_LEGISLATION._
1. THE LAW.
The printing and allied trades were not brought within the scope of
legislation until Mr. Walpole's Factory Acts' Extension Act of 1867.
[Sidenote: Conditions of employment, 1866.]
The Commission on Children's Employment in 1866[64] first disclosed the
fact that substantial abuses prevailed throughout the printing and
kindred trades. Long hours, frequent nightwork, Sunday labour,
irregularities regarding meal times, and insanitary conditions--such,
roughly speaking, were the hardships which made it desirable to bring
them under State supervision. Mr. Lord, who took an active part on these
Commissions, said that the general state of printing houses in London
was very bad; not only were the composing rooms generally overcrowded
and ill-ventilated, but even machine rooms were often extremely dirty,
close and unhealthy. He cites the case of a machine room, where the roof
was so low that a hole was cut in the ceiling for the head of the boy
who was "laying-on" to go through. "The heat of steam printing," says
he, "is very deleterious in close cellars, such as many places in this
town are."
[Footnote 64: Children's Employment Commission, 1862-1866 (Report V.).]
Speaking of the factories of wholesale stationers, the same witness
says, "Many of the workrooms are ill-ventilated and overcrowded. The
cubical contents of one large room measured by me were 136 ft. per head;
those of another only 87 ft. per head."
With regard to hours, the Commissioners report: "These ordinary hours
(viz., 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for females, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. for men and boys)
are from time to time exceeded to the extent of one or two hours, and
sometimes more. In the case of those who bind for publishing houses the
four or five winter months are the busy season, and the six weeks
immediately preceding Christmas those of the greatest pressure; at one
such place work often continued from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in those six
weeks. The 'push' of 'magazine day' also affects this trade as it does
the printer, keeping the workpeople for several days at the end of each
month until 10 or 11 p.m., and on rare occasions till 1 or 2 a.m. The
case of railway guides is even worse than that of magazines, for females
sometimes have to work the whole night through till 6 a.m., returning to
work at 10 on the same morning, and when the first of a month is on a
Monday, work the whole of the preceding Sunday. On Sunday, April 30th
this year, at one place twenty females worked from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.,
and after a rest of two hours went on again through the night. Even
girls of thirteen had worked in the same week once from 4 a.m. to 10
p.m., and twice from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Another rather older (fourteen
and a half) worked on one day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on the
preceding day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. A boy aged fourteen had worked two
or three times in a week from 7 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. and three Sundays
through."
"With paper-box makers," the Commissioners say, "it is not uncommon to
make two or even three hours overtime (this after a day of from 9 a.m.
to 8 or 9 p.m.). For two months in spring and six weeks in autumn
fourteen hours is the usual length of a female's working day. At one
place females over fifteen are said to work constantly in the busy time
from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and in some places till 1 or 2 a.m., especially
with 'little men' working at home with their family and two or three
girls to help. These are instances of London work, but in Manchester the
hours are even longer. One girl worked, at sixteen years old, night
after night in succession, from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m.; the younger ones
there worked from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; at another place the same witness
had frequently worked from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Another, at nine years old,
worked from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. generally; she said that the older ones
worked a good deal later than that. Some young women had worked on three
or four occasions all the night through."
"Boys of fourteen and fifteen employed at making cardboard, have in some
cases worked from 8 a.m. till 10 or 11 p.m. twice a week for four or
five weeks running, but that is not general in the trade. Girls of that
age have worked at making paper bags nearly every night for a similar
period, till 10 or 11 p.m. from 8 a.m., and were very much tired by it.
As paper-box making is all handwork and paid for by the piece, it is not
uncommon for work to go on in the meal hours--'they please themselves.'"
The following was the experience of one girl which she gave before the
Commissioners. "I am thirteen; I have been here twelve months. Some of
the girls worked all night last month for two nights together. I call
'till 4 in the morning' all night. We generally work one night till 4
a.m., and three or four nights till 12. My mother thought all night hurt
me and so would not let me go on, but I work till 12. Last month I
worked five times in the night till 12. It is only in that week; we get
very tired towards the end of it."
With regard to the moral conditions of the workers the Commissioners
reported: "The indiscriminate mixing of the sexes which still prevails
in many workrooms is generally condemned. The evil of such a practice is
especially conspicuous where they are late and irregular in their hours.
The bad language and conduct of the boys is made the subject of very
strong comment by two witnesses, who go so far as to say that there is a
marked deterioration in this respect during the last ten years."
Again, "The younger children were in many cases unable to read. The evil
of late and irregular work in letting women loose on the streets at all
hours of the night is justly censured by an employer as necessarily
leading to great immorality."
[Sidenote: Legislation, 1867.]
In consequence of the Report of the Commissioners, the Factory Act
Extension Act, 1867, was passed. It applied specifically to any premises
where paper manufacture, letter-press printing and bookbinding were
carried on; and generally to any premises where fifty or more people
were employed in any manufacturing process. The hours allowed for women
and young persons were from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., or from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,
with intervals amounting to one and a half hours for meals; on Saturday,
work had to cease at 2 p.m. By way of exception, women employed in
bookbinding could work fourteen hours a day, provided that their total
hours did not exceed sixty per week.
To those trades, such as litho-printing, that did not come under the
above Act, was applied the Workshops Regulation Act of the same year,
the provisions of which resembled, though they did not coincide with
those of the foregoing enactment. The same aggregate number of hours
per day and week was established, but more elasticity was permitted in
workshops, women and young persons being allowed to work in them for the
hours specified at any time between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., and until 4 p.m.
on Saturdays.
[Sidenote: Factory and Workshop Act, 1878.]
