The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection

The work that has already been done in the way of protection of morality by prohibition is not to be under-valued, although much still remains to be done. No sufficient steps have as yet been taken to meet that very hateful and insidious evil so deeply harmful to the preservation of national morality, viz. the public sale and advertisement of preventives in sexual intercourse, such as unfortunately so frequently appear in the advertising columns of newspapers, and in shop windows. This is not merely a question of protecting the morality of those engaged in the production and sale of such articles, but also of protecting the morality of the whole nation, maintaining its virile strength, and to some degree also preserving it from the dangers to the growth of population, incidental to an advanced civilisation. The powers at present vested in the police and magistrates to deal with offences against morals would probably be sufficient to stamp out this moral canker that is eating its way even into Labour Protection, without the scandal of legislation. But it is not by ignoring it that this can be accomplished.

The intervention of the State as regards Labour Protection in such factory and quasi-factory work as is dangerous to health and decency, is doubtless justified in its extension to household industry and trading industry of the same kind; for neither is the moral character of the generality of employers and heads of commercial undertakings sufficiently perfect, nor are the discretion and self-protection of the workers sufficiently strong and widespread to render State protection unnecessary and voluntary protection sufficient.

This is a specially useful measure of protection. Modern industrial work has done a great injury to the family vocation of the woman, and thereby to family life; non-governmental agencies of Labour Protection, in its widest sense, have not been able to prevent this evil.

But the exclusion of wives and mothers from all industrial work, or from earning money in any kind of domestic occupation, would be far too extreme a measure. Certain industrial work has always fallen to the share of the female sex, and the absolute prohibition of female employment in any kind of industrial work would render large numbers of persons destitute, especially in the towns, and would thereby expose them to moral dangers and temptation.

The organs and instruments of administration for the protection of married women in factory and quasi-factory work, would be the same as for all other branches of protection of employment of women and young workers.

Prohibition of factory work for married women is advocated in the most decisive manner by Jules Simon, von Ketteler, and Hitze. Even the chief objection to such protection – the danger of the diminution of worker’s earnings, tempting them to seek immoral means of livelihood – is combated in the most remarkable and convincing manner by Hitze. This worthy Catholic writer meets the consideration of the loss of the factory earnings of women, with the counter-considerations of the depression of wage caused by the competition of female labour, and of the waste of money at public houses and on luxuries that takes place in such families as are left without a housewife or mother. We must be ready to make great sacrifices in the attainment of so great an object, for no less important a matter is at stake than the restoration of the family life of the whole body of factory labourers.

Only we must be under no delusion as to the difficulties of the immediate and complete enforcement of the prohibition. The adaptation of motor-machinery to use in the house, enabling the wage-earner to remain at home, might perhaps render it practically possible to carry out the prohibition in question.

It would also be necessary that the measures taken should be internationally uniform, so that separate national branches of industry might not suffer. A practical solution of the problem can only be arrived at after a careful collection of international statistics as to the married women and mothers employed in factory and quasi-factory work. Here especially, if in any department of Labour Protection, does the State require the support of the influence of the Churches, and of the organised, simultaneous, international agitation of the Churches in furtherance of this object. Whoever reads the above-mentioned writings —Hitze’s pamphlet gives extracts from the powerful writings of Jules Simon and von Ketteler – will derive therefrom some hope of the final success of Labour Protection in one of its most important future tasks. In the present situation of affairs I know of nothing which can shake the validity of Hitze’s conclusions.

In the meantime, restriction of employment of all female factory labour to 10 hours, as proposed by the commission appointed by the German Reichstag (see below), must be welcomed as an important step in advance. Hitze remarks: “The first condition of all social reform is the establishment of family life on a sound and secure basis. But how is this possible, so long as thousands of married women are working daily in factories for 11 and 12 hours, and are absent from their homes for still longer? Can domestic happiness and contentment flourish under such circumstances? And is the danger any less because concentrated in defined districts? For example, in the inspectoral district of Bautzen, in 1884, nearly 5,000 women were drawn away from their family life by factory work. No extended mid-day interval is granted to married women, so far as information on this point is to be obtained. Is it merely accidental that wherever employment of children is customary, there also the work of the mothers is more frequent? And must not the man’s earnings be lessened if the wife and child are allowed to compete with him? And is it merely accidental that Saxony, which is precisely the place where female and child labour is most largely employed, should also be the special haunt and stronghold of Social Democracy? Have we any right to reproach the Social Democrats with causing the destruction of family life, if we show ourselves indifferent to the actual loosening of family ties through the regular and excessive work in factories of housewives and mothers? Ought we to delay any longer in appealing to legislation, when the dangers are so pressing? What will become of the youth and future of our people if such conditions become normal? And in fact, unless legislation interferes, the number of factory women and of factory children will increase, not decrease. What a prospect!”

