Security in the use of machinery is provided for by precautions
as regards the cleaning of machinery in motion and working between
the fixed and traversing parts of self-acting machines
driven by power, by fencing of machinery, and by empowering
inspectors to obtain an order from a court of
Security and accidents.
summary jurisdiction to prohibit the use, temporarily or
absolutely, of machinery, ways, works or plant, including use of a
steam boiler, which cannot be used without danger to life and
limb. Every hoist and fly-wheel directly connected with mechanical
power, and every part of a water-wheel or engine worked by
mechanical power, and every wheel race, must be fenced, whatever
its position, and every part of mill-gearing or dangerous machinery
must either be fenced or be in such position that it is as safe as if
fenced. No protected persons may clean any part of mill-gearing in
motion, and children may further not clean any part of or below
manufacturing machinery in motion by aid of mechanical power;
young persons further may not clean any machinery if the inspector
notifies it to the occupier as dangerous. Security as regards the use
of dangerous premises is provided for by empowering courts of
summary jurisdiction, on the application of an inspector, to prohibit
their use until the danger has been removed. The district council, or,
in London, the county council, or in case of their default the factory
inspector, can require certain provisions for escape in case of fire in
factories and workshops in which more than forty persons are employed;
special powers to make by-laws for means of escape from
fire in any factory or workshop are, in addition to any powers for
prevention of fire that they possess, given to every district council,
in London to the county council. The means of escape must be kept
free from obstruction. Provisions are made for doors to open outwards
in each room in which more than ten persons are employed, and
to prevent the locking, bolting or fastening of doors so that they
cannot easily be opened from inside when any person is employed or
at meals inside the workplace. Further, provisions for security may
be provided in special regulations. Every boiler for generating
steam in a factory or workshop or place where the act applies must
have a proper safety valve, a steam gauge, and a water gauge, and
every such boiler, valve and gauge must be maintained in proper
condition. Examination by a competent person must take place
at least once in every fourteen months. The occupier of any factory
or workshop may be liable for penal compensation not exceeding £100
in case of injury or death due to neglect of any provision or special
rule, the whole or any part of which may be applied for the benefit
of the injured person or his family, as the secretary of state determines.
When a death has occurred by accident in a factory or
workshop, the coroner must advise the factory inspector for the
district of the place and time of the inquest. The secretary of state
may order a formal investigation of the circumstances of any accident
as in the case of mines. Careful and detailed provisions are made for
the reporting by occupiers to inspectors, and entry in the registers
at factories and workshops of accidents which occur in a factory or
workshop and (a) cause loss of life to a person employed there, or (b)
are due to machinery moved by mechanical power, molten metal,
hot liquid, explosion, escape of gas or steam, electricity, so disabling
any person employed in the factory or workshop as to cause him to
be absent throughout at least one whole day from his ordinary work,
(c) are due to any other special cause which the secretary of state may
determine, (d) not falling under the previous heads and yet cause
disablement for more than seven days’ ordinary work to any person
working in the factory or workshop. In the case of (a) or (b) notice
has also to be sent to the certifying surgeon by the occupier. Cases
of lead, phosphorus, arsenical and mercurial poisoning, or anthrax,
contracted in any factory or workshop must similarly be reported
and registered by the occupier, and the duty of reporting these cases
is also laid on medical practitioners under whose observation they
come. The list of classes of poisoning can be extended by the
secretary of state’s order.
Certificates of physical fitness for employment must be obtained by the occupier from the certifying surgeon for the district for all persons under sixteen years of age employed in a factory, and in any class of workshops to which the requirement has been extended by order of the secretary of state, and Physical fitness of workers. an inspector may suspend any such persons for re-examination in a factory, or for examination in a workshop, when “disease or bodily infirmity” unfits the person, in his opinion, for the work of the place. The certifying surgeon may examine the process as well as the person submitted, and may qualify the certificate he grants by conditions as to the work on which the person is fit to be employed. An occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry shall not knowingly allow a woman to be employed therein within four weeks after childbirth.
