Today in 1878, the song Eight Hours was first published by the Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies. Written by the Reverend Jesse H Jones (music) and I G Blanchard (lyrics), it became the most popular labour song for the next 37 years. In case you’re wondering, it was overtaken by Solidarity Forever in 1915.
We mean to make things over, we are tired of toil for naught,
With but bare enough to live upon, and never an hour for thought;
We want to feel the sunshine, and we want to smell the flowers,
We are sure that God has will’d it, and we mean to have eight hours.
We’re summoning our forces from the shipyard, shop, and mill:
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!
Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, eight hours for what we will!
The Fireside Book of Favourite American Songs, edited by Margaret Bradford Boni, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1952
#236: The War Racket: Palestine Action on shutting down arms factories ● Paul Rogers on the military industrial complex ● Alessandra Viggiano and Siobhán McGuirk on gender identity laws in Argentina ● Dan Renwick on the 5th anniversary of Grenfell ● Juliet Jacques on Zvenigora ● Laetitia Bouhelier on a Parisian community cinema ● The winning entry of the Dawn Foster Memorial Essay Prize ● Book reviews and regular columns ● Much more!
And you choose how much to pay for your subscription...
Blyth Brentnall describes how a group of activists in the UK has managed to disrupt the activities of one of Israel’s biggest arms suppliers
The current war in Ukraine gives a new significance to the work of the Soviet-era Ukrainian film director Oleksandr Dovzhenko, writes Juliet Jacques
What is presented as an infrastructure programme is just gesturing and distraction to cover for a decade of government underinvestment, writes Dominic Davies
Owen Hatherley uncovers the imperial nostalgia fuelling proposals for a new geopolitical union
Human capital theory cannot solve our economic woes. David Ridley says we need a socialist alternative.
James Poulter looks at transformations in far-right organising and influence and how anti-fascists can respond