One of the objects of the Employment of Women, Young Per sons and Children Act was to put expressly into operation the terms of the draft convention of 1919 to prohibit the night work of women and young persons in "industrial undertakings" (for the definition of this expression, see p. 542). The Act provides that no young person or woman shall be employed at night in any in dustrial undertaking except to the extent to which such employ ment is permitted in the conventions set out in the schedule to the Act. The two conventions, concerned respectively with the night work of women and of young persons, both define night as "a period of at least 11 consecutive hours, including the interval be tween ten o'clock in the evening and five o'clock in the morning" and the employment of women and young persons is, in general, prohibited at night so defined. The British Factory and Workshop Act with its normal interval of 12 hours between one day's work and the next, was well within these limits. The exceptions allowed under the women's convention, too, are liberal and elastic enough to cover all the exceptions in use in practice under the Act of 1901. But the convention concerned with the night work of young persons made some important changes in the existing law as to the night work of male young persons. In the first place it threw out of operation all the exceptions allowing the night work of boys to begin at the age of 14, as the convention, where exceptions are allowed, never applies these to boys below the age of 16. In the second place it had the effect of restricting the power given to the home secretary by 5. 54 (4) of the Act of 1901 to allow excep tions to the prohibition of the night work of young persons in cer tain circumstances. These exceptions must now be limited to those of the convention, namely to work which by reason of the nature of the process is required to be carried on continuously day and night, in (i.) the manufacture of iron and steel : processes in which reverberatory or regenerative furnaces are used, and gal vanizing of sheet metal or wire (except the pickling process) ; (ii.) glass works; (iii.) manufacture of paper; (iv.) manufacture of raw sugar; (v.) gold mining reduction work. The hours of work of young persons working with their own families in domestic factories and workshops are regulated under s. i 11 of the Act of 1901, but only in the sense that they are supposed not to begin work earlier than 6 A.M. or continue at work later than 9 P.M., with four and a half hours' rest during the day, thus making a working day of ten and a half hours as in ordinary workshops. The hours of work of women and young persons in laundries are dealt with by the Factory and Workshop Act of 1907, which allows certain variations in the daily periods of employment.
It may be noted in addition, that in a few cases the regula tions for dangerous trades impose restrictions on hours of work in particular processes. In some of these, however, the restriction is not intended to put any actual limit to the length of the day's work as a whole. For instance, under the regulations for the manu facture of india-rubber, no person may be employed in a room in which carbon bisulphide is used for more than five hours in all in any one day, but this does not prevent him from working in safer processes for the rest of the day. But in the regulations for potteries there are limits put to the actual hours of work. For instance, no woman or young person employed in a lead process may work in a pottery in any capacity for more than 48 hours a week, and adult male workers employed as dippers, dippers' assistants, or ware-cleaners may not work in any capacity in the pottery as a rule for more than 48 hours a week, and in no cir cumstances for more than 54 hours a week, even where part of the work is a non-lead process. Adult male glost-placers again may not, as a rule, be employed in the pottery in any capacity for more than 54 hours a week. However, the adult men whose hours are thus restricted are allowed to work a certain amount of overtime. There is also a restriction, under these regulations, to nine and a half hours a day (six and a half hours on Saturday), of the hours of work of women and young persons in potters' shops or where other dusty processes are carried on in potteries.
It will be observed that the Factory and Workshop Acts, in regulating the hours of work of women and young persons, make provision throughout for a half-holiday on Saturdays. They also require women and young persons to be allowed certain whole days off in the course of the year, and prohibit work on Sundays for those workers. The holidays prescribed for England are Christ mas Day, Good Friday and the four bank holidays. The employer may on certain conditions, arrange to give another day or two half days in place of any of these. There are exceptions to the general prohibition of Sunday employment in the case of Jewish workshops (where Saturday may be substituted for Sunday). It should be noted, too, that none of the provisions of the Act of 1901 relating to hours of work and holidays apply in fish and fruit preserving as regards certain work which must be carried out immediately. The home secretary has, however, imposed condi tions, by order, on the use of this exception for fruit preserving. In addition to the outside limits of hours of work, there are restrictions on the length of the spells after which a break must be allowed tor meals and rest. The general rule is that no woman or young person shall be employed continuously in a textile fac tory for more than four and a half hours without an interval of at least half an hour, the corresponding limit in other factories and workshops being five hours. Under the regulations for potteries, in addition, no person (including men as well as women and young persons) may be employed in certain lead processes for more than four hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal, and for certain other processes a limit of four and a half hours or five hours is set to any person's spell of continuous em ployment. In the regulations for india-rubber, no person may work in a room where carbon bisulphide is used for more than two and a half hours at a time without a rest of at least one hour from any employment.
(b) Mines.—The hours of work of all underground workers in mines coming under the Coal Mines Acts are regulated by the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1908, as amended in 1919 and 1926, and those of women and boys employed above ground are regulated by the Coal Mines Act 1911. Where that Act does not apply, the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Act 1901 as to hours are in operation, since among the places included in the list of "non-textile factories and workshops," in the sixth schedule to that Act, are " 'pit banks,' that is to say any place above ground adjacent to a shaft of a mine" in which the employment of women is not regulated by the various Acts relating to mines.
