the perfectly rational revolt in 1860 of the London labourers, employed in the building trades, against the attempt of the capitalists to impose on them this sort of wage by the hour. The legal limitation of the working-day puts an end to such mischief, although not, of course, to the diminution of employment caused by the competition of machinery, by changes in the quality of the labourers employed, and by crisis partial or general.
With an increasing daily or weekly wage the price of labour may remain nominally constant, and yet may fall below its normal level. This occurs every time that, the price of labour (reckoned per working hour) remaining constant, the working-day is prolonged beyond its customary length. If in the fraction: daily value of labour-powerworking-day the denominator increases, the numerator increases yet more rapidly. The value of labour-power, as dependent on its wear and tear, increases with the duration of its functioning, and in more rapid proportion than the increase of that duration. In many branches of industry where time-wage is the general rule without legal limits to the working-time, the habit has, therefore, spontaneously grown up of regarding the working-day as normal only up to a certain point, e.g., up to the expiration of the tenth hour (“normal working-day,” “the day’s work,” “the regular hours of work”). Beyond this limit the working-time is over-time, and is, taking the hour as unit-measure, paid better (“extra pay”), although often in a proportion ridiculously small.[1] The normal working-day exists here as a fraction of the actual working-day, and the latter, often during the whole year, lasts longer than the former.[2] The increase in the price of labour with the extension of the working-day beyond a certain normal
- ↑ “The rate of payment for overtime (in lace-making) is so small, from ½d. and ¾d. to 2d. per hour, that it stands in painful contrast to the amount of injury produced to the health and stamina of the workpeople.… The small amount thus earned is also often obliged to be spent in extra nourishment.” (“Child Emp. Com., II. Rep.,” p. xvi., n. 117.)
- ↑ E.g., in paper-staining before the recent introduction into this trade of the Factory Act. “We work on with no stoppage for meals, so that the day’s work of 10½ hours is finished by 4.30 p.m., and all after that is overtime, and we seldom leave off working before 6 p.m., so that we are really working overtime the whole year round.” (Mr. Smith’s “Evidence in Child Emp. Com., I. Rep.,” p. 125.)
