Western Pine Manufacturers Association accepts the eight-hour day before dropping it on December 28, 1917.

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On December 28, 1917, the Western Pine Manufacturers, located in Eastern Washington and Idaho, drop the idea of the eight-hour day that they accepted earlier in the month. A unsuccessful strike for the eight-hour day by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, also known as Wobblies) had halted the industry during the summer, and though loggers returned to work in the fall, they did the best they could to obstruct the industry. In the context of World War I and a desperate wartime need for lumber, both federal and state governments attempt to persuade the lumber firms to grant the eight-hour day, and to improve unsanitary and indecent conditions in the camps. The Eastern Washington Pine (short-log) firms agree, but intransigent Western Washington firms consider them traitors. Under pressure from the Western Washington firms, the Eastern Washington firms cancel the eight-hour day a short time before it is scheduled to begin on New Year's Day.

Sources:
Robert L. Tyler, Rebels of the Woods: The I.W.W. in the Pacific Northwest (Eugene: University of Oregon, 1967), 99-100.

By Ross Reider and the HistoryLink Staff, June 21, 2005

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