bavarikon4U“Cheers the eight-hour-day“, the Flag of the local SPD Association Pasing, around 1900
Limiting weekly working hours to 48 hours - i.e. the introduction of the eight-hour day - was one of the oldest and most central demands of German social democracy. The aim was to halve the working time of 16 hours per day, which had been customary in numerous industrial companies in Germany at the end of the 19th century. In agrarian Bavaria, this objective was mainly pursued in workers' strongholds such as Augsburg or Nuremberg.
The local SPD association in Pasing, west of Munich and elevated to city status in 1905, also expressed the desire to introduce the eight-hour day by a red flag created around the turn of the century. On 11 November 1918, the Bavarian cabinet responded to this request by deciding immediately to introduce the eight-hour day with constant wages. The Rat der Volksbeauftragten (Council of People's Representatives) in Berlin introduced the eight-hour day a day later throughout the country. In the Weimar Republic, the eight-hour working day was maintained as normal working time, but from 1923 this achievement of the November Revolution was massively undermined by numerous exceptions for the benefit of employers. It was not until 1946 that the eight-hour working day would be strictly reintroduced by law in Germany.