Editing Labour law (section)

===Hours===
{{See also|Eight-hour day}}
The maximum number of hours worked per day or other time intervals are set by law in many countries. Such laws also control whether workers who work longer hours must be paid additional compensation.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the workday varied between 11 and 14 hours. With the growth of [[industrialism]] and the introduction of machinery, longer hours became far more common, reaching as high as 16 hours per day. The [[eight-hour day|eight-hour movement]] led to the first law on the length of a working day, passed in 1833 in England. It limited miners to 12 hours and children to 8 hours. The 10-hour day was established in 1848, and shorter hours with the same pay were gradually accepted thereafter. The 1802 [[Factory Act]] was the first labour law in the UK.

Germany was the next European country to pass labour laws. Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]]'s main goal was to undermine the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]]. In 1878, Bismarck instituted a variety of anti-socialist measures, but despite this, socialists continued gaining seats in the [[Reichstag (German Empire)|Reichstag]]. To appease the working class, he enacted a variety of [[paternalistic]] social reforms, which became the first type of [[social security]].

In 1883, the Health Insurance Act was passed, which entitled workers to health insurance. The worker paid two-thirds and the employer one-third of the premiums. Accident insurance was provided in 1884, while old-age pensions and disability insurance followed in 1889. Other laws restricted the employment of women and children. These efforts, however, were not entirely successful; the working class largely remained unreconciled with Bismarck's conservative government.

In France, the first labour law was voted in 1841. It limited under-age miners' hours. In the [[French Third Republic|Third Republic]] labour law was first effectively enforced, in particular after the [[Waldeck-Rousseau 1884 law]] legalising [[trade unions]]. With the [[Matignon Accords (1936)|Matignon Accords]], the [[Popular Front (France)|Popular Front]] (1936–38) enacted the laws mandating 12 days each year of [[annual leave|paid vacations]] for workers and the law limiting the standard workweek to 40 hours.