work. Sunday rest must begin not later than 6 a.m., and must be of
24 hours’ duration. These last two provisions do not hold in case of
pressing danger for safety, health or property. Sick and accident
funds and mining associations are legislated for in minutest detail.
The general law provides for safety in working, but special rules
drawn up by the district authorities lay down in detail the conditions
of health and safety. As regards manufacturing industry, the
Industrial Code lays no obligation on employers to report accidents,
and until the Accident Insurance Law of 1889 came into force
no statistics were available. In Austria, unlike Germany, the factory
inspectorate is organized throughout under a central chief inspector.
Scandinavian Countries.—In Sweden the Factory Law was amended in January 1901; in Denmark in July 1901. Until that year, however, Norway was in some respects in advance of the other two countries by its law of 1892, which applied to industrial works, including metal works of all kinds and mining. Women were thereby prohibited from employment: (a) underground; (b) in cleaning or oiling machinery in motion; (c) during six weeks after childbirth, unless provided with a medical certificate stating that they might return at the end of four weeks without injury to health; (d) in dangerous, unhealthy or exhausting trades during pregnancy. Further, work on Sundays and public holidays is prohibited to all workers, adult and youthful, with conditional exceptions under the authority of the inspectors. Children over 12 are admitted to industrial work on obtaining certificates of birth, of physical fitness and of elementary education. The hours of children are limited to 6, with pauses, and of young persons (of 14 to 18 years) to 10, with pauses. Night work between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. is prohibited. All workers are entitled to a copy of a code of factory rules containing the terms of the contract of work drawn up by representatives of employés with the employers and sanctioned by the inspector. Health and safety in working are provided for in detail in the same law of 1892. Special rules may be made for dangerous trades, and in 1899 such rules were established for match factories, similar to some of the British rules, but notably providing for a dental examination four times yearly by a doctor. In Denmark, regulation began with unhealthy industries, and it was not until the law of 1901 came into force, on the 1st of January 1902, that children under 12 years have been excluded from factory labour. Control of child labour can be strengthened by municipal regulation, and this has been done in Copenhagen by an order of the 23rd of May 1903. In Sweden the 12 years’ limit had for some time held in the larger factories; the scope has been extended so that it corresponds with the Norwegian law. The hours of children are, in Denmark, 612 for those under 14 years; in Sweden 6 for those under 13 years. Young persons may not in either country work more than 10 hours daily, and night work, which is forbidden for persons under 18 years, is now defined as in Norway. Women may not be employed in industry within four weeks of childbirth, except on authority of a medical certificate. All factories in Sweden where young workers are employed are subject to medical inspection once a year. Fencing of machinery and hygienic conditions (ventilation, cubic space, temperature, light) are regulated in detail. In Denmark the use of white phosphorus in manufacture of lucifer matches has been prohibited since 1874, and special regulations have been drawn up by administrative orders which strengthen control of various unhealthy or dangerous industries, e.g. dry-cleaning works, printing works and type foundries, iron foundries and engineering works. A special act of the 6th of April 1906 regulates labour and sanitary conditions in bakehouses and confectionery works.
