History of Labour Law - Continental Europe - France

France

Hours of labour were, in France, first limited in factories (usines et manufactures) for adults by the law of the 9th of September 1848 to 12 in the 24. Much uncertainty existed as to the class of workplaces covered. Finally, in 1885, an authoritative decision defined them as including: (I) Industrial establishments with motor power or continual furnaces, (2) workshops employing over 20 workers. In 1851, under condition of notification to the local authorities, exceptions, still in force, were made to the general limitation, in favour of certain industries or processes, among others for letterpress and lithographic printing, engineering works, work at furnaces and in heating workshops, manufacture of projectiles of war, and any work for the government in the interests of national defence or security. The limit of 12 hours was reduced, as regards works in which women or young workers are employed, in 1900 to II, and was to be successively reduced to 102 hours and to hours at intervals of two years from April 1900. This labour law for adults was preceded in 1841 by one for children, which prevented their employment in factories before 8 years of age and prohibited night labour for any child under 13. This was strengthened in 1874, particularly as regards employment of girls under 21, but it was not until 1892 that the labour of women was specially regulated by a law, still in force, with certain amendments in 1900. Under this law factory and workshop labour is prohibited for children under 13 years, though they may begin at 12 if qualified by the prescribed educational certificate and medical certificate of fitness. The limit of daily hours of employment is the same as for adult labour, and, similarly, from the 1st of April 1902 was 102, and two years later became io hours in the 24. Notice of the hours must be affixed, and meal-times or pauses with absolute cessation of work of at least one hour must be specified. By the act of 1892 one day in the week, not necessarily Sunday, had to be given for entire absence from work, in addition to eight recognized annual holidays, but this was modified by a law of 1906 which generally requires Sunday rest, but allows substitution of another day in certain industries and certain circumstances. Night labour - work between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. - is prohibited for workers under 18, and only exceptionally permitted, under conditions, for girls and women over 18 in specified trades. In mines and underground quarries employment of women and girls is prohibited except at surface works, and at the latter is subject to the same limits as in factories. Boys of 13 may be employed in certain work underground, but under 16 may not be employed more than 8 hours in the 24 from bank to bank. A law of 1905 provided for miners a 9 hours' day and in 1907 an 8 hours' day from the foot of the entrance gallery back to the same point.

