The Factory Bill and Overtime There will be a general
welcome for- the main provisions of the new Factory Bill. It is a measure of 152 clauses, the first important. price of factory legislation since 1901. It abolishes obsolete classification of factories into textile and non-textile, and the distinctiOn between faCtories and workshops, and improves and strengthens measures designed to protect the health and safety of the worker. But its most important clauses are those which establish a nine-hour day for women and young persons, and a 48-hour working week ; this is the first great step forward in the regulation of factory hours by Parliament since 1847. But the Ten-Hour Act, passed then is not fully applied even today ; it is still legal, uncivilised though such conditions are, to employ women and young persons up to 101 hours a day. Factory Acts are notoriously hard to apply and easy to evade ; and it is to be feared that the provisions regulating overtime in the Government's Bill are such as to weaken the Bill seriously. Thus it will still be possible to employ women and young persons, during 30 weeks of the year, one hour a day overtime, with a maximum of 100, and in some trades 150, hours overtime a year. These excep- tions, if allowed to stand, will seriously damage the general effect of a necessary and progressive Bill,
Previous page
