The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection Part 3

We might use the word "workshops" were it not that the employments enumerated in cla.s.ses 1 and 2 cannot precisely be included in "workshops," and were it not that cla.s.s 4 as it appears in protective legislation denotes "another kind" of workshop distinct from that of cla.s.s 3.

In default of a more accurate expression we will use therefore the term "quasi-factory business" as a general designation for those cla.s.ses of business which are placed by the protective laws on the same, or approximately the same, footing as the Factory.

Factory protection is not extended to those "workshops in which the workers belong exclusively to the family of the employer," therefore not to family-industry in workshops, and still less to family-industry not carried on in workshops, nor to work in the dwelling-houses of the employer, or (as is usually the case in household industry) of the worker (orders of all kinds executed at home, household industry). At least the new -- 154 of the Bill does not bring such work into any closer relationship than before with the Factory.

By contrast and comparison the following characteristics (_a_ to _i_) will help us towards a fuller conception of the sense of the Factory from the point of view of protective legislation, as understood by the latest German enactments:

_a._ The Factory employs exclusively or mainly those who do not belong to the family of the employer, and in any case _not merely those who do_.

_b._ The work of a Factory is entirely carried on outside the dwelling of the employer and of the wage-worker.

_c._ The work of a Factory is the preparation and manufacture of commodities (industrial work, including all kinds of printing), not production or first handling of raw material, as in mining industries.

_d._ The work of a Factory is work in which the wage-workers are constantly shut up together in buildings or in enclosures, and is not work in open s.p.a.ces, or which moves from place to place, as in the case of work on wharves, in building yards, etc.

_e._ The work of a Factory is carried on by power machinery, hence (if this inference _a contrario_ be admissible) not only hand-manufacture, and thus it appears to include what I have called quasi-factory business and have mentioned in cla.s.s 3 (_supra_).

_f._ The work of a Factory is continuous, and

_g._ Is carried on on a large scale, and with a large number of workpeople, hence (_f_ and _g_) it may be compared to the quasi-factory business of cla.s.s 2 (_supra_) for the purposes of a protective Code.

_h._ The work of a Factory is carried on in workplaces provided by the employer, not in the rooms of the workers or of a middleman.

_i._ The work of a Factory results in the immediate sale of the commodities produced, and does not consign them to the wholesale dealer to be prepared and dressed, or distributed by wholesale or retail, _i.e._ the Factory has absolute control of the sale of the commodities produced, in contradistinction to household industry.

Thus the Factory as understood by the German labour-protective laws is commercially independent (characteristic _i_), industrial (_c_), carried on on a large scale (_g_), and continuously (_f_), in enclosed (_d_), specially appointed (_b_) work-rooms provided by the employer (_h_), with the help of power machinery (_e_), and by wage-workers not belonging to the family of the employer (_a_).

Purely hand-manufacturing wholesale business should also be counted as factory-labour; for the fact that workshop business carried on with the help of power machinery is declared to be on the same footing as factory-labour means only this: that it presupposes the same need of protection felt in factories where the business is carried on with the help of power machinery, as is the case in most factories; it does not mean that certain kinds of manufacturing wholesale business carried on without power machinery (of which there are very few) should not be counted as factories. We are therefore justified in dropping characteristic _e_ of the theoretical conception of the Factory, as understood in Germany.

Let us now look at the Swiss Factory Regulations. The Confederate Factory Act of March 23, 1877, has given no legal definition of the word "Factory," but only of "protected labour." It extends protection to "any industrial inst.i.tution in which a number of workmen are employed simultaneously and regularly in enclosed rooms outside their own dwellings." According to the interpretation of the Bundesrath (Federal Council) "workers outside their dwellings" are those "whose work is carried on in special workrooms, and not in the dwelling rooms of the family itself, nor exclusively by members of one family." Furthermore, all parts of the Factory in which preparatory work is carried on are subject to the Factory Act, as well as all kinds of printing establishments in which more than five workmen are employed. The Swiss Factory Act requires that a Factory shall possess all those characteristics a.s.signed to it by German protective law, with the exception, however, of power machinery, and hence it doubtless covers all manufacturing business in which a number of workmen are employed.

According to Butcher,[6] in the practical application of factory-protection in the Confederate States, any industrial establishment is treated as a factory which employs more than twenty-five workers or more than five power-engines, in which poisonous ingredients or dangerous tools are used, in which women and young persons (under eighteen years) are employed (with the exception of mills employing more than two workers not belonging to the family), and sewing business carried on with the help of three or four machines not exclusively worked by members of the family.

In Great Britain the Factory and Workshop Acts of March 27, 1878, cover all factory labour, and the bulk of workshop business, _i.e._ all workshops which employ such persons as are protected by the Act--children, young persons, and women.

This English Act again furnishes no legal definition of the term.

"According to the meaning of the term, implied in this Act," says von Bojanowski, "we must understand by a factory any place in which steam, water, or other mechanical power is used to effect an industrial process, or as an aid thereto; by 'workshop,' on the other hand, we must understand any place in which a like purpose is effected without the help of such power; in neither group is any distinction to be drawn between work in open and in enclosed places."

Under this Act _factories_ are divided into textile and non-textile factories. "_Workshops_ are divided into workshops generally, _i.e._ those in which protected persons of all kinds are employed (children, young persons, and women), with the further subdivisions of specified and non-specified establishments; into workshops in which only women, but no children or young persons are employed; and lastly, domestic workrooms in which a dwelling-room serves as the place of work, in which no motive power is required, and in which members of the family exclusively are employed."

Domestic work-rooms in which only women are employed do not come under the Act, nor yet factories, such as those for the breaking of flax, which employ only female labour. Bakeries are included among regulated workshops, _i.e._ workshops inspected under the Factory Acts, even when no women or young persons are employed. The Factory, as understood by the English law, is distinguished by most of the characteristics of the German acceptation of the term, without however admitting of the distinction of cla.s.s _d_ (business carried on in an enclosed s.p.a.ce), whereby protection is also afforded to what we have termed quasi-factory labour (see p. 36); but on the other hand a special point is made of the distinction of cla.s.s _e_, viz. use of power machinery. Thus the English idea in defining the factory is to insist, not upon the number of persons employed, but upon the proviso that they are persons within the scope of the protective laws.

_Workshop Labour._

In the _von Berlepsch_ Bill this is dealt with side by side with factory labour. It is sometimes placed on the same footing under the various categories of quasi-factory labour (cla.s.ses 3 and 4), sometimes it lies outside the limits of factory protection, in cases where the Bundesrath does not exercise his privilege of granting extension of protection, and in cases where the workshop in question is worked entirely by members of one family.

It would be tautology to include in the definition of the workshop all the characteristics of the factory named in cla.s.ses _a_ to _i_. There may be cases in which the workshop practically includes most of the characteristics of the factory, but it is only necessary that it should include the following: business carried on outside the dwelling-rooms (_b_); preparation and manufacture of commodities (_c_); carried on in enclosed places (_d_). With the other cla.s.ses it is not concerned.

According to the English Factory Acts protected workshop labour is not necessarily carried on in enclosed places.

In treating of German workshop labour for the purposes of the _von Berlepsch_ Bill, and for future legislation of the same kind, we have to cla.s.sify it as follows:

Workshop labour carried on with the help of power-machinery, but not otherwise answering to the conditions of the factory.

Workshop labour carried on without power-machinery, by hand or by hand-worked machines.

Labour in workshops where all three kinds are required, _i.e._ power-machinery, hand-work, and hand-worked machines (_e.g._ modern costume-making in which power sewing-machines are employed.)

The old handicraft labour carried on in special workrooms, either within or outside the dwelling of the worker.

The characteristic peculiar to the three first divisions of workshops, and that which distinguishes them from the factory, although they in some respects resemble it, is that they give employment to but a very small number of workmen outside the limits of the family which maintains them.

The British Factory Acts include under the head of workshops those businesses in which no motive power is used, but in which protected persons (women, children, and young persons) are employed. Workshops of this kind are treated with varying degrees of stringency, according to whether they employ protected persons of all kinds, or only women (no children or young persons), and according to whether they are carried on in domestic workshops (dwelling-rooms) or otherwise.

_Household (home) Industry and Family Industry._

Household industry, called also "home industry" in the Auer Motion is the industrial preparation and manufacture of commodities, not the production of material, nor trading, carrying, or service industry. It has therefore characteristic _c_ (viz. that it excludes the production of raw material and the initial processes in connection therewith) in common with the factory and all workshops, as well as with that part of family industry which is not included in household industry properly so called; the very term Household _Industry_, in fact, indicates this.