The discrepancies in the regulations applying to different classes of
work were productive of a good deal of inconvenience, and after the
Commission of 1876 came the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, having as
its object the consolidation and amendment of the existing statutes with
a view to rendering their administration more even and secure. The main
provisions of the law as it now affects the printing and kindred trades
were laid down, although since that date there have been various
additions and amendments. By this Act a distinction was drawn between
factories and workshops, the chief difference being that, in the former,
machinery propelled by steam, water, or other mechanical power must be
in use; while in the latter, no such agency must be employed. Certain
classes of works, however, apart from all question of mechanical power,
were defined as factories and not workshops. Under these came
paper-staining works, foundries (including typefoundries), except
premises in which such process was carried on by not more than five
persons, and as subsidiary to the repair or completion of some other
work--paper mills, letter-press printing works, and bookbinding
establishments.
[Sidenote: Factory and Workshop Act, 1901.]
As regards hours of work and overtime, slight modifications have been
effected by legislation subsequent to the year 1878, and the present
state of the law as laid down in the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, is
as follows:--The regular hours for women and young persons except
Saturday, are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,
with an allowance of one and a half hours for meals, one hour of such
meal-time being before 3 p.m. On Saturday the period of employment may
be 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with not
less than half-an-hour for meals. But where a woman or young person has
not been actually employed for more than eight hours on any day in a
week, and notice of this has been affixed in the factory or workshop and
served on the inspector, she may be at work on Saturday from 6 a.m. to 4
p.m., with an interval of not less than two hours for meals.
There are various special restrictions and exceptions applying to
different classes of work. No protected person may take a meal or remain
during meal-time in any part of a factory or workshop where typefounding
is carried on, or where dry powder or dust is used in litho-printing,
playing-card making, paper-staining, almanac-making, paper-colouring and
enamelling. In certain industries, including printing, bookbinding,
machine ruling and envelope making, women may work three days a week,
and for thirty days during the year, two hours overtime, provided that
such employment ceases at 10 p.m., and that they have two hours for
meals. But this limit of overtime applies to the factory or workshop as
a whole, and not to the overtime of individual workers.
2. ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS OF LEGISLATION.
The foregoing brief summary of the law has naturally preceded the
question as to how far legislation has affected women in these
particular trades. When restrictions are imposed upon the labour of any
class of wage-earners, their economic position must be altered for good
or evil, unless the trade can so adjust itself as to meet exactly the
requirements of these restrictions. If the worker is of great
importance, an effort will be made to adapt the trade to the novel
conditions; if another class of workers or machinery, free from all
restrictions, can be as easily used, it is probable that the labour
affected will be ousted.
[Sidenote: Has legislation displaced women?]
Is there, then, evidence to show that any material displacement of women
or girls in these trades followed the enforcement of factory
legislation? Instances of dismissal must obviously be sought for soon
after the Act of 1867, as the employer then knew on what terms he
engaged his staff, and, except in a few cases where deliberate evasions
of the law might be attempted, the effect of legislation would be to
deter him from employing women, rather than lead him to dismiss them.
Owing to the lapse of time, it is difficult to find out from those in
the trade the immediate consequences of this Act, nor does the
Commission of 1876 give much assistance. Of 103 employers questioned by
us, not half a dozen remembered dismissing women in consequence of the
new enactment.
One employer turned off ten or twelve women "folders" and introduced
machinery, alleging as his reason the want of elasticity in the Factory
Act. His ordinary hours were from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., but on certain days
in the week it was necessary to begin work at 6 a.m. He made
arrangements that the total number of hours should not exceed those
sanctioned by the Act, but the variation was not allowed. If his women
began work at 6 a.m. on any day, his hours had to be regularly 6 a.m. to
6 p.m., except in the case of thirty nights in the year when overtime
was permitted. As this did not suit his business, he dismissed the women
and had recourse to folding machines. Personally he gained, as the
machinery proved an economy, but it told hardly on the women, whom
otherwise he would have kept on as they were old hands.
Another employer told a similar tale regarding the introduction of
folding machinery, but stated that he had been obliged to dispense with
female operatives by reason of the strict enforcement of the regulations
regarding overtime only.
In both these cases it is clear that the state of the trade was such
that it required only a very slight disability on the part of the worker
to make it worth while for the employer to use machinery.
Quite apart from any effect of legislation the machine was destined to
supplant manual labour; its advent was merely accelerated by the Act.
Its first introduction caused isolated cases of hardship, but its
ultimate results were beneficial. Thus at the present day women and
girls are largely employed upon the very machines which once seemed to
threaten their industrial existence.
[Sidenote: The case of women compositors.]
In the _Economic Journal_ of 1899 an interesting paper by Miss Bradby
and Miss A. Black discusses the position of women compositors in
Edinburgh, and deals with the subject of legislation. After an
exhaustive investigation, no single instance was discovered of the
displacement of a woman by a man owing to the Factory Acts.
The chief contention of those who oppose special factory legislation on
the ground that it limits the usefulness of women compositors is, that
women are not employed on newspaper work, and they give the legal
prohibition of nightwork for women as the reason. Careful enquiry has
shown that reason to be purely imaginary. Women are not employed on
evening papers, though the factory law does not stand in their way. In
the provinces women set-up one or two weekly or bi-weekly journals, the
firms employing them preferring them solely on the ground of cheapness.
Experience shows that women are not suited for newspaper work, unless
the paper does not appear more frequently than, say, twice a week, and
if the factory code disappeared to-morrow, morning daily newspapers
would afford to women compositors no fresh openings.
[Sidenote: Have their opportunities been limited?]
As regards the further point whether more women would be employed if
they were unprotected by law, the views of representative employers and
managers of labour are here set forth.
Out of thirty-five,[65] twenty-eight were emphatic in their assurance
that the Factory Acts did not affect the question. Seven, on the other
hand, were inclined to think otherwise. Of these, five were unable to
say that they really would employ more women if freed from restrictions,
but two of them thought that "there might be something in it," though
the point had "never occurred to them before." Only three of them were
of the opinion emphatically that legislation was certainly one amongst
the obstacles to the employment of women.
