2. The maximum working-days of protective legislation: the hygienic working-day, the working-day of women and children, the extended factory working-day.
And first the hygienic working-day.
This is imposed on certain occupations and businesses on account of the dangers to health arising out of the work, and on account of the strength required in the work.
It is no longer opposed by any party. It is fully dealt with in the von Berlepsch Bill in the above-mentioned provision of the penultimate paragraph of § 120a.
By the insertion of this provision in Section I. of Chapter VII. of the Imperial Industrial Code, the hygienic maximum working-day may be extended by order of the Bundesrath (Federal Council) over the whole sphere of industrial labour, not merely of factory and quasi-factory labour. The Berlin Conference (resolutions 1, 2) demands the hygienic maximum working-day for mining industries.
It is hardly necessary to prove that the hygienic maximum working-day cannot be obtained merely by the efforts of the workers in self-protection or by the general good-will of the united employers, without general enforcement by enactment or regulation. Some employers are unwilling even to maintain the shortening of the normal working-day necessary to health, others who would be willing are prevented by competition so long as the hygienic working-day is not enforced generally and uniformly by enactment or regulation throughout that particular branch of industry. The extension of the hygienic maximum working-day to all occupations dangerous to health throughout the whole sphere of industrial labour, is justified as a necessary measure of Labour Protection.
No nation will suffer in the long run from the full extension of the hygienic working-day. It is probable that the governments will advance side by side in this direction.
The factory working-day for women and juvenile workers.
This has long been enforced. The distress which brought it under the notice of the English legislature has justified it for all time. It is now scarcely contested.
Without special intervention of the State, the considerate employer is not able to grant the ten hours limit, even to women and juvenile workers, on account of his unscrupulous competitors.