Part 3 (1/2)

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 relations.h.i.+p 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.