[Footnote 65: These are the firms interviewed by Miss Bradby and Miss A.
Black as above.]
When, on the other hand, we turn to the opinions of those acquainted
with the conditions of the trade, either as workers (chiefly women) or
Trade Union officials, we find practical unanimity. The eighteen
persons[66] of this description questioned were strong in their
declarations that the employment of women was not affected by the
Factory Acts. To most of them, indeed, the idea of any harmful
connection between the two was novel and ridiculous. This of course
proves nothing; but if legislation had, to any considerable extent,
hampered the work of women, the women themselves would doubtless have
become aware of it.
[Footnote 66: Compositors only.]
The evidence available leads to the conclusion that, except in a few
small houses, the employment of women as compositors has not been
affected by the Factory Acts.
[Sidenote: Legislation and home work.]
The earlier stages during which the protection conferred by the
Legislature was enforced, were marked by attempts on the part of certain
employers to evade the spirit of the law by means of home work.[67]
[Footnote 67: See pp. 99-101.]
One example of this practice was given by the Rev. H. W. Blunt in his
evidence before the Commission of 1876. He says that much work was sent
to be completed after factory hours. For instance, in one book-folding
firm which had occasional rushes of work, a girl was employed till 11
p.m. on the Monday before Christmas. She was then told with the other
girls that they must take home 1,000 quarto sheets to fold by the
morning. Several did so, but she refused, because her mother was on the
point of death, and the doctor said there must not be a light in the
room. She was consequently dismissed at once. Mr. Blunt says further
that religious "weeklies," the sheets of which came off the press at 12
o'clock at night, were sent out to be folded by 8 a.m. They were taken
away in perambulators, children being employed to do this every week.
[Sidenote: Work sent to "folding houses."]
Another immediate result of legislation was the expedient of sending out
work to "folding houses" which did not come within the definition of a
factory or workshop. Such places may be premises belonging to a factory
and yet separate from it. Mr. Henderson, of the Factory Department, in
giving evidence before the Commission of 1876, says: "Some years ago I
came across Messrs. X., where newspapers were folded wholesale by steam
machinery, and I thought it was a factory. Messrs. X. resisted the idea.
Boys were employed at irregular hours, but the Crown officers decided
that it was not a factory." Christmas card packing and sorting are in
the same position. Miss Deane, a lady factory inspector, who made a
special investigation into the conditions of the Christmas card industry
as recently as 1899, points out that many of the workplaces are outside
the operation of the Act.
In the Report on Factories and Workshops for 1899, she says: "A large
number of Christmas cards, almanacs, etc., are made in Germany and are
sent to England, where girls are employed in sorting and repacking and
arranging them, for the purpose of being sold wholesale. Such places,
unless attached to some factory or workshop, being unregulated by the
Act, the girls are without the protection afforded by the law regarding
length of hours, meal-times, etc. It was impossible not to be struck by
the difference between the conditions found in one such place and those
found in the large airy sorting rooms of a publishing factory close
by--yet the girls in the stuffy workroom of the former were without the
protection given by the law in the latter workplace. A curious instance
arose in connection with one such place where about forty girls had been
employed in packing and sorting for illegal hours. The occupier took to
employing some of them in affixing a minute bow of ribbon to the cards,
and during this temporary employment all the girls could claim and were
accorded the protection of the Factory Acts. Excessive hours in hitherto
unsuspected workrooms were also found to be worked in the processes of
adapting and preparing bonbons for sale. In some cases, baskets, boxes
and bags, were trimmed for the reception of these articles, in others
they were merely selected and arranged in patterns in fancy boxes
subsequently tied up with ribbon. In the first case clearly, and in the
last also probably, the definition of workshop under the Act applies.
Instructions were given and better conditions have gained the day."
Speaking of these unregulated workplaces, in the same report, Miss Deane
remarks: "In the course of some inspections after midnight last winter
near the City, I came across several of these workplaces where women,
girls and children, were then at work under deplorable conditions--dirty
rooms, foul, gassy air, and overcrowding. In one of them I was met by
the observation that 'I might come in if I liked, but I could do nothing
there.'"
The experience of two of our investigators corroborates the above
statement. One of them says: "At about 2.45 a.m. we went to see
newspapers folded by women in the City. It was done in an old
tumble-down room opposite a printing shop. We peeped in through a chink
in the shutters--it was a boiling night, and the shutters were
closed--and we could see a man carrying in a load of paper from time to
time. When we entered we found four women streaming with perspiration in
the foul hot atmosphere, folding away at the ... _News_. They were quite
friendly and communicative, and told us they came every Thursday night
about 11 p.m. and stayed till they had done. They were paid three times
as much as day-workers and did no regular work in the daytime. Before
beginning work they had a cup of tea. They said they liked the work and
were glad that the Factory Act could not stop them; the police had been
round to them and also two young ladies, but nothing had happened; and
they considered that they were quite old enough to do nightwork if they
liked."
Folding houses are growing fewer in number owing, no doubt, to the fact
that rent is so high in the City and space so valuable, that it is not
worth while to erect them separate from a factory. Viewed also with
dislike by factory inspectors as a means of evading the law, their
tenure of life is not likely to be long.
[Sidenote: Nightwork.]
Employers admit that the effect of the Factory Acts has been to make
them reduce nightwork. In criticising the Act before the Commission of
1876, Mr. Bell, of the firm of Darton, Bell and Thomas, bookbinders,
says: "The Factory Act of 1867 has been a boon to employers and
employed, because it has enabled us to put pressure on customers. Now we
can say to the public 'We can't go beyond certain hours,' and,
therefore, work not new has to be sent in earlier."
Mr. Darton, of the same firm, adds: "We have persuaded booksellers to
give out stock work in June and July instead of September or October,
and so begin the work earlier and avoid nightwork." This stimulus is
undoubtedly good, and these views are echoed by other employers.
