Labor legislation is the most effective method of improving the conditions of employment, and to a consideration of this subject we must devote the remainder of this section. We have already seen that the fundamental principle of our modern wage system is freedom of contract.
This is guaranteed in our federal and state constitutions as both a personal and a property right. As a result of this fact the courts have generally declared unconstitutional any legislation, designed to protect the interests of labor, that seemed to abrogate this freedom of contract or that savored of class legislation. Efforts to improve the condition of labor by legislation have therefore met with especial obstacles in this country. On the whole, however, means have been discovered of evading these constitutional restrictions when it has seemed clearly demanded by the welfare of society, and the history of labor legislation in this country is one of fairly steady progress. The early laws were practically confined to imprisonment for debt, mechanics’ liens, the hours of education of children employed in factories, and similar matters. Nothing noteworthy was accomplished until 1866 when Massachusetts passed an eight-hour child labor law for children under fourteen; in 1874 she passed a ten-hour law for women and children under eighteen, engaged in manufacturing establishments, and in 1877 enacted the first factory inspection act, which has since been copied in about twenty-four states, and without which mere legislation is of little avail.
The factory acts may be divided into two classes, those that endeavor to secure the safe or healthful manner of conducting a business, and those that attempt to limit the occupations, the hours, and the methods of payment of the workers. Under the first head come such matters as fire protection, ventilation, guarding of machinery, inspection of boilers and mines, etc. Such legislation and inspection have in many states been extended to churches, schoolhouses, hotels, theaters and public buildings. The second group includes those laws which are usually meant when factory acts are referred to. In England there has been a very steady development and extension of such legislation, beginning in 1802, when Peel’s Act tried to protect the health and morals of the pauper apprentices in the
cotton mills; this was extended to all young people in textile industries in 1833, to women in 1844, then to all large industries in 1864, and to smaller ones in 1867, and finally in 1878 these various provisions were codified into a complete factory act, regulating the health and safety of the laboring people generally. In the United States the movement was considerably later and has not been so uninterrupted. But today laws limiting the number of hours of labor to eight have been passed by the Federal Government and fifteen of the states for all those engaged on public works. Attempts to fix the hours of labor of adult male workers have usually been declared unconstitutional, for the reasons stated above, except in especially dangerous or unhealthful occupations, as bakeries, mines, smelters and similar lines. Consequently the men have been forced to rely largely upon their own efforts for the redress of industrial grievances; in this fact lies one explanation of the growth and strength of labor organizations in this country. On the other hand, legislation in behalf of women and especially children—wards of the state—has usually been held constitutional by the courts, and has had a more extended application. About twenty of the states have regulated the length of the working day for women and children. Special child labor laws limit the age below which employment is illegal, usually between ten and fourteen years of age; and provide for a minimum of education before a child can be employed. About half the states provide for factory inspection to see that the provisions of the various acts are lived up to. In general we may conclude that by the passage of such legislation society has definitely decided that there are some conditions of employment that cannot be safely left to free contract or to collective bargaining between employer and employe, but that they must be regulated by society itself on the broad grounds of social welfare.
X. UNEMPLOYMENT AND INSURANCE.
The greatest problem in modern industry as well as the greatest curse to the laboring classes, is unemployment. While unemployment has always existed under all systems of labor, it assumed added significance when the introduction of the wage system threw every worker upon his own resources and made him responsible for the care of himself and his family. Modern industry is sensitive and unstable and its delicate mechanism, very likely to get out of order; credit and fashion, to mention no others, are factors that make for instability, and these are essentially modern. Professor Marshall is of the opinion that the factory system has not increased inconstancy of employment, but has simply rendered it plainer by localizing it. But whether more or fewer than in earlier times, the number of the unemployed in modern industry is appallingly great. It is not easy to estimate correctly the extent and amount of this evil and we accordingly find considerable variations in the statistical presentations of fact. In 1885 two investigations of the amount of employment were made, one by Carroll D. Wright, in his report as United States Commissioner of Labor for 1886, and the other by the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor in its report for 1887. Mr. Wright defines the unemployed very narrowly as “those who under prosperous times would be fully employed, and who, during the time mentioned, were seeking employment”; using the term in this restricted sense he concluded that 7½ per cent of the working population engaged in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits, and trade and transportation were idle during the year, which moreover he considered one of extreme depression. The Massachusetts statistics, on the other hand, were presented as indicative of general conditions in normal years and may safely be regarded as such. According to this report, 30 per cent of the total number of
breadwinners in the state had been unemployed at their principal occupations on an average of 4.11 months in the year covered; some of these found work at other or secondary occupations. But the net result of the investigation was well put in the terse statement of the report, that “about one-third of the total persons engaged in remunerative labor were unemployed at their principal occupation for about one-third of the working time.” At the lowest estimate the whole working population lost on the average almost one-tenth of their working time. The loss of such a proportion of the community’s productive force, with all the demoralization attendant upon irregular or no labor, is evidence of a problem of grave import.
Unemployment is such a broad term and covers so many different ideas that it will be well to classify the unemployed before proceeding further. They may be logically divided into the following classes: I. The temporarily unemployed, who comprise (a) those certain of work again, as efficient workmen who are temporarily out of work owing to seasonal variations, shut downs, etc.; (b) those without such prospect, a group which again divides into two groups, namely, (1) efficient and industrious workmen who have been thrown out of work by a change in fashion, the introduction of new machinery, foreign competition, a prolonged depression, etc., and (2) those whose work is essentially fluctuating and casual in its nature, as casual day laborers, charwomen, etc. II. The permanently unemployed, consisting in turn of (a) the “won’t-works,” as tramps, and (b) the “can’t-works,” or the defective and dependent classes generally. Such a classification renders much easier the analysis both of the causes and of the cure of unemployment.
The first question that presents itself in any discussion of the causes of unemployment is whether it is due primarily to personal causes, as inefficiency or intemperance, or to industrial causes over which the individual has no
control. “Personal causes are those mental, moral, and physical defects which show themselves either in the inability and inefficiency of the workman or in his unwillingness to work. Here are included all the varieties of personal inaptitude, ranging from idiocy, intemperance, and vice to old age, sickness, and accident.”[25] Such a comprehensive definition includes many cases, of course, where no blame can be attached to the individual, and yet each one of these causes is personal, that is, it does not affect at the same time a whole group, as an industrial depression would do. Persons included in this group are always on the margin of employment; in bad times the first to be discharged, in good times they are the last to be employed. Nor is the cause of their lack of employment always easy to give; it may be itself the result of industrial accident or unhealthful occupation, or the result of heredity, evil habits and associations, and defective education. We may present two tables giving briefly the causes of poverty and unemployment. The first gives the causes of poverty ascribed by the charity organization societies of New York, Boston, and Baltimore to applicants for relief: