Richard Oastler and "a good day's wage"

Initially intended to cover all factories, Hobhouse eventually limited his proposed legislation to cotton mills, partly out of concern that the votes to pass comprehensive legislation did not exist, and partly in recognition of the power of the relatively well-organized cotton spinners, led by John Doherty.  So limited, the first factory reform bill passed in 1833.[1]   Oastler nevertheless felt betrayed by Hobhouse’s decision to seek to regulate only the cotton mills, as a good number of those with whom Oastler was concerned worked in the woolen trade and other industries not covered by the newer legislation. He therefore kept up the drum beat of his own campaign for reform and in 1834 appeared before the Select Committee on Hand-Loom Weavers' Petitions, which had been appointed by Parliament to investigate the claims of the weavers and to make recommendations of remedies, if any, to the House of Commons.The sufferings of the petitioners were well-known to contemporaries and have been the object of constant concern by historians.

Having testified first to the declining living standards and spirits of the weavers since the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1819, Oastler was asked if he were aware of "any attempt made at any time...to bring about a newly constructed system of wages" and he declared, "Yes," he was. "The plan that was adopted was the establishment of what was called the trades' unions, which were established for the express purpose...of making what they call the bad masters give as large wages as the good masters." Oastler also noted that he supported the plan, at least where the unions gave up "secrecy" and "intimidation," and sought instead "to join their masters with them in their unions, in order that they might agree among themselves without quarreling and get fair wages for a fair day's work" (281).  He did not support working-class organization that had an "ulterior motive" or political intention." But when "their sole object has been to endeavor to obtain a good day's wage for a good day's work" (282), he thought them a worthy undertaking.  He was then asked if he would "put an end to the freedom of labour?" Oastler replied, no.  But he "would put an end to freedom of employing labourers beyond their strength" and "to anything which prevents the poor man getting a good living with fair and reasonable work" (283).

[1] It is also worth noting that [the same session of] Parliament also passed the first abolition of slave act, testifying to the close relationship between the anti-slavery movement and the labor movement, broadly conceived.  Indeed, as [Seymour Dreshler and others] have argued, the rise of the labor movement, with its focus on injustices closer to home and thus, for many, more difficult to ignore, threatened to deprive the anti-slavery movement of its popular base--unless it proved open, as it did, to extending its humanitarianism to more local sufferers.