The whole question of how far the practical prohibition of overtime for
women has limited the volume of work available for them, and thus
diminished their aggregate wages, needs very careful consideration, as
mistaken conclusions may easily be formed. The matter was carefully
considered by a Committee of the Economic Section of the British
Association, appointed in 1901, to enquire into the effect of special
legislation on women, and the following extracts from its final
report[68] are of some interest:--
"A very important, perhaps from the economic point of view the most
important, effect of legislation has been to spread the period of work
more uniformly through the week, month, and year than had been the case
before regulation" (p. 5).
"The tendency to put off giving orders to the last moment is easily
checked when the customer can be met with a universal legal prohibition"
(p. 7).
"Restriction is met by adaptation of manufacture or rearrangement of
numbers employed and time at which work is done, women being still
employed at the work" (p. 13).
"Except for a few complaints as to the abolition of the possibility of
payment for overtime, which, as has been pointed out, by no means prove
any loss of earnings ... the Committee have no record ... of any loss of
wages or earnings traceable to the [Factory] Acts" (p. 25).
[Footnote 68: Presented at Southport in 1903.]
Thus, it will be seen that the loss of overtime is not necessarily a
loss of work, but a re-distribution (and an economical one, too) of the
times at which work is done, and does not therefore mean a loss in
income, but a steadying and regulation of income.
Nevertheless, before the re-organisation which has been consequent on
Factory legislation, overtime and nightwork were necessary in order to
turn out a certain volume of trade by a certain number of workpeople,
and the influence of restrictive legislation has been shown in the
following directions:--
1st. An increase in the class of workers called "job hands";
2nd. An enlargement of the permanent staff;
3rd. A rearrangement of the employment of male and female labour.
The third of these changes we have found to be practically
imperceptible, whilst the second has affected women most beneficially.
[Sidenote: The job hand.]
On the margin of casual and regular labour the job hand stands--the
reserve battalion of this section of the labour army. She is generally a
married woman, and commonly the wife of a faulty husband. She does not
want regular work, and only desires to earn a certain limited wage. When
she goes to a factory in search of work, she has to wait idle for hour
upon hour, but she generally stays at home until summoned by her
forewoman. Certain kinds of cheap seasonal work as, for instance, penny
almanacs, are almost exclusively done by her,[69] and she is commonly
employed either periodically, _e.g._, for weekly papers and monthly
magazines, or casually, _e.g._, prospectus work, for rushes. A notice in
certain public-houses, or information supplied to certain known agents,
brings her to the place where she is wanted.
[Footnote 69: "The majority of the almanac makers are married women who
stay at home from February to July": Leeds.]
Job hands existed before 1867, but at that time they did not hold quite
the same position in the trade as they do now. They were the _hands_ who
went to different firms for two or three nights a month to help in a
recognised rush of work which occurred regularly. In the Commissioners'
Report for 1876, mention is made several times of job hands who were
employed quite regularly for definite pieces of work at definite times
during the month. Firms publishing certain weekly papers were in the
habit of employing women in folding during the early hours of the
morning before distributing the papers to the newsagents. Firms which
printed monthly magazines needed women to fold all night for two or
three nights or more at the end of each month. Such employment naturally
came to an end as soon as the Act of 1867 came into operation; but the
job hand only changed her hours. It became necessary during rushes of
work to call in extra hands, in order to comply with the clauses of the
Act, and many firms solved the difficulty by employing job hands during
the day instead of at night, for a few days to meet the emergency.[70]
This work was generally taken up by married women who had served in the
trade before marriage, and who were glad to get a few days' employment
from time to time.
[Footnote 70: But this is not the invariable rule. A manager of a firm
dealing largely in magazines and periodical issues says: "The effect of
legal restrictions on our business is to make women work hard for two
weeks and slacken off for two weeks. There is no thought of giving the
work to men, or of sending it home, or of employing job hands."]
[Sidenote: Increase of permanent staff.]
The second method of solving the difficulty--by employing a larger
permanent staff--involves the erection of more extensive premises, and
can only be adopted by firms whose financial position enables them to
meet a considerable outlay. It is probably the best means for ensuring
that work shall be done efficiently for the employer, and conducted
under the most favourable conditions for the employed.
[Sidenote: Nightwork and overtime.]
But there still remains a slight residuum of nightwork which has to be
done by men. To this extent, and to this extent only, can restriction be
said to have hindered the employment of women.
We have tried to ascertain how much this really means to the women
workers. Thirty-three firms stated that work of the same character as
that performed by women in the daytime was sometimes given out to men
at night. We cannot, however, assume that the work is always given to
men on account of legal restrictions, and it does not follow that the
abolition of such restrictions would induce all masters to introduce
women for nightwork. Several of them, indeed, emphatically deny that
they would adopt this practice; and in some instances we have been told
that it was not observed in the best firms before the law prohibited it,
_e.g._, "Mr. A. remembers the time before the Act of 1867 (he has been
in the trade since 1851). He could have worked women at night, but never
would because of questions of morality."
These statements are, however, only part of the case, because nightwork
is generally overtime, and we must consider how far employers care to
practise it.
There seems to be an almost unanimous opinion against overtime, and any
mention of factory legislation appears to suggest overtime at once to
both employers and employed. Experience has driven it home to them that
overtime is a most uneconomical method of work;[71] and as there does
not appear to be any demand for women's labour at night except
occasionally as overtime, the factory law in this respect is only a
protection to the employée engaged by the employer who is still
experimenting with this unproductive use of labour.
[Footnote 71: "When the factory (now a large provincial lithographer's,
almanac maker's, etc.), was a small one, and it employed only a few
hands, they used to work a great deal of overtime. They used all the
time they were allowed by the Factory Acts and sometimes tried to get in
more. But now they do not find it pays to work overtime."--It is of some
importance to note that a responsible spokesman for the men engaged in
London houses informed one of our investigators that when men are put on
at night to fold "they take it easy, and six men do in two hours what
two women do in two hours. They don't bother to walk up and down
gathering, but sit at it in a row, and hand sheets on from one to the
other."]