The peculiarity of household industry (in the technical sense of the term) is that it is carried out merely at the orders and not under the supervision of the contractor. The Imperial Industrial Code, more especially the _von Berlepsch_ Bill, in extending truck protection to household industry, understands this term to include all industrial workers engaged in the preparation of commodities under the direction of some firm or employer, but not working on the premises of their employers; and these workers may or may not be required to furnish the raw materials and accessories for their work. The home-workers carrying on this kind of preparation of commodities do so as a rule not in special work-rooms, but in their own dwelling-rooms or houses, or in little courtyards, sometimes in sheds and outhouses, sometimes even in the open air. For the rest, they may be either a few workers out of a family working on their own account, or a whole family working under the superintendence of one of its members. The most important characteristic of household industry is that it is work undertaken at the orders of a third party, therefore that it has no commercial independence, and takes no part in the sale of its products (characteristic _i_ of factory labour); and therefore obviously we have no occasion to consider the other characteristics _d_, _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_, in defining household industry.

A distinction must be drawn between household industry carried on with or without the intervention of middlemen; for it takes a very different form, according to whether the arrangements between the industrial home-worker on the one side, and the giver of orders and provider of materials on the other, are made with or without the intervention of special agencies for ordering, supervising, collecting, and paying (commission agents, contractors, sweaters). The possible removal--or at least control and regulation--of the middleman forms one fundamental problem--hitherto unsolved--of labour protection in the sphere of household industry, and the protection of industrial home-workers against their parents and against each other forms another.

_Family Industry._

Family industry to a great extent practically coincides with household industry, but not necessarily or entirely so; for family industry--meaning of course the work of preparing and manufacturing commodities--may be the preparation of goods for independent sale, not for sale by a third party in a shop or warehouse, and as a matter of fact this is very largely the case. Family industry sometimes even falls under the head of workshop labour (cf. -- 154 of the _von Berlepsch_ Bill). Its distinguishing characteristic is that it employs only workers belonging to the same family, hence the exact reverse of the Factory (see characteristic _a_). It includes all those industrial pursuits "in which the employer is served only by members of his own family" (Bill, -- 154, par. 3).

II.--PERSONAL PROTECTION.

We come now to consider the meaning of the various headings under which _personal_ protection falls.

_Juvenile Workers._ Juvenile workers of both s.e.xes have long been subject to protection, and this kind of protection is gradually spreading all over Europe, and in more and more extended proportions. We must first ascertain what is the exact meaning of the term juvenile workers as used in the labour-protective laws.

In contrast to juvenile labour stands adult labour, or more accurately adult male labour, since adult women--not of course as adults but as women--are placed more or less on the same footing as juvenile workers in the matter of protective legislation.

The distinction between adult wage-labour and juvenile wage-labour, and the subdivision of the latter into infant-labour, child-labour, and the labour of "young persons," is not of importance in all departments of labour protection, but it is of the utmost importance in _protection of employment_, especially in prohibition of employment on the one hand, and restriction of employment on the other. This prohibition and restriction of juvenile employment does not apply to all industries, but only to certain branches of industry and kinds of work, and to specially dangerous occupations.

In order to determine exactly what is meant by infant-labour, child-labour, and the labour of "young persons," we must consider the inferior limit of age below which there is a partial prohibition of employment, and the superior limit of age beyond which labour is treated as adult labour as regards protection, receiving none, or only a very limited measure of it. The inferior limit does not as yet coincide with the beginning of school duties, nor does the superior limit coincide with the attainment of majority as recognised by common law.

"Juvenile labour"--permitted but restricted--stands midway between infant-labour, altogether prohibited in some branches of industry, and adult labour, permitted and unrestricted, or only slightly restricted; and within the inferior and superior limits of age it is divided into child-labour and labour of "young persons."

The industrial laws of northern and southern countries differ in the inferior limit of age which they a.s.sign to prohibited infant-labour, as distinguished from child-labour permitted but restricted. In Italy this limit has. .h.i.therto been fixed at the completion of the ninth year; in England and France (in textile, paper, and gla.s.s industries), in Denmark, Spain, Russia, and in most of the industrial States of the North American Union, at the completion of the tenth year; in Germany hitherto, and in France (in general factory-labour, in workshops, smelting-houses, and building-yards), in Austria, Sweden, Holland and Belgium (Act of 1889), at the completion of the twelfth year; in Germany it is fixed for the future at the completion of the thirteenth year, as it soon will be in France also, in all probability--and in Switzerland at the completion of the fourteenth year.