One item of Labour Protection in occupation might be supposed to consist in guarding against over-exertion, by means of the abolition of piece-work and “efficiency wage.” But this claim, in so far as we find it prevailing in the Labour world, is made more on grounds of wage policy than as a necessary measure of protection. The economic advantages to the workers themselves of these methods of payment are so great that the abolition of “efficiency wage” is not, I think, required either on grounds of wage policy or of protective policy. We must, however, pass over the consideration of this question, whilst admitting that there is still a great deal to be done in this direction by means of free self-help and mutual help.
(B) Protection of intercourse in service, Truck Protection in particular.
To protection in occupation must be added—as a last measure of the protection of labour against material dangers—protection of the wage-worker in his personal and social intercourse outside the limits of his business with the employer and his family, and with the managers and foremen. In default of a better term, we have called this protection of intercourse in service.
Outside the actual performance of his work, the wage-worker is threatened by special dangers which can only be averted by extraordinary intervention of the State. These dangers affect the person and domestic life of the wage-worker.
Apprentices especially, and all wage-earners living in the same house as the employer, are liable from their position as the weaker party, to intimidation, ill-treatment, and neglect. Provision is made against such dangers by the ruling of the Industrial Regulations on the relations of journeymen and apprentices to business managers and employers.
Special protection has long been afforded in the social relations between the servant on the one side, and the employer and his family on the other. This takes the form of protection against usury, against exploitation of dependents, especially if they are ignorant and inexperienced. This protection in social relations may also be called—involving as it does, in by far the largest proportion of cases, protection against undue advantage derived from payment in kind—“Truck Protection.”
The usury in question may take the form of a profit in the way of service, or exploitation of the workman, by forcing him to perform work outside the agreement as well as the work of the business, or instead of it; or again, it may be profit on payment, derived from payment of wages in coin or kind; or it may be profit on credit, loan, hire and sale, derived by compelling the workman to enter into disadvantageous transactions in borrowing, contracting, and hiring, and by requiring him to purchase the necessaries of life at certain places of sale where exorbitant prices are demanded for inferior goods.
To prevent the employer from gaining such unfair advantage over the “members of his family, his assistants, agents, managers, overseers, and foremen,” the German Industrial Code has long since interfered by ordering payment in coin of the realm, by prohibiting credit for goods, and by limiting to cost price the charges for necessaries of life, and of work supplied (including tools and materials). Any agreements for the appropriation of a part of the earnings of the wage-worker for any other purpose than the improvement of the condition of the worker or his family shall be declared null and void. The Auer Motion demands also that “compulsory contributions to so-called ‘benefit clubs’ (savings banks attached to the business) shall be prohibited.”
This form of protection, which I have called protection of intercourse, is extended to all kinds of industrial work, as is also the case with protection in occupation, though not with protection by limitations of employment. In Germany this extension is effected by incorporating in the general portion of chap. vii. of the Imp. Ind. Code Amendment Bill the rules for protection in occupation and protection against usury, and also by including non-manufacturing (§ 134) as well as manufacturing work in the rules of the Industrial Regulations against personal ill-treatment and neglect.