[Sidenote: Testimony of employers.]
Some employers, like Mr. Bell,[72] admit candidly enough that
legislation enables them to be more humane (and humanity in this respect
pays) than they could otherwise afford to be. The Act is "a great
relief," such an employer has said. "Legislation is an excellent thing;
existing hours are quite long enough. If a person has not done her work
by the time they are up, she never will do it." "The Factory Acts are a
very good thing," another has said. "Long hours diminish the output"; or
again: "Factory legislation is a capital thing; I only wish it could be
extended to men." "Women are not so strong as men, and therefore the law
rightly steps in." "I think it would be very inadvisable to employ women
at night. I think legislation a very good thing. Overtime is not really
worth it." "Legislation is a very good thing. I don't believe in long
hours. Employers are often shortsighted and think that workers are like
machines--the longer you work them the more they do, but this is not
really the case; if they work from 9 to 7 they have done as much as they
are good for." "The good done by the Factory Acts has quite outweighed
any evils or hardships." Another employer remarked: "I shouldn't like my
own daughter to do it, and I don't see why other women should do so. I
should think it a very bad thing for women to go home in the early hours
of the morning." On hearing that restrictions were objected to on the
score that they hindered the employment of women, he replied scathingly
that it was rubbish, but that "ladies must have something to talk
about."
[Footnote 72: _Cf._ p. 78.]
From this it is evident that protection is viewed favourably by many
employers, on the specific ground that it prevents systematic overtime.
On the whole, they are of the opinion that nightwork is harmful to
women, and that after overtime the next day's work suffers. Some are
doubtful whether they would employ women at night even if the law
permitted it. Nightwork, they assert, is unfit for women, not merely on
account of the harm to health, but because of the insult and temptation
to which they are exposed in going home. Whether these views would have
been held so generally before the passing of the Factory Acts it is not
possible to say; probably the results have justified the Act, and
experience has provided moral reasons for legal limitations.
* * * * *
Such in the main is the attitude of employers towards legislation. Of
103 who expressed an opinion, twenty-six stated that legislation had not
affected women's labour at all, sixty considered it to have been
beneficial, and seventeen looked on all legislation as grandmotherly and
ridiculous--one among these thinking that legislation was all very well,
and much needed in the City, but that Southwark should be free from
interference. The attitude of those employers who objected to
interference was expressed generally in some such way as that it was
"unnecessary" for their trade at least, even if desirable for others.
Pressed to explain what "unnecessary" meant, they said that women could
take care of themselves; that protection was all very well for young
girls, but when women arrived at the age of forty or fifty they could do
what they liked; that it was hard on women that they should not be
allowed to work day and night as well; that women could stand overtime
just as well as men; and, finally, that legislation pressed very
severely on the employer, who had to use the more expensive medium for
doing nightwork, viz., men.
Such is the attitude of these employers, and it is fairly well expressed
in the following quotation from _The Stationery Trades' Journal_,
September, 1880:--
"We report in another column a case in which Messrs. Pardon & Co. were
summoned for an offence under the Factory Acts. Four women were employed
during the night to fold a periodical which is printed by Messrs. P. The
youngest of the four women was a married woman of thirty-five, whose
husband is unable to work, and she, like the rest, prized the job
because it afforded the means of earning a little extra money for the
support of her family. Under the pretence of protecting these women, the
law steps in and says: 'Your families may starve or go to the workhouse,
but you shall not work overtime or go beyond the limits prescribed by
the Act. You cannot be trusted with the care of your own health. You may
fast as much as you like; it will do you good and help your children to
grow up stalwart men and women--but you shall not endanger your health
by working too many hours at a time.' This in substance is what the law
does for women. As regards the employment of children and young persons,
the Act is no doubt beneficial, but surely women of thirty-five and
forty do not need the same legislative protection as children. A great
deal of sentimental nonsense is written and spoken by benevolent
busybodies without practical knowledge of the subjects with which they
meddle; and one of the results is the application of the Factory Acts to
women who are old enough to judge for themselves. In the case alluded to
there was more real benevolence in providing work for women than in
limiting their hours of employment." As a contrast to these opinions,
the views on overtime expressed in the Factory Inspector's Report for
1899 are worth noting:--
"The prohibition of overtime for young persons imposed by Section 14 of
the Factory Act of 1895 has, in my opinion, proved to be the most
beneficial clause of that Act. It has, moreover, been carried out
without any serious interference with trade and without causing much
difficulty to the inspectors.
"The further restriction in the same clause of the overtime employment
of women by reducing the number of times on which it may be worked in
any twelve months from forty-eight to thirty was also a step in the
right direction. If overtime were abolished altogether except for
preserving perishable articles, the season trades would soon accommodate
themselves to doing without overtime in the same way that the cotton,
woollen, linen and silk manufacturing trades have done, for they also
are season trades."
[Sidenote: Opinion of employées.]
Among the older workers in the trade are men and women who remember
conditions before the passing of the 1867 Act, and the experience of
some of them and the comparison they make between work done before and
after the Act is worthy of note.
A. used to work till 10 every night when she first entered the trade.
She was glad when the Act was passed to get home early, and never liked
working late.
B. used to work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. regularly, including Saturdays.
Frequently she had to work till 10 or 12 and sometimes to begin at 5
a.m. The "young governor" used to take her and some of the other girls
home at night as they were afraid to go alone. She disliked overtime,
was tired out at the end of a day's work, and thought the other women
were too, and she had often noticed how badly the work was done after
eight or nine hours at it. Later on, as a forewoman, she noticed that
the girls after overtime always loafed about the next day and did not
work well. Some women liked overtime, but she noticed it was always
those who spent the extra money earned on drink. She did not think that
work had gone from the women in consequence of factory legislation, but
thought that married women were employed for a little while during a
rush of work where before the regular hands were kept working late. She
remembered how tiresome it was for the married women to get home in
time to fetch their babies from the _crêches_ when the hours were from 8
to 8.
