Asked to share his thoughts on the eight-hour workday, that mainstay institution of working life in Canada, Matthew Sartori let out a soft chuckle. What eight-hour workday?

His reality as a production assistant in the film industry means he bounces between employers and typically puts in 13 or 14 hours per day, while being paid for only 12.

“I’m not exactly happy about it, but I’m young. I’m 25,” he said, seated on the stoop of a Queen St. W. storefront as the revelry of the annual Labour Day parade swept past.

“I guess I consider this paying your dues, but I don’t know when it’s going to end.”

The annual show of workers’ solidarity, which took place Monday in downtown Toronto, has its origins in the 19th century push for a regimented and predictable nine-hour workday. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, it was the Toronto Printer’s Union that in Canada led the charge for a shorter workweek, with regular parades that spread and were made official when Labour Day became a national holiday in 1894. Laws were by then in place to institutionalize the eight-hour work day.

More than 120 years later, however, working life has changed dramatically. Smartphones herald emails and communiqués at all hours, while the punch-in-punch-out rhythm of shift work has waned with the loss of manufacturing jobs in places like Ontario. An average worker spends 50.2 hours per week carrying out “work related activities,” and 54 per cent of 25,000 Canadian employees in a 2012 work-life balance study said they spend time at night and on weekends to fulfil their job requirements.

The defined boundaries of the workday, in other words, appear to be fraying.

“The eight-hour work day was not only the reality, it was considered the minimum,” said Ted Brown, a former credit union employee who retired last year, describing how the demands of his job started to creep beyond the scheduled work day in recent years.

“It strikes me that it’s done because it can be done,” he said. “It’s harder to get a job and it’s a harder job once you get it.”

Leaning against a brick wall near Queen St. W. and Bathurst St., a financial analyst watched as rock bands performed on stages dragged by semi-trucks, and rows of ironworkers in camouflage t-shirts marched to the pace of three kilt-clad bagpipers. He said he usually works between eight and 10 hours per day, and as a salaried employee, he pretty much stays at the office until his tasks for the day are done.

“It’s an ebb and flow type of thing,” he said, declining to provide his name out of concern for speaking about his employer. “I wouldn’t say we’re pressured, but there is a certain expectation that when you need to stay late, you stay late … It is what it is — kind of the new reality of work.”

As the Labour Day marchers proceeded along Queen St., people wearing the colourful garb of their union locals waved flags denouncing precarious work and calling for minimum wage hikes. Many also argued that, with the federal election looming in the offing, the time has come for the Conservative regime to change in Ottawa. One man handing out material from the Canadian Labour Congress, for instance, chanted that the public should “give (Stephen) Harper his layoff notice” on Oct. 19.

A Canada Post worker who asked not to be named said his entire livelihood could be on the line, given the Conservatives’ plan to phase out home mail delivery if elected to a fourth mandate on Oct. 19.

“There’s a lot at stake,” he said. “But it’s all right — for now.”

Seated on a bench near the dress shop where she works, 22-year-old Anna Paliy said she’d like to see a higher minimum wage and more predictable working hours. At the moment, she said, it’s tough to get by in Toronto, even though she’s working full time. She plans to start tutoring at night to supplement her income.

“I feel a little overworked,” she said, moments before a band passed by on a union-sponsored float, ripping a cover of “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

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“I’m struggling. This is no way to make a living in Toronto.”

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