Italy and Spain.—The wide difference between the industrial development of these southern Latin countries and the two countries with which this summary begins, and the far greater importance of the agricultural interests, produced a situation, as regards labour legislation until as recently as 1903, which makes it convenient to touch on the comparatively limited scope of their regulations at the close of the series. It was stated by competent and impartial observers from each of the two countries, at the International Congress on Labour Laws held at Brussels in 1897, that the lack of adequate measures for protection of child labour and inefficient administration of such regulations as exist was then responsible for abuse of their forces that could be found in no other European countries. “Their labour in factories, workshops, and mines constitutes a veritable martyrdom” (Spain). “I believe that there is no country where a sacrifice of child life is made that is comparable with that in certain Italian factories and industries” (Italy). In both countries important progress has since been made in organizing inspection and preventing accidents. In Spain the first step in the direction of limitation of women’s hours of labour was taken by a law of 1900, which took effect in 1902, in regulations for reduction of hours of labour for adults to 11, normally, in the 24. Hours of children under 14 must not exceed 6 in any industrial work nor 8 in any commercial undertaking. Labour before the age of 10 years and night work between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m. was prohibited, and powers were taken to extend the prohibition of night work to young persons under 16 years. The labour of children in Italy was until 1902 regulated in the main by a law of 1886, but a royal decree of 1899 strengthened it by classing night work for children under 12 years as “injurious,” such work being thereby generally prohibited for them, though exceptions are admitted; at the same time it was laid down that children from 12 to 15 years might not be employed for more than 6 hours at night. The law of 1886 prohibits employment of children under 9 years in industry and under 10 years in underground mining. Night work for women was in Italy first prohibited by the law of the 19th of June 1902, and at the same time also for boys under 15, but this regulation was not to take full effect for 5 years as regards persons already so employed; by the same law persons under 15 and women of any age were accorded the claim to one day’s complete rest of 24 hours in the week; the age of employment of children in factories, workshops, laboratories, quarries, mines, was raised to 12 years generally and 14 years for underground work; the labour of female workers of any age was prohibited in underground work, and power was reserved to further restrict and regulate their employment as well as that of male workers under 15. Spain and Italy, the former by the law of the 13th of March 1900, the latter by the law of the 19th of June 1902, prohibit the employment of women within a fixed period of childbirth; in Spain the limit is three weeks, in Italy one month, which may be reduced to three weeks on a medical certificate of fitness. Sunday rest is secured in industrial works, with regulated exceptions in Spain by the law of the 3rd of March 1904. It is in the direction of fencing and other safeguards against accidents and as regards sanitary provisions, both in industrial workplaces and in mines, that Italy has made most advance since her law of 1890 for prevention of accidents. Special measures for prevention of malaria are required in cultivation of rice by a ministerial circular of the 23rd of April 1903; work may not begin until an hour after sunrise and must cease an hour before sunset; children under 13 may not be employed in this industry. (A. M. An.)
IV. United States
Under the general head of Labour Legislation all American statute laws regulating labour, its conditions, and the relation of employer and employé must be classed. It includes what is properly known as factory legislation. Labour legislation belongs to the latter half of the 19th century, so far History. as the United States is concerned. Like England in the far past, the Americans in colonial days undertook to regulate wages and prices, and later the employment of apprentices. Legislation relating to wages and prices was long ago abandoned, but the laws affecting the employment of apprentices still exist in some form, although conditions of employment have changed so materially that apprenticeships are not entered as of old; but the laws regulating the employment of apprentices were the basis on which English legislation found a foothold when parliament wished to regulate the labour of factory operatives. The code of labour laws of the present time is almost entirely the result of the industrial revolution during the latter part of the 18th century, under which the domestic or hand-labour system was displaced through the introduction of power machinery. As this revolution took place in the United States at a somewhat later date than in England, the labour legislation necessitated by it belongs to a later date. The factory, so far as textiles are concerned, was firmly established in America during the period from 1820 to 1840, and it was natural that the English legislation found friends and advocates in the United States, although the more objectionable conditions accompanying the English factory were not to be found there.
The first attempt to secure legislation regulating factory
employment related to the hours of labour, which were very long—from
twelve to thirteen hours a day. As machinery
was introduced it was felt that the tension resulting
from speeded machines and the close attention required
Early attempts
to regulate hours.
in the factory ought to be accompanied by a
shorter work-day. This view took firm hold of the operatives,
and was the chief cause of the agitation which has resulted in a
great body of laws applying in very many directions. As early
as 1806 the caulkers and shipbuilders of New York City agitated
for a reduction of hours to ten per day, but no legislation followed.
There were several other attempts to secure some regulation
relative to hours, but there was no general agitation prior to 1831.
As Massachusetts was the state which first recognized the necessity
of regulating employment (following in a measure, and so far as
conditions demanded, the English labour or factory legislation),
the history of such legislation in that state is indicative of that
in the United States, and as it would be impossible in this article
to give a detailed history of the origin of laws in the different
states, the dates of their enactment, and their provisions, it is
best to follow primarily the course of the Eastern states, and
especially that of Massachusetts, where the first general agitation
