Boy Labour and Apprenticeship - Reginald A. Bray

and ends at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m.

On Saturdays the period of employment is the same as for young persons—6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m.—but a child shall not be employed on two successive Saturdays, nor on Saturday in any week if on any other days in the same week his period of employment has exceeded five and a half hours.

A child must not be employed in two successive periods of seven days in the morning set, nor in two successive periods of seven days in an afternoon set.

On the alternate day system, the period of employment is the same as for a young person—i.e., from 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., with two hours for meals; and on Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 11.30 a.m., with half an hour for meals. Under this system a child may not be employed on two successive days, nor on the same day in two successive weeks.

Under all the systems a child may not be employed continuously for more than four and a half hours without an interval of half an hour for meals.[68] Nor must a child be employed on any one day on the business of the factory or workshops both inside and outside the factory or workshop.[69]

This system of regulation refers to textile factories, but these include the vast majority of half-timers. The regulations with regard to non-textile factories and workshops are less rigorous; and in the case of domestic workshops and factories there is additional relaxation of the rules.

The parent or guardian of the half-timer is responsible for the child’s attendance at school. As an additional precaution against truancy, the employer may not employ the child unless each Monday the child has obtained from the school a certificate of attendance during the past week.[70]

If we take into account the hours worked in the factory and the hours spent in school, we shall find that the half-timer’s week of strenuous effort is a long and a weary one. “Taking one week with another, the employment of the half-timer is for twenty-eight and a quarter hours a week in a textile factory, and thirty in a non-textile factory or workshop; and as he is in school for thirteen or fourteen hours, his total week in school and factory is from forty to forty-four hours.”[71]

In view of proposals made later, I have thought desirable to insert in detail the half-time regulations, in order to show how, in the actual carrying out of industrial operations, a half-time system can be put into effect.