C. has often heard her mother-in-law say that as a girl she constantly
worked all night and then had to work just the same the next day. She
used to consider that to get home at 7 on Saturday was early, and now
every young lady looks forward to her Saturday afternoon. Workpeople
have a much better time than they used to. There were no proper meal
hours. She used to get "just a snack between her work."
D. remembers that when they were busy they had to work all night and all
the day before and the next day too. They used to work on Sundays and
were given a glass of gin. She never knew anyone who wanted to do
nightwork, and thinks eight and a half hours quite long enough for
anyone to work, especially when there is housework, too, when one gets
home.
E. remembers the time when he was a boy and women were kept at work all
night; he remembers shops where they worked regularly all night after
working all day, for two or three times a week.
F. a bookbinder, remembers women who worked all night frequently. They
were very poor, very rough, and of very low moral standing. "Some of the
women who worked could hardly be said to belong to their sex."
Respectable girls would not come for such low wages, and also because
they had to go home alone through the streets. After the Factory Acts
the moral tone and respectability increased greatly; wages were no lower
and there were fewer hours of work.[73]
[Footnote 73: This is an interesting comment on the relation between low
wages and long hours on the one hand and character on the other.]
G. says, "We used to have to come in at 6 in the morning and work till
10 or 11 at night, and then be told to come back again at 6 next day. I
often used to faint; it took all my strength away." She considers the
Factory Act an unmixed blessing.
H., before the Factory Act, has worked from 9 to 7, 8, 9, or 10. Often
as a learner she stayed till 11 or 12, and once till 12 several nights
running. Once she remembers being turned out in a thunderstorm at
midnight, and how frightened she was. Occasionally she worked all night;
they used to be given coffee at 2 a.m. Once or twice she worked from 9
a.m. one day to 2 p.m. next day; "Excitement keeps you up." They were
allowed to sing at their work and be as merry as they could; "We didn't
count it much of a hardship." Some women after leaving the factory would
go and work all night in printing houses; one woman would leave at
tea-time and go to spend the night at the "Athenæum" until 7 a.m. After
the Factory Act no one might stay beyond 10 without special permission.
Once she did work all night; they put out the lights in the front and
worked at the back. The only result of the Factory Acts that she could
see was that employers had to have larger premises and employ more
hands, instead of working a small staff hard.
J. says "I entered the trade in 1863 when I was thirteen. Boys and
porters came at 6 a.m.; journeymen at 8 a.m. (sixty hours a week); women
at 8 or 9 a.m. All had to stay as long as they were wanted, _i.e._, till
10 or 11. Boys were frequently kept till 11 p.m. I was never kept all
night. Conditions have improved for both sexes, men's owing to Trade
Unionism, women's to factory laws."
[Sidenote: The opinions of forewomen.]
The testimony of the forewomen is to the same effect. A. a forewoman,
used to work often till 10, 11, or 12 at night, sometimes all night.
Sometimes she was obliged to keep her girls all night when there was
work that had to be finished, but usually she gave them a rest the next
day. She thinks it a very good thing that they should not be allowed to
work all night; the work is piecework and long hours don't do any good,
for they mean that you work less next day: if you work all night, then
you are so tired that you have to take a day off; you have gained
nothing. She used to find that so herself.
B. a forewoman, thought the Factory Acts a very good thing. Girls
grumbled if they had to stop till 8, and she never heard of any of them
wanting to stay longer. "If you work till 8 for many weeks you get used
up; there is no change in your life, and as soon as you get home you
have to go to bed, you are so tired."
C. is a forewoman. As a girl she used to work from 8.30 a.m. to 9 or 10
at night every day from September to Christmas. She had to stay till 2
a.m. one night and come again just the same next day; she had to work
from 3 a.m. one Good Friday morning and sometimes had to come to work at
1 on Sunday mornings. This nightwork was only occasional, but she
thinks it a very good thing that it has been stopped; she never found it
pay; the girls were so tired the next day.
Another forewoman gave it as her deliberate opinion that when overtime
is worked the piece workers do not make more as a rule, for they get so
tired that if they stay late one night, they work less the next day.
This is the unanimous view held by the forewomen, and it comes with
considerable force from them, as it is they who have to arrange to get
work done somehow within a certain time. They are the people who have to
put on the pressure, and are in such a position as to see how any
particular system of getting work done answers.
[Sidenote: Exceptions.]
Among the younger women--the girls who have had no experience of
conditions before 1867, the opinion about overtime is not so unanimous.
Some few like what little overtime is allowed to them and say they would
not mind more. One such worker was met, just arrived home from her
factory late one Saturday afternoon. She had been working overtime as a
consequence of the Queen's death--the envelope makers and black
borderers were all working late just then. It was a bleak and wet
afternoon, and she came in in high spirits, evidently regarding all life
as a joke, and frankly confessing that factory life especially was a
joke, particularly when they had overtime. "It is 'larks' working late,
and the governor he up and spoke to us so nice. He says, 'Girls, you
won't mind doing a bit of overtime for the sake of our dear Queen?' and
we says 'No.' _I_ shouldn't mind doing overtime every day of the week. I
like the factory and should hate to be out of it." A few such girls
there are who are in excellent health, like the work and don't find it
monotonous, and, above all, enjoy the larger life that they meet in a
factory just as girls in another social scale enjoy public school or
college life. It is these who revel in their day's work and are not
tired at the end of it, but how in actual fact they would like longer
hours or systematic overtime it is impossible to say. It is probably the
rarity of it, the stimulus and excitement of working against time for
once in a way, the being put on their mettle by the "governor" himself,
that make the enjoyment. We must also remember that the younger hands
are those who take the most anti-social views of work and care least
about industrial conditions. But even by these few, when the idea of
all night work is suggested, it is scouted with horror. On the whole,
the view adopted is that when you have done your day's work, you have
done enough. A worker in the stationers' trade assured us that overtime
means a doctor's bill, so you don't really make anything by it. The
experience of two women who had tried nightwork illegally was also
instructive.
