The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection

by A. Schäffle; etc. statutes Germany. Laws

The factory working-day (in the strict sense): factory working-day for adult males.

The extension of protection of hours of labour to adults in factory and quasi-factory labour, by the so-called factory working-day (in the strict sense) has already begun to make way in some countries.

In France it was enforced as long ago as by the Act of Sept. 9, 1848 (Art. I.), in which the limit was still fixed at 12 hours; in Switzerland the limit was fixed at 11 hours by Art. II. of the Confederate Factory Act of 1877; and in Austria by the Act of Mar. 8, 1885. Other countries have not hitherto adopted it. Great Britain and other countries still hesitate to interfere in this way with the freedom of contract for adults. Switzerland, on the other hand, is ready to reduce the hours from 11 to 10, but whether Austria is prepared to do so much is doubtful.

Germany also in the von Berlepsch Bill has entered a protest against the extreme length of the factory working-day. Here the course has been strongly urged, sometimes of adopting an 11 hours, sometimes a 10 hours day, meaning always the time of actual work, without reckoning intervals of rest. In the discussion on the Imperial Industrial Regulations of 1869, Brauchitsch demanded a 12 hours factory day from the Conservative benches, and Schweitzer for all large industries a 10 hours day (i.e. a 12 hours day, with intervals of rest amounting to not less than 2 hours).

The necessity for the limitation of the working-day of male adult labourers to 11 or 10 hours, rests partly upon the same grounds as that of the working-day for women and young persons. Hours of leisure, besides the hours of night rest, are a necessity for men also, in order that they may be able to live really human lives. Above all they ought to be able to devote a few hours every day to their family, to social intercourse, self-culture, and their duties as citizens. The economic expediency of the restriction of working hours has been proved by experience. The amount of work executed in the factories has been in no way lessened by the adoption of the 10 hours day for women and children, and moreover in England, wherever the 10 and 11 hours day for men has been adopted without legal enactment, it has proved to be a beneficial measure; this has also been the case in the Alsatian cotton factories.[10] The factory inspectors in Switzerland unanimously report the favourable effect of the 11 hours day on the amount of work executed; and the same thing on the whole may be asserted of Austria.

In Switzerland the proposal that permission for overtime work should be obtainable from the magistrates was several times rejected, “because the employers soon perceived that the increased production scarcely covered the increased expense of light and heating, and that the work was carried on with less energy on the days following overtime work than when the 11 hours day was adhered to.” It is evident that there the 11 hours day is not considered too short. In general the employers in Switzerland very soon declared themselves satisfied with the 11 hours day; the workmen consider it a great benefit, and it has not led to the greater frequenting of public-houses. The adoption of a maximum working-day in Switzerland has put a stop to the practice on the part of manufacturers of taking away their competitor’s orders and executing them by means of overtime work, so that amongst industrial managers also, the tide is beginning to turn against too frequent indulgence in overtime work.

In Saxony even, an examination into the advantages of the maximum working-day shows “that the manufacturers themselves” (see General Report for 1888 of the district inspector at Zwickau), “are opposed to the long protraction of hours of labour; but every employer hesitates to be the first to shorten the hours, fearing lest he should find too few imitators, and be thereby thrown out of competition.” The legal factory working-day removes this fear.

Of course we have no experience to show that the further shortening of the day to less than 10 hours would allow of the execution of as much or more work than has hitherto been executed in more than 10 or 11 hours. There is a limit to the possible increase of efficiency in machines and in hand-labour, and in the two together. Labour Protection has neither the intention nor the right to prohibit any labour that is not too long to be physically and morally permissible.

At present there seems no necessity from the protective point of view for more than an 11 or 12 hours day as a rule, with special hygienic working-days of less than 10 hours, together with unrestricted freedom of contract in regulating the hours of work below this limit.