Labour Law

Having reached the age of 14, a child, now grown to be a "young person," still cannot, up to the age of 16, start employment in a factory (or certain kinds of workshop specified by order) without procuring a certificate of fitness issued by a certifying surgeon (i.e., a medical man appointed for this purpose by the chief inspector of factories), who must examine the young person at the factory or workshop where the employment is to be carried on. The certifying surgeon may grant the certificate absolutely or qualified by conditions as to the work for which he is suitable.

Young persons under 18 must be provided with medical certifi cates of fitness also for employment in any capacity in any sea going ship registered as a British ship, including fishing boats. This rule is laid down in the Merchant Shipping (International Conventions) Act 1925, which also prohibits the employment of young persons under 18 as trimmers or stokers in any ship. There are also a certain number of unhealthy occupations from which young persons are expressly excluded by regulations under s. 79 of the Factory and Workshop Act of 19o1 (see p. 539). From some of these, adult women are excluded as well as young persons. In some cases the exclusion lasts only until the age of 16, instead of 18; in others girls are excluded and not boys, or until a higher age than boys. Examples of the exclusion of adult women from specially unhealthy processes are to be found in the regulations for the manufacture of paints and colours, the casting of brass, the smelting of materials containing lead, potteries, the manu facture of india-rubber, and the manufacture and repair of electric accumulators. Women of all ages are also excluded as well as young persons from a number of lead processes by the Women and Young Persons (Employment in Lead Processes) Act 192o. This Act overlaps with some of the regulations referred to above. Women and young persons are further debarred from painting any part of a building with lead paint, under the Lead Paint (Protection against Poisoning) Act 1926 (see p. 540), except in such special decorative work as may be exempted from the pro hibition by order. Young persons employed as apprentices in the painting trade may also be allowed to work with lead paint in certain circumstances.

In addition to the absolute exclusions from dangerous processes mentioned above, there are various regulations under the Factory and Workshop Act which make physical fitness a condition either for starting work or for continuing in the dangerous process. For instance, in certain heavy processes in potteries women and young persons need to be provided with medical certificates of permis sion to work; the regulations for chemical works require all newly engaged workers in a chrome or nitro or amido process to be provided with certificates of fitness within 14 days of beginning such work. In lead processes in the manufacture of electric ac cumulators likewise all workers must be examined within seven days preceding or following their entering the employment. Peri odical medical examination and suspension from work of the unfit is prescribed by the regulations in all cases where the risk in volved is that of poisoning from lead or other industrial poisons, and this applies usually to male as well as female workers. The intervals at which the examinations must take place is either three months or one month or, in the manufacture of certain lead com pounds, once a week. Regulations have been issued under the

Women and Young Persons (Employment in Lead Processes) Act 192o concerning the periodical medical examination of women and young persons working in lead processes but not coming under any similar regulations in pursuance of the Factory Act. Another statutory exclusion from employment on the ground of physical unfitness, is the prohibition to employ any woman in a factory or workshop for f our weeks following her confinement (Act of 1901, s. 61). Women are also excluded entirely from underground work in mines, both coal mines and metalliferous mines. There is an other provision in the Coal Mines Act 1911 which may be noted in this connection, namely, the prohibition of the employment of any woman or girl or of any boy under 16 in moving railway wagons or in lifting, carrying or moving anything so heavy as to be likely to cause them injury.

Hours of Work.

In the regulation of hours of work, Eng lish law has not yet passed beyond the stage of regulating the hours of those persons only who are considered to be in special need of protection from overwork, viz. women and young workers. The only instances of the regulation by law of the hours of adult men are to be found in coal mines legislation and in a few very dangerous occupations, where the object of the limitation of hours is protection of health from too long exposure to the dangerous element. In other countries the regulation of the hours of women and children was only a step towards the limitation of hours in general, on which subject laws are now to be found in practically every European country. This state of affairs may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the English worker has been more successful than his foreign colleagues in procuring the privileges of a short working day by his own organized efforts, without legal intervention. The English worker, in most of the well-organized trades of the country, has as part of his contract of employment a standard day of eight hours or a standard week of 48 hours or thereabouts. This means that his normal rate of wages is payable in respect of hours worked within that limit for ordinary work, and that if he works beyond the standard limits or on Sundays or holidays, a higher rate of pay will be paid to him. An arrange ment of this sort naturally tends to make employers avoid exces sive hours of work. In less well-organized trades there is the same restricting force at work wherever a trade board or an agricul tural wages committee (see p. 55o) fixes, as those bodies are em powered to do, overtime rates of wages as well as ordinary rates, and lays down the limit of hours to which the ordinary rate will apply. That these wage-regulating bodies, although they cannot regulate hours of work directly, are expected to have some in fluence on hours of employment, is shown by a provision in the Agricultural Wages (Regulation) Act 1924, which expressly re quires the agricultural wages committees, in the exercise of their powers under the subsection allowing them to fix differential rates for overtime, to secure a weekly half-holiday for agricultural workers as far as is reasonably practicable. But this method of fixing standard times for work must not be confused with legal provisions absolutely prohibiting work to be continued beyond certain limits.