It’s leading up to Halloween in Ottawa and the kids are already out on the streets in some pretty impressive costumes. Older kids have painted their faces black or ash grey with dripping faux blood and are parading about the town. While I feel irritated that Halloween was imported to NZ as another commercial opportunity to cash in on, I am amused that an ancient pre-Christian rite has become mainstream.
Meanwhile it’s Labour Day in New Zealand. Now I do care about that and what it stands for.
I hope while people are enjoying the day off (at least those who get a day off) will remember that Labour Day is about Samuel Parnell’s struggle for an eight-hour working day.
Irony is there’s no longer any eight hour day regulation in NZ anymore (apart from an old reference in the Minimum Wage Age that a truck could be driven through.
In fact there is almost no NZ regulation around working hours, apart from the meals and rest breaks legislation, which National is in the process of decimating and paid leave laws, which are also under attack.
Canada celebrates Labo(u)r Day in September. It goes back to 1872, when the Toronto Trades Assembly organised Canada’s first significant demonstration for worker’s rights to demand the release of the 24 leaders of the Toronto Typographical Union who were imprisoned for striking to campaign for a nine-hour working day.
Difference is that like most other developed countries, Canada still has working time regulation including an 8 hour day, with provisions for flexibility and extended hours provided overtime is paid. Mealbreaks apply after five hours and there are prescribed periods of rest between shifts. Workers must receive at least 24 consecutive hours off work in each work week, or at least 48 consecutive hours off work in every period of two consecutive work weeks.
So I’m happy to give Halloween a miss (if I can hide) and celebrate the day that reminds us that workers’ rights issues are still out there and needing attention.
Good on you Darien
U R D A Y ! 
L A B
Yes, Labour Day is an important one and a reminder thatfairness at work should be protected, and of the values of worker solidarity.
The origins of Halloween are interesting, and, I think have a Celtic origin. But it’s all to do with acknowledging and coming to terms with death, and remembering those who have passed.
But the current North American version has just been turned into a consumerist circus, based on scariness as entertainment and leverage for children to acquire some little consumer trinkets.
It’s a beautiful sunny Labour Day here.
I think it is sad this blind adherence to the concept of “an eight hour day”. I sure it is good for’the average worker’ but there are other versions of working a 40 hour week or 160hr fourweek month which suit both worker and management. I son enjoys going to the mountains and the outdoor life .. working some fifteen days a month with 12/13 hour days facilitates this. Then there are the journos who work their 40 hours over four days to have three days off instead of just two …. it suits both management and worker not to be restricted by the 8hour day.
Happy Labour day Carol
Thanks. And happy Labour Day to you, too, Spud
Been out in the sun. Feels like summer.
I ignore Halloween – it’s just more commercialisation and an artificial boost to consumerism to help push the growth needed for capitalism to “work”.
Is Michael Ignatieff still leader of the opposition over there and if so have you heard anything about him while you are there? He is mainly an academic and an intellectual who has contributed to international theories about concepts like citizenship and sovereignty and what it means – very clever man. Visited NZ about a decade ago for Readers and Writers week to talk about one of his books on citizenship.
I think we need to also remember that Parnell was a carpenter, he advocated for carpenters. Everyone didnt get an 8 hour day. Supply and demand assisted his cause. A fledgling nation needed carpenters to survive and thrive. I am NOT taking away from what he advocated but it was some time before ALL working NZers had an 8 hour day.
We also have to differentiate between the 8 hour day and the 40 hour week and remember what workers were doing prior to this change.
Household workers had one day off a month and worked 16 to 17 hours each day. In this context the 8 hour day was a coup when couple with Sunday off it shows the significance of the achievement.
I can recall at school a thousand years ago we were asked to predict the future, what would it look like, and how would computers change things.
We all said no paper and more leisure time, we were wrong on both counts. It was SOLD to us that way though (wink).
I agree with more flexibility but we need fairness in the workplace for employers (who create the opportunities for work) and for employees who generate the income and profit for employers and shareholders.
It’s not a war and until both parties (and most do in the workplace) see it is a mutually beneficial relationship very few advacnes can truly be said to have been made since Parnell because he only succeeded because of the overwhelming demand for carpenters, without whom the nation (post Maori sovereignty)could not have begun.
IF we require that kind of power differntial to make changes for the good of all, then little will change.
Money is a tool of exchange it is not an end in itself. Humans do not exist for the purpose of money, imo, we exist to form relationships and create. Money is a mechanism but if you look at NZ you could be forgiven for thinking money is something quite different to that. We are salves today, but in a very different way to Samuel Parnell’s day.
slaves not salves…
Darien do you work more than 40 hours per week on average? Every MP ive spoken to says they work far more than that.
If its ok for you to choose to take a job where you work 40 hours per week then why isnt it ok for the rest of us?
I think the difference is that some jobs are more pleasant to work for more than 40 hours a week than others
Like being a beer taster, for example
I guess some of it comes down to what we consider “choice”.
If people by their circumstances and their hourly rate essentially “must” work more than 40 is it freely given consent?
If people swap holidays to work because they need the money to simply paybills, then what is lost? Health? Family cohesion?
Choice is not as black and white as some think, it’s full of grey.
For the record I work more than 40 hours a week, until I dont want to, then I wont, but, this is an important part, even if I dont I will not be struggling financially, that gives me greater freedom and choice than those who work for minimum wage.