour day through legislation. Between 1893 and 1900, 53,000 workers, many of them shift workers in continuous-process industries, achieved the eight-hour day. Government, however, was responsible for over half of the reductions in hours between 1890 and 1902. In 1894, 43,000 government employees were granted an eight-hour day, and in 1902 Parliament reduced the hours of textile workers by an hour a week. Government again, under pressure from the rising Labour party, acted in 1909 to limit the workday in mines to eight hours.