The employment of children, young persons and women is regulated as regards ordinary and exceptional hours of work, ordinary and exceptional meal-times, length of spells and holidays. The outside limits of ordinary periods of employment and holidays are, broadly, the same for textile factories as for Hours of protected persons. non-textile factories and workshops; the main difference lies in the requirement of not less than a total two hours’ interval for meals out of the twelve, and a limit of four and a half hours for any spell of work, a longer weekly half holiday, and a prohibition of overtime, in textile factories, as compared with a total one and a half hours’ interval for meals and a limit of five hours for spells and (conditional) permission of overtime in non-textile factories. The hours of work must be specified, and from Monday to Friday may be between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., or 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; in non-textile factories and workshops the hours also may be taken between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. or by order of the secretary of state for special industries 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Between these outside limits, with the proviso that meal-times must be fixed and limits as to spells observed, women and young persons may be employed the full time, children on the contrary only half time, on alternate days, or in alternate sets attending school half time regularly. On Saturdays, in textile factories in which the period commences at 6 a.m. all manufacturing work must cease at 12 if not less than one hour is given for meals, or 11.30 if less than one hour is given for meals (half an hour extra allowed for cleaning), and in non-textile factories and workshops at 2 p.m., 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., according as the hour of beginning is 6 a.m., 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. In “domestic workshops” the total number of hours for young persons and children must not exceed those allowed in ordinary workshops, but the outside limits for beginning and ending are wider; and the case is similar as regards hours of women in “women’s workshops.” Employment outside a factory or workshop in the business of the same is limited in a manner similar to that laid down in the Shop Hours Act, to be touched on presently. Overtime in certain classes of factories, workshops and warehouses attached to them is permitted, under conditions specified in the acts, for women, to meet seasonal or unforeseen pressure of business, or where goods of a perishable nature are dealt with, for young persons only in a very limited degree in factories liable to stoppage for drought or flood, or for an unfinished process. These and other cases of exceptional working are under minute and careful administrative regulations. Broadly these same regulations as to exceptional overtime may apply in laundries but the act of 1907 granted to laundries not merely ancillary to the manufacture carried on in a factory or workshop (e.g. shirt and collar factories), additional power to fix different periods of employment for different days of the week, and to make use of one or other of two exceptional methods of arranging the daily periods so as to permit of periods of different length on different days; these exceptional periods cannot be worked in addition to overtime permissible under the general law. Laundries carried on in connexion with charitable or reformatory institutions were brought in 1907 within the scope of the law, but special schemes for regulation as to hours, meals, holidays, &c., may be submitted by the managers to the secretary of state, who is empowered to approve them if he is satisfied that they are not less favourable than the corresponding provisions of the principal act; such schemes shall be laid as soon as possible before both Houses of Parliament.
Night work is allowed in certain specified industries, under conditions, for male young persons, but for no other workers under eighteen, and overtime for women may never be later than 10 p.m. or before 6 a.m. Sunday work is prohibited except, Dangerous and unhealthy industries. under conditions, for Jews; and in factories, workshops and laundries six holidays (generally the Bank holidays) must be allowed in the year. In creameries in which women and young persons are employed the secretary of state may by special order vary the beginning and end of the daily period of employment, and allow employment for not more than three hours on Sundays and holidays.
The general provisions of the act may be supplemented where specially dangerous or unhealthy trades are carried on, by special regulations. This was provided for in the law in force until 31st December 1901, as in the existing principal act, and the power to establish rules had been exercised between 1892 and 1901 in twenty-two trades or processes where injury arose either from handling of dangerous substances, such as lead and lead compounds, phosphorus, arsenic or various chemicals, or where there is inhalation of irritant dust or noxious fumes, or where there is danger of explosion or infection of anthrax. Before the rule could be drawn up under the acts of 1891 to 1895, the secretary of state had to certify that in the particular case or class of cases in question (e.g. process or machinery), there was, in his opinion, danger to life or limb or risk of injury to health; thereupon the chief inspector might propose to the occupier of the factory or workshop such special rules or measures as he thought necessary to meet the circumstances. The occupier might object or propose modifications, but if he did not the rules became binding in twenty-one days; if he objected, and the secretary of state did not assent to any proposed modification, the matters in difference had to be referred to arbitration, the award in which finally settled the rules or requirement to be observed. In November 1901, in the case of the earthenware and china industry, the last arbitration of the kind was opened and was finally concluded in 1903. The parties to the arbitration were the chief inspector, on behalf of the secretary of state, and the occupier or occupiers, but the workmen interested might be and were represented on the arbitration. In the establishing of the twenty-two sets of existing special rules only thrice has arbitration been resorted to, and only on two of these occasions were workmen represented. The provisions as to the arbitration were laid down in the first schedule to the Act of 1891, and were similar to those under the Coal Mines Regulation Acts. Many of these codes have still the force of law and will continue until in due
