Hurray for May Day ! The Haymarketters sought a shortening of the work-day.
http://www.art.com/products/p22113302828/product.htm... A Garland for May Day, 1895 Giclee Print by Walter Crane at Art.com www.art.com Some of the Slogans on A Garland for May Day: Solidarity of Labor; Production for use not for profit; No Child Toilers; Shorter Working Day, A Longer Life; Cooperation and Emulation, not Competition; Hope in Work and Joy in Leisure; Art and Enjoyment for All; A Common Wealth when Wealth in Common; Socialism means the Most Helpful, Happy Life for All. The Cause of Labor is the Hope of the World.
CB
"In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic prerequisite." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch48.htm