A glance at existing legislation on Labour Protection, or even only at the various paragraphs of the von Berlepsch Industrial Code Amendment Bill, clearly shows the definite significance of all these foregoing classes in the codification of protective right. Each one of these classes is treated both generally and specifically in the Labour Acts.
Mining industries, industrial (manufacturing) work, and wage service in trade, traffic, and transport, do not all receive an equal measure of Labour Protection.
Differences in the danger of the occupation play a great part in the labour-protective legislation of every country.
Labour Protection has therefore hitherto been, and will probably for some time continue to be in effect, protection of factory and quasi-factory labour (I.B. 2, supra), but in all probability it will gradually include protection of household industry also. Even the English Factory and Workshop Acts do not, however, extend protection to wage-labour in family industry.
Business managers have hitherto received no protection, or a much smaller measure than that extended to common wage-labourers.
Furthermore, Labour Protection has hitherto been administered through different channels, according as it is applied to professions of a public nature, in which discipline is necessary, especially the military profession, or to professions of a non-public nature.
Lastly, with regard to individual differences of need for labour protection, adult labour has hitherto received only a restricted measure of protection, whereas the labour of women and children has long been fairly adequately dealt with; the prohibition of employment of married women in factory-labour still remains an unsolved problem in the domain of Labour Protection question, but it is a measure that has already received powerful support.
It must of course be understood that Labour Protection is still in process of development. But according to all present appearances, there is no prospect, at any rate for some time to come, of its general extension to all classes of industrial wage-labour, for instance that the prohibition of night work will be extended to all adult male labourers, or that Sunday work will be absolutely prohibited in carrying industries and in public houses. We must even do justice to the Auer Motion in the Reichstag, by acknowledging that it does not go the length of demanding the universal application of such protection.
In the existing positive laws, and in the further demands for protection put forward at the present day, mining industries hold the first place, then all kinds of work dangerous to life and health, household industry, the labour of women and young persons, and the labour of married women. The reader will easily understand the reasons for this; he only requires to establish clearly in his own mind, for each of these classes of industrial wage-labour, the grounds on which the claim to such objective and subjective protection is based, and wherein they differ from the cases where free self-help and mutual help suffice, or even the ordinary protection afforded by the State. However, this special inquiry is not necessary here; the explanation desired will be found in the study of the several applications and modes of operation of Labour Protection dealt with in the following pages.
But on the other hand it is important that we should now endeavour to form a clear idea of those larger divisions of industrial wage-labour with which a protective code has to deal, in order that we may be sure of our ground in proceeding with our investigations.