Labor Legislation
laws passed to regulate employment in favor of industrial workers. The necessity for such legislation first made itself felt when the invention of steam driven machinery, in Great Britain, in the early part of last century, radically caused a change in the system of production. As a result of these changes manufacturing, which had previously been carried on by the individual handicraftsmen in their homes, was concentrated in large factories, where many men, women and children were gathered to attend to the machinery installed in the factories.
This made the workers entirely dependent on the owners of the machines and introduced the wage system. Taking advantage of this economic power, the employers, ever anxious to increase their profits, competed with each other, not LABOR LEGISLATION for adults, and took the children out of the factory altogether. Thereupon he demanded that other employers do likewise, and when they refused to comply, began an agitation for parliamentary enactments compelling them to do so.
His efforts bore fruits in the famous factory acts, the first legislation in favor of labor, and later serving as models for similar laws in other countries.
The first of these was passed in 1819, whereby working hours were limited to twelve hours a day for persons under eighteen, while the employment of children under nine was prohibited entirely. Further enactments extended this class of legislation and provided for a system of inspection whose object was to enforce sanitary conditions in the factories. In this country, naturally, labor legislation came long after it did in Great Britain, because of the later development of manufacturing. With the growth of our vast industries during the past generation, however, labor legislation has progressed at an equal pace and laws for the regulation of working conditions in the United States are now very little behind those of other industrial countries. In the main labor legislation has been left to the individual States, the Federal Government interfering only where national services are concerned, or in the case of such industries as are covered by the Interstate Commerce laws, such as the railroads.
State legislation for the regulation of working conditions may be classified under several heads. One of these is the insurance of workers against industrial accidents and the liability of employers for compensation to those that have been injured. By common law it was formerly generally accepted that the employer was liable to grant compensation when it could be proved that the injury was not due to the negligence of the workingman injured, or through the negligence of a "fellow servant." Thus the burden of proof was on the injured only in reducing wages, but in employ- worker, which was usually where it reing women and children and lengthening their working hours, sometimes amounting to fourteen a day.
The first to voice a protest against these conditions was Robert Owen, himself part owner and director of a large textile manufacturing plant, in New Lanark, Scotland. Taking charge of the factory, he found children under ten years of age being worked ten and twelve hours a day, with deplorable results to their moral and physical condition. He at once set an example by reducing the hours of daily labor to ten, mained, as it was generally impossible to prove that the accident was due to the negligence of the employer. Gradually one State after another passed special laws shifting the burden of proof to the employer, forcing him to prove that the accident was actually due to the negligence of the injured party. Together with this class of legislation there have appeared laws providing for insurance against injuries. In fourteen states insurance is compulsory; in eight it is based on compensation to the extent of two-thirds of the wages of the injured; LABOR ORGANIZATIONS and in eighteen States it is based on compensation ranging from 55 to 65 per cent. of the wages paid.
Another class of legislation fixes the hours of labor. Here the Federal Government, through its power of taxation, has been able to prohibit the employment of children under fourteen in factories, and under sixteen in mines. In many States legislation has been passed to limit the hours of labor, especially in dangerous occupations. Stringent laws have also been passed enforcing sanitary conditions, notably in the textile trades in New York. Other samples of legislation are shown in Ohio, where women are not allowed to be employed at any work involving the lifting of loads more than twenty-five pounds in weight; in Missouri, where women may not be employed three weeks before or after childbearing; in Indiana, where in certain industries the employers are compelled to afford gas masks to their employees, on account of the noxious fumes incidental to employment. "Minimum wage" laws form another class of legislation, whereby the downward tendency of wages are fixed. Fifteen states and territories, and the District of Columbia, in 1920, have passed laws fixing a minimum wage.
The international aspect of labor legislation is shown in the Covenant of the League of Nations, one provision of which enumerates nine principles to be followed by all the members of the League; first, the fundamental principle that labor is not a commercial commodity; the right of association; an adequate living wage; the eight hour day; a weekly rest of twenty-four hours; the abolition of child labor; equal compensation for men and women; and inspection by women as well as men.