[Sidenote: Overtime experience.]
A. an apparently strong woman was once offered a night job when she was
hard up, and thought that it would be a "lark" to take it. She went in
about 8 a.m. on Friday and worked on with intervals for meals till 3
p.m. on Saturday, being paid piece rates for the day hours and 6_s._ for
the work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. She was utterly done up in
consequence of this work and lost more money next week than she made by
the whole job.
B. once worked all night in a City shop for 5_s._ and got no good out of
it, for she was so done up that she could not work at all next day, and
very little the day after.
Three girls working at the same factory, and speaking of conditions
there, said that when they were busy after 9.30 p.m. men were put on to
do the card mounting. These girls ridiculed the idea that they disliked
this or wanted to stay. "You feel quite done for by 9 o'clock. Girls
sometimes cry, they get so tired in the evening." None of the three had
ever heard of any girls who objected to the Factory Acts. "The little
ones do not mind overtime so much because they get 3_d._ an hour the
same as the full hands, but the full hands do mind. Overtime, _i.e._,
till 4 p.m., on Saturdays is not so bad because you ain't so worn out."
C. thinks it a very good thing that women may not work at night--"hours
are quite long enough as it is--you feel quite done up after working
from 8 a.m. to 9.30 p.m."
D. is very much opposed to the idea of women working at night; she hears
that in some places they work till 9 p.m. and thinks that dreadful. She
has never heard anyone grumble that they cannot work longer, and scoffed
at the idea. She herself hates overtime.
E.'s views are that if you've had work from 9 to 7 that is quite as much
as you can do properly. She never likes her daughters to work overtime,
because it only tires them out. It is sometimes rather provoking when a
job comes in late after you've been sitting idle and you have to leave
it, but thinks that it is better on the whole. Some women wouldn't mind
working "all the hours that God gives," but it is very selfish of them.
Most can't stand it. If she had to be at the factory by 8 a.m. instead
of 9 a.m., she never did any more work, because she was so tired.
So the instances could be multiplied. There is no mistaking the note of
relief that runs through the experiences of the workers who have worked
both before and after 1867. Forewomen, employers and factory inspectors,
who are in the position of the "lookers-on at the game," from different
standpoints are nearly unanimous in agreeing that protective legislation
is beneficial.
The thirty-three firms, the authorities of which are returned as having
stated that they give men at night work done by women during the day,
consist for the most part of printing houses, and the work done by women
was folding. The result produced by legislation is that men do the
folding at night and on Saturday afternoons, when there is a press of
business, but in one or two cases, a regular staff of night workers is
employed. As the men are slower workers than the women, and charge a far
higher price for their labour, it is to the employer's interest to
reduce nightwork to a minimum. Prospectuses, however, and weekly
newspapers have to be folded during the night, and this must fall to the
men's lot. In two firms, men occasionally do relief stamping for
Christmas cards when there is a great press of work, and in one firm
they do card mounting. In none of the above firms is there any question
of employing men instead of women in the daytime. In one of the
remaining two--a printing house--the manager said that perhaps he might
have more women for folding; and in another the employer distinctly said
that he would employ women for feeding his printing machines were it not
for the limitations on their hours, which renders it impossible to keep
them when a press of work comes in. These few cases can scarcely claim
to constitute a serious hindrance to women's employment; nor, in view of
the chorus of gratitude for factory legislation, can they be regarded as
a serious indictment against that legislation.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Has legislation affected wages?]
On the question as to whether the restrictions of the Factory Acts have
affected wages, it is almost impossible to obtain any trustworthy
information. In briefly touching on it, we must be careful to
distinguish between the rate of wages and the sum total earned. There
seems an entire lack of evidence that the _rate_ of wages has been
affected, although the sum total of women's earnings collectively and
individually is obviously lowered, when some of their work is given to
men. But even then the mere deprivation of the chance of working
unlimited overtime is an altogether exaggerated measure of the loss in
wages. A human being differs from a machine, for, even when the work
done is mechanical, an interval of leisure and rest is essential, after
a certain point, before the output can be continued. Experience has
abundantly proved that for the regular worker overtime does not pay, and
is also a wasteful expedient from the point of view of the employer.
The Factory Commission of 1866 published evidence that may be accepted
as reliable regarding the wages paid in the trade before legislation
intervened. Mention is made in the Report of one firm of printers who
employed four girls for folding and stitching, three of whom, under
thirteen years of age, earned from 2_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._; the fourth, a
sort of overlooker, earned 12_s._ Another firm of printers paid the
younger girls 4_s._ to 5_s._ a week; the older ones 8_s._ and 10_s._ The
women employed by a third firm earned at least 14_s._ a week and 3_d._
an hour overtime. In a fourth a young girl earned 9_s._ 10½_d._ for
fifty-three hours, another 12_s._ 10¾ _d._ for forty-eight hours,
another 13_s._ for fifty-seven hours, and the journeywoman 17_s._ 6_d._
for sixty hours.
In a firm where women made envelopes, one girl working from 9 a.m. to 8
p.m. every day, and till 3 p.m. on Saturdays, said she could earn 10_s._
6_d._, and a journeywoman earned from 10_s._ to 12_s._ Women making
envelopes for another firm earned 9_s._ or 10_s._ a week.
Paper-box makers earned, on an average, 9_s._ or 10_s._, some made
15_s._ or more. In another firm they earned 7_s._ or 8_s._ up to 25_s._
on piecework. Timeworkers earned 12_s._ or 14_s._; young girls earned
2_s._ 6_d._
These wages are very much the same as those paid to-day, and the hours
then were undoubtedly longer.[74] Nor must it be assumed that wages
would have risen more satisfactorily had there been no Factory Acts. Had
there been any tendency for wages to rise which the Factory Law was
retarding, that tendency would have shown itself in a marked way during
the intervals between each Act, but no such thing is observable, as Mr.
Wood's figures in the footnote indicate. Moreover, taken all together,
the evidence gathered by this investigation proves that neither the
demand for improvement nor the organisation to make that demand
effective exists in the case of the woman worker. On the other hand,
there is no evidence to show that legislation has improved wages, except
in so far as it has reduced hours without apparently having lowered
rates.
[Footnote 74: _Cf._ "The Course of Women's Wages during the Nineteenth
Century," by Mr. G. H. Wood, printed as an Appendix to "A History of
Factory Legislation," by B. L. Hutchins and A. Harrison, where the
following figures are given as the estimated average weekly earnings of
women and girls in the printing trade: 1840, 6_s._ 3_d._; 1850, 6_s._
6_d._; 1860, 7_s._ 5_d._; 1866, 7_s._ 10_d._; 1870, 8_s._ 6_d._; 1883,
8_s._ 9_d._; 1886, 8_s._ 9_d._; 1891, 9_s._ 10_d._; 1895, 9_s._ 10_d._;
1900, 10_s._ 1_d._]
On the whole there seems to be no ground for considering that special
legislation for women in this trade has materially injured the value of
their labour. There is nothing to show that their wages have decreased,
that legislation has acted as a drag upon their income, or that they
have lost employment to any appreciable extent.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Want of elasticity in the law.]
A lack of elasticity in the law seems to be the greatest complaint of
the employers. On the face of it, it looks like a piece of senseless
red-tape that, because it is usually preferable to an employer to open
his factory between the hours of 8 to 8, he may not when it is more
convenient to him, open it between 6 and 6 or 7.30 and 7.30. It seems
absurd that it was an illegal act of an employer to allow two young
women to begin work at 6 a.m. and work till 8 p.m., whereas it would
have been quite legal if they had begun work at 8 a.m. and worked till
10 p.m., due notice having been given to the Home Office.[75]
[Footnote 75: _Stationery Trades' Journal_, 1898.]
Mr. Henderson, as above quoted, gives it as his opinion that "a wide
limit of law is necessary for printing offices where women may not work
after 8 p.m. or before 6 a.m. Hours for adult women other than at
present should be allowed by the Secretary of State, as for instance the
folders of weeklies."
Again, it is felt that a greater freedom is needed with regard to
overtime. Mr. Vaughan, the Factory Inspector for North London, in the
Factories and Workshops Report for 1899 says: "I find in some trades,
_e.g._, Christmas cards, great dissatisfaction at the curtailment of
overtime from five to three nights a week, when the busy season lasts
only for a month or so; the allowance of thirty nights a year is not
required, but an allowance of more nights during these few weeks would
be an enormous assistance. The temptation in such cases to work more
nights a week than are allowed is universally great."
It appears to be a great hardship that women who have not been working
by day may not upon occasions work by night, and both employers and
employées are unanimous in demanding that the law should recognise this
distinction. There is a great difference between retaining an ordinary
worker through the night, or for more than a certain number of hours per
week, and drafting in a fresh set of workers to do work by night at
stated periods in the month or at times of emergency.
Whether or not the law can be made sufficiently elastic to allow of
greater freedom with regard to period of employment, overtime, and
nightwork, raises difficult questions. No doubt it would be an advantage
both to employées and employers, if the law could be made so elastic,
but the difficulty of effective inspection would be so great as to
outweigh any possible advantage. The early history of factory
legislation and its working shows clearly that the intention of the Act
was defeated because employers could so easily evade its clauses. At
present it is known to a factory inspector that a factory that opens at
6 always opens at 6 and closes at 6, unless notice has been given that
overtime is being worked; if, however, an employer were free to open his
factory at 6 or 7 or 8, as occasion demanded, and close accordingly, the
difficulty of administration would obviously be greatly increased.
The same point arises with regard to nightworkers. It is quite
impossible to know among a staff of nightworkers, who has been working
all day and who are _bonâ fide_ job hands. Such cases as the following,
which was the cause of a prosecution, would occur far more frequently.
"Twenty-four girls who were employed at a neighbouring printing and
bookbinding firm, worked for twelve hours at that firm on Friday,
November 20th. They then went straight to the Carlyle Press, and worked
all night, going back to their regular work at the other firm at 8 the
next morning. The forewoman employed by the latter firm said that she
did not know these girls had been working all day, or she would not have
admitted them."[76]
[Footnote 76: _Printers' Register_, January 12th, 1892.]
It must be remembered that so far as the class of job hands is
concerned, they owe their present position in a large measure to factory
legislation. By utilising them, the employer has been able to meet a
sudden press of work, and yet to comply with the provisions of the law,
so that, without the legislation of which they now complain, many of
them would not have found employment. Moreover, job hands are not
numerous when compared with regular workers, and the provisions in the
Factory Acts which seem to bear hardly on casual labour have rightly
been passed in the interest of the permanent staff. To accede to the
demand for greater elasticity is to suppose a higher code of morals on
the part both of employers and of employed than experience justifies,
and it would also render necessary a far more elaborate and irritating
system of inspection than at present exists. The efficiency of modern
factory industry depends very greatly upon automatic working--upon its
standardisation of conditions, and the existing factory law with its
inelastic provisions is, in reality, a great aid in maintaining those
conditions of efficiency. Now and again an employer complains of some
hard experience, and forgets that a departure from rigid rule would
destroy the certainty which he feels that the law is treating him
exactly as it is his competitors. Such a feeling of security is
essential to business enterprise.