As in Great Britain, distinct services of inspection enforce the law in factories and mines respectively. In factories and workshops an inspector may order re-examination as to physical fitness for the work imposed of any worker under 16; certain occupations and processes are prohibited - e.g. girls under 16 at machines worked by treadles, and the weights that may be lifted, pushed or carried by girls or boys under 18 are carefully specified. The law applies generally to philanthropic and religious institutions where industrial work is carried on, as in ordinary trading establishments; and this holds good even if the work is by way of technical instruction. Domestic workshops are not controlled unless the industry is classed as dangerous or unhealthy; introduction of motor power brings them under inspection. General sanitation in industrial establishments is provided for in a law of 1893, amended in 1903, and is supplemented by administrative regulations for special risks due to poisons, dust, explosive substances, gases, fumes, &c. Ventilation, both general and special, lighting, provision of lavatories, cloakrooms, good drinking water, drainage and cleanliness are required in all workplaces, shops, warehouses, restaurant kitchens, and where workers are lodged by their employers hygienic conditions are prescribed for dormitories. In many industries women, children and young workers are either absolutely excluded from specified unhealthy processes, or are admitted only under conditions. As regards shops and offices, the labour laws are: one which protects apprentices against overwork (law of 22 February 1851), one (law of 29 December 1900) which requires that seats shall be provided for women and girls employed in retail sale of articles, and a decree of the 28th of July 1904 defining in detail conditions of hygiene in dormitories for workmen and shop assistants. The law relating to seats is enforced by the inspectors of factories. In France there is no special penal legislation against abuses of the truck system, or excessive fines and deductions from wages, although bills with that end in view have frequently been before parliament. Indirect protection to workers is no doubt in many cases afforded in organized industries by the action of the Conseils de Prud'hommes. Belgium. - In 1848 in Belgium the Commission on Labour proposed legislation to limit, as in France, the hours of labour for adults, but this proposal was never passed. Belgian regulation of labour in industry remains essentially, in harmony with its earliest beginnings in 1863 and onwards, a series of specialized provisions to meet particular risks of individual trades, and did not, until 1889, give any adherence to a common principle of limitation of hours and times of labour for " protected " persons. This was in the law of the 13th of December 1889, which applies to mines, quarries, factories, workshops classed as unhealthy, wharves and docks, transports. As in France, industrial establishments having a charitable or philanthropic or educational character are included. The persons protected are girls and women under 21 years, and boys under 16; and women over 21 only find a place in the law through the prohibition of their employment within four weeks after childbirth. As the hours of labour of adult women remain ordinarily unlimited by law, so are the hours of boys from 16 to 21. The law of Sunday rest dated the 17th of July 1905, however, applies to labour generally in all industrial and commercial undertakings except transport and fisheries, with certain regulated exceptions for (a) cases of breakdown or urgency due to force majeure, (b) certain repairs and cleaning, (c) perishable materials, (d) retail food supply. Young workers are excluded from the exceptions. The absolute prohibitions of employment are: for children under 12 years in any industry, manufacturing or mining or transport, and for women and girls under 21 years below the surface in working of mines. Boys under. 16 years and women and girls under 21 years may in general not be employed before 5 A.M. or after 9 P.M., and one day in the seven is to be set apart for rest from employment; to these rules exception may be made either by royal decree for classes or groups of processes, or by local authorities in exceptional cases. The exceptions may be applied, generally, only to workers over 14 years, but in mines, by royal decree, boys over 12 years may be employed from 4 A.M. The law of 1889 fixes only a maximum of 12 hours of effective work, to be interrupted by pauses for rest of not less than 12 hours, empowering the king by decree to formulate more precise limits suited to the special circumstances of individual industries. Royal decrees have accordingly laid down the conditions for many groups, including textile trades, manufacture of paper, pottery, glass, clothing, mines, quarries, engineering and printing works. In some the daily limit is 10 hours, but in more 102 or I I hours. In a few exceptionally unhealthy trades, such as the manufacture of lucifer matches, vulcanization of india-rubber by means of carbcn bi-sulphide, the age of exclusion from employment has been raised, and in the last-named process hours have been reduced to 5, broken into two spells of 21. hours each. As a rule the conditions of health and safeguarding of employments in exceptionally injurious trades have been sought by a series of decrees under the law of 1863 relating to public health in such industries. Special regulations for safety of workers have been introduced in manufactures of white-lead, oxides of lead, chromate of lead, lucifer match works, rag and shoddy works; and for dangers common to many industries, provisions against dust, poisons, accidents and other risks to health or limb have been codified in a decree of 1896. A royal decree of the 31st of March 1903 prohibits employment of persons under 16 years in fur-pulling and in carotting of rabbit skins, and another of the 13th of May 1905 regulates use of lead in house-painting. In 1898 a law was passed to enable the authorities to deal with risks in quarries under the same procedure. Safety in mines (which are not private property, but state concessions to be worked under strict state control) has been provided for since 1810. In matters of hygiene, until 1899 the powers of the public health authorities to intervene were insufficient, and a law was passed authorizing the government to make regulations for every kind of risk in any undertaking, whether classed under the law of public health or not. By a special law of 1888 children and young persons under 18 years are excluded from employment as pedlars, hawkers or in circuses, except by their parents, and then only if they have attained 14 years. Abuses of the truck system have, since 1887, been regulated with care. The chief objects of the law of 1887 were to secure payment in full to all workers, other than those in agriculture or domestic service, of wages in legal tender, to prohibit payment of wages in public-houses, and to secure prompt payment of wages. Certain deductions were permitted under careful control for specific customary objects: lodging, use of land, uniforms, food, firing. A royal order of the Loth of October 1903 required use of automatic indicators for estimating wages in certain cases in textile processes. The law of the 15th of June 1896 regulates the affixing in workplaces, where at least five workers are employed, of a notice of the working rules, the nature and rate of fines, if any, and the mode of their application. Two central services the mines inspectorate and the factory and workshop inspectorate, divide the duties above indicated. There is also a system of local administration of the regulations relating to industries classed as unhealthy, but the tendency has been to give the supreme control in these matters to the factory service, with its expert staff.