Robert Owen advocates for 'eight hours' labour, eight hours' recreation, eight hours' rest'
Welsh manufacturer and social reformer Robert Owen formulates the slogan that would become the symbol of the labour movement for decades.
British Factory Act limits child labour and working hours
The British parliament passes legislation limiting working hours for children in textile factories, an early step in labour law.
Haymarket affair in Chicago
A strike for the eight-hour workday in Chicago escalates into violence after a bomb is thrown during a labor rally.
Second International declares May 1st International Workers' Day
Socialist parties and trade unions united in the Second International choose May 1st as the annual international day of action for the eight-hour workday.
New Zealand legally introduces the eight-hour workday
New Zealand is among the first countries to enshrine the eight-hour working day in law, partly thanks to early labour legislation.
Henry Ford introduces the eight-hour workday at Ford Motor Company
Ford shortens the working day to eight hours while simultaneously raising wages, in the belief that this increases productivity and worker loyalty.
Founding of the International Labour Organization and the Treaty of Washington
After the end of the First World War, the International Labour Organization is established, whose first convention lays down the eight-hour working day internationally.
Soviet Union introduces the eight-hour workday through labour legislation
The young Soviet state incorporates the eight-hour workday into its labor legislation as part of the revolutionary reforms.
India includes the eight-hour workday in the Factories Act
Under British colonial rule, the eight-hour workday is enshrined in law in Indian factory legislation.
France definitively enacts the forty-eight-hour work week and eight-hour day into law
France consolidates the eight-hour workday into national legislation, as the culmination of decades of union struggle in Western Europe.
Robert Owen advocates for 'eight hours' labour, eight hours' recreation, eight hours' rest'
Owen, owner of the New Lanark mills in Scotland, was himself an unusually progressive employer who introduced shorter working days and better living conditions for his workers. His slogan 'Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest' became the ideological foundation of later eight-hour movements worldwide, although practice in most factories remained decades away from this ideal.