The hours of work of boys below ground in metalliferous mines to which the Act of 1908 does not apply are regulated by the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Act 1872. The Coal Mines Regu lation Act 1908 is still the principal Act restricting the hours of underground workers, but the original limits of eight hours for "workmen" and nine and a half hours for firemen, examiners or deputies, onsetters, pump-minders, fanmen or furnacemen, were reduced to seven hours and eight hours respectively by the Act of 1919. The rule established by these Acts was that no work man shall be below ground in a mine (i.e., one coming under the definition now in the Coal Mines Act 1911) for the purpose of his work, or of going to and from his work, for more than seven hours during any consecutive 24 hours. The difficulty of allow ing for the time taken in lowering a shift of men to the bottom and of raising them again to the surface is met by a provision that the limit of hours may be reckoned from the period between the moment when the first workman of the shift leaves the sur face till the first workman to return up the shaft reaches the sur face. In order that the lowering and raising of each shift may be effected within a reasonable time, the mine-owners are expressly required so to arrange the times for beginning to lower and raise the men that every workman shall have the opportunity of return ing to the surface within the prescribed limit of hours, and the intervals between the times fixed for beginning and completing the lowering or raising of a shift must be approved by the inspector as the time reasonably required for the purpose. The workmen may, moreover, appoint persons at their own cost to observe the times of lowering and raising, in the same way as they may ap point check-weighers (see p. 55o). In addition to making provi sion for exemptions in cases of emergency, the Act of 1908 pro vided that the prescribed limit of hours below ground might be extended in any mine on not more than 6o days in any calendar year, by not more than one hour a day. In order to revert to the eight hour day in coal mines, the simple method was adopted in the Coal Mines Act 1926 of repealing the words "on not more than 6o days in any calendar year" in this section, intended origin ally only to allow occasional overtime, so that, although the seven hour rule appears in the statutes, as if it were still in operation, the mine-owners may require the men to work eight hours a day throughout the year. The operation of the Act of 1926 is limited to five years. Boys under 16 working underground in metalliferous mines not coming under the Act of 1908 may not work more than 54 hours a week or ten hours in any one day. Their period of employment begins at the time of leaving the surface and ends at the time of returning to the surface. The hours of women and girls and boys under 16 on the surface in connection with mines coming under the Coal Mines Act 1911 are limited to 54 a week and ten a day, and such persons may not be employed continuously for more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal, nor for more than eight hours in any day without intervals amounting to one and a half hours al together. The provisions of the Act of 1911 as to night work prohibit the employment of women, girls and boys under 16 be tween 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. and after 2 P.M. on Saturdays, and there must be an interval of at least 12 hours between the termination of employment on one day and its commencement on the next. These provisions must now be read in conjunction with those of the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920, which are outlined above. The convention on the night work of young persons which that Act put into operation contains a special exception allowing young persons under 18 to be em ployed in coal and lignite mines within the defined limits of night work (i.e., IO P.M. and 5 A.m.) provided "an interval of ordinarily 15 hours and in no case less than 13 hours separates two periods of work." (c) Shops.—In shops the only rigid restriction of hours is a limit of 74 hours (inclusive of meal times) set to the weekly hours of young persons under 18 by the Shops Acts 1912. But some check is put upon the hours worked by all shop workers, men and women alike, by the Shops Acts 1912, 1913 and 1928, as fol lows : (i.) The Act of 1912 requires work to cease about the busi ness of a shop not later than half past one o'clock in the afternoon of one day a week; prescribes certain intervals for meals; and empowers the local authorities to issue closing orders fixing the hours for closing all or specified kinds of shops on each day of the week (but these orders may not now fix closing hours inconsistent with those prescribed by the Act of 1928) ; (ii.) The Act of 1913, amending the Act of 1912 in its application to premises for the sale of refreshments, limits the week's work to 65 hours and imposes a certain standard of holidays and mealtimes for shop assistants employed on any premises for the sale of refreshments, where the occupier voluntarily elects to accept that limitation in stead of applying the provisions of s. r of the Act of 1912 relating to the compulsory half-holiday for shop assistants; (iii.) The Shops (Hours of Closing) Act 1928 provides that shops must as a rule be closed not later than 9 o'clock in the evening of one day in the week, and 8 o'clock on the other evenings of the week. The late day must be Saturday unless the local authority fixes some other day either for all or certain shops, or for certain districts or certain periods of the year. In various cases the local authorities may allow later closing hours (up to Io P.M.) than those stated. Where exemptions are allowed for exhibitions or during the busy seasons in holiday resorts, the local authority has power to attach to its order conditions limiting the hours of employment of the shop assistants affected, and in the case of seasonal 'exemptions in holiday resorts, may require the assistants to be given a holiday, on full pay, corresponding to the extra hours worked. For special occasions, a local authority may suspend the operation of the statutory closing hours and its own closing orders on not more than seven days in the year. The home secretary also has power to suspend the provisions of the Act and orders at Christmas and other special occasions. The schedule to the Act contains a list of transactions not to be prevented by the Act or closing orders. These are connected with the sale of refreshments and tobacco in certain places, medicines, motor accessories, and the like.