Separation of the sexes in the workrooms wherever possible, special rooms for meals and dressing, and provision for education in housewifery, are measures which are all the more urgent, if we grant the impossibility of altogether excluding women from factory work. This further protection is above all necessary for girls.

Whilst prohibition of factory work for wives and mothers is of the first importance for the protection of family life, exemption from work during the period immediately succeeding child-birth of all women engaged in factory and quasi-factory employments, is a measure that is necessary for the health of the mother and the nurture of the newly-born.

The exclusion of pregnant women from certain occupations is another important question; the Confederate Factory Act leaves this in the power of the Bundesrath.

Prohibition of the employment of nursing mothers in factories is a measure that has long received recognition in some countries, and lately it has become general.

The resolutions of the Berlin Conference demand that the protection should cover a period of 4 weeks; Switzerland already grants protection for 8 weeks, a period which is recommended in Germany by the Auer Motion; the von Berlepsch Bill proposes 4 weeks (instead of 3 weeks as hitherto appointed by the Imp. Ind. Code); the Reichstag Commission proposed 6 weeks, and this will probably be the period adopted.

If it were necessary to enforce exemption from work after childbirth for all women engaged in industrial wage-labour, even this would scarcely be found to be attended with insuperable difficulties.

The Auer Motion on this point receives no notice in the von Berlepsch Bill.

It would be preferable in itself for such exemption to become general even for factory women, without special protective intervention from the State. But under the existing moral and social conditions legal prohibition of employment can hardly be dispensed with.

The measure may be carried out by the help of the official birth-list, or of a special factory list of nursing mothers. The industrial inspector will not be able to do without the help of the workers themselves.

The economic difficulties of the question are partly met in Germany by the existing agency of Insurance against sickness for all factory workers, which grants assistance during the period of lying-in, as during sickness. The means of help provided by the family and the club have to supply the additional assistance necessary for the nursing period.

The granting of state assistance to women during the lying-in period, without which exemption from work would be a questionable benefit, is vigorously opposed by some on grounds of morality as likely to promote the increase of illegitimate births, and by others from the point of view of the population question.

The question was brought before the German Reichstag, on the representation of Saxony, in 1886. Petitions from twenty-one district sick clubs in the chief district of Zwickau demanded the withdrawal of the legal three weeks assistance of unmarried women after childbirth, on the ground that this was calculated to promote an increase in the number of illegitimate births. The petitions were accompanied by statistics of each club showing that the funds were actually called in to assist more unmarried than married women. No information however was given as to the proportion between married and unmarried women members of the club, an omission which rendered the statistics worthless. Moreover the conditions existing in Zwickau are hardly typical of German industry as a whole.

A general collection and examination of statistics of sick funds must be made, and possibly the necessary information may be obtained by comparison of the numbers of births during the periods before and since the introduction of Insurance against sickness, and especially in such districts as had no free clubs, before the introduction of Insurance, for the assistance of women after child-birth.

Probably it will be found that the increase in the number of illegitimate births is not due to the assistance granted after child-birth by the official sick fund, if we take into consideration that in the district mentioned the assistance granted during the three weeks only amounted to from 7 to 12 marks, generally to less than 10 marks. “If,” says Hitze, “the meagre sum of the assistance granted could lead to an increase of illegitimate births, this fact would be more shocking than the number itself.” I take it that the root of the evil lies, not in the lying-in-fund, but in the destruction of family life and sexual morality by the employment of women in factories.

This prohibition is claimed in the interests of family life, of morality, and of the care of the weaker portion of the working class.

The enforcement of this prohibition comes within the province of the police in the mining districts, and of the industrial inspectorate.

But it is probably best that it should be legally formulated.

The extension of the prohibition to all women is recommended generally in the resolutions of the Berlin Conference, and the work has already been commenced in the von Berlepsch Bill.

The enforcement of the measure will meet with some difficulties in the mines of Upper Silesia, but it will also remedy serious evils.

The force of public opinion is insufficient to prevent the employment of women in work underground. The very necessary demand for prohibition of employment of women in work on high buildings, follows on the prohibition of their employment underground. Such employment is almost completely excluded by custom.