Читать книгу The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection - Germany. Laws statutes etc. - Страница 5

In the first chapter we learnt to recognise the special character of Labour Protection in the strict sense of the term. We must further learn what is its actual aim and scope.

Labour Protection strictly so called, represents presumably the sum total of all those special measures of protection, which exist side by side with free self-help and mutual help, and with the ordinary state protection extended to all citizens, and to labourers among the rest. And such it really proves to be on examination of the present conditions and already observable tendencies of Labour Protection.

We shall only arrive at a clear and exhaustive theory and policy of Labour Protection both as a whole and in detail by examining separately and collectively all the phenomena of Labour Protection.

This will necessitate in the first place a comprehensive survey of the existing conditions of Labour Protection, and to this end a regular arrangement of the different forms which it takes.

In sketching such a survey we have to make a threefold division of the subject; first, the scope of Labour Protection, in the strict sense of the term; secondly, the various legislative methods of Labour Protection; and thirdly, the organisation of Labour Protection (as regards courts of administration, and their methods and course of procedure). In considering the scope of Labour Protection we have to examine the special measures adopted to meet the several dangers to which industrial wage-labour is exposed.

The following survey shows the actual field of labour protective legislation, as well as the wider extension which it is sought to give thereto.

I. Scope of Labour Protection

A. Protection against material dangers.

1. Protection of employment; and this of two kinds, viz.: —

(i.) Restriction of employment;

(ii.) Prohibition of employment.

a. Protection of working-time with regard to the maximum duration of labour:

General maximum working-day.

Factory maximum working-day (unrestricted in the case of adults – restricted in the case of “juvenile workers” and women).

b. Protection of intervals of rest:

Protection of daily intervals – of night-work – of holidays – Sundays and festivals.

2. Protection during work:

Against dangers to life, health, and morals, and against neglect of teaching and instruction, incurred in course of work.

3. Protection in personal intercourse: —

In the personal and industrial relations existing between the dependent worker and the employer and his people (truck-protection).

B. Protection of the status of the workman (protection in the making and fulfilment of agreements) which may also be called:

Protection of agreement, or contract-protection.

1. Protection on entering into agreements of service, and throughout the duration of the contract:

Protection in terms of agreement and dismissal,

Protection against loss of character.

2. Regulation of admissible conditions of contract, and of legal extensions of contract.

3. Protection in the fulfilment of conditions after the completion of service agreements.

II. Various Legislative Methods of Labour Protection

Compulsory legal protection – protection by the optional adoption of regulations.

Regulation under the code – regulation by special enactment.

III. Organisation of Labour Protection

1. Courts by which it is administered:

A. Protection by the ordinary administrative bodies —

Police,

Magistrates,

Church and School authorities,

Military and Naval authorities.

B. Protection by specially constituted bodies,

1. Governmental:

a. Administrative:

Industrial Inspectorates (including mining experts),

“Labour-Boards,”

Special organs: local, district, provincial, and imperial;

b. Judicial:

Judicial Courts,

Courts of Arbitration.

2. Representative: (trade-organisations):

“Labour-Chambers,”

“Labour Councillors,”

Councils composed of the oldest representatives of the trade,

Labour-councils: local, district, provincial, and imperial.

II. Methods of Administration and Administrative Records

a. Methods:

Hearing of Special Appeals,

Granting periods of exemption,

Fixing of times,

Regulating of fines,

Application of money collected in fines, etc.

b. Records:

Factory-regulations,

Certificates of health,

Factory-list of children employed,

Official overtime list,

Labour log-book,

Inspector’s report (with compulsory-publication and international exchange),

International collection of statistics and information relating to protective legislation and industrial regulations.

The foregoing survey may be held to contain all that is included under Labour Protection, actual or proposed. But of the measures included within these limits not all are as yet in operation; and the actual conditions are different in the various countries.

With regard to the scope of protection, those measures affecting married women, home-industrial work, work in trade and carrying industries, are still specially incomplete.

With regard to the organs of administration of Labour Protection, one kind, viz. the representative, has at present no existence except in the many proposals and suggestions made as to them; this however does not preclude the possibility that in the course of a generation or so a rich crop of such organs may spring up. It is not improbable that special representative bodies (“labour-councils”) – after the pattern of chambers of commerce and railway-boards, etc. – and “labour-boards” may develop and form a complete network over the country. Perhaps the separate representative and executive organs may be able to amalgamate the various branches of aids to labour, forming separate sections for Labour Protection, Labour Insurance, industrial hygiene and statistics, with equal representation of the administrative, judicial, technical and statistical elements; and thus the ordinary administration service may be freed from the burden of the special services which a constructive social policy demands.

Again, the organisation of protection is not by any means the same everywhere.

According to the foregoing classification (III. 1), the duties of carrying out Labour Protection are divided between the ordinary and extraordinary judicial and administrative authorities. The arrangements, however, are very different in different countries. Such countries as have not a complete system of authorised administrative boards and petty courts of justice, will avail themselves more freely of the special organs, particularly of the industrial inspectors, than will those countries with administrative systems like those of Germany and Austria; in comparing the spheres of operation of inspectors in various countries, one must not overlook the differences in the action of the ordinary administrative organs. Moreover, all civilized countries already possess special organs of protection, and it follows in the natural course of development of all administrative organisation, that the special administrative and judicial legislation which is springing up and increasing should possess special judicial and administrative courts, so soon as need for such may arise from the necessity for a wider application of special law in the life of the citizen.

Finally, we must guard against a further misconception. Neither labour-boards nor labour-chambers must be confounded with those voluntary representative class organisations, and joint committees in which both classes meet together for Labour Protection, and for objects quite outside the sphere of Labour Protection. The labour-boards indicated would be special organs of a public nature, regulated by the State; labour-chambers would also be organs recognised and regulated by the State, working in consultation with the labour-boards, and exercising control over the labour-boards. The voluntary organs of association, on the other hand, with their secretaries and joint committees, are free representative, executive, and arbitrative organs of both classes. A distinction must be drawn between the public and voluntary organs. It is of course not impossible in all cases that the free “labour-chambers,” in their ordinary and special meetings might exercise extraordinary powers, besides acting as regular and general organs of conciliation and arbitration. The Unions and other trade organisations of to-day can in their present form hardly be regarded as the last word in the history of labour organisation.

In the second chapter we had to guard against the error of looking on Labour Protection merely as factory protection, and protection of women and juvenile workers; we must with equal insistence draw attention to the fact that Labour Protection is not confined in its scope to protection of employment, or in its organisation to the machinery of industrial inspection. This will be shown in Chapters IV. to VIII.

The foregoing survey of the existing conditions and tendencies of Labour Protection makes it clear that Labour Protection in scope, legislative methods, and organisation, is only a means of supplementing and supporting in a special manner the already long established forms of State protection of labour (in the widest sense), and the still older forms of non-governmental Labour Protection (in its widest sense) the necessity for which arises from the special modern developments of industry.

Labour Protection equally with compulsory insurance, from which it is however quite distinct, does not preclude the voluntary efforts which are made in addition to legal measures, nor the help rendered by savings-banks, by private liberality and benevolence, by family help, and by various municipal and state charitable institutions; and it does not render unnecessary the exercise of the ordinary administration, and the co-operation of the latter in the work of establishing security of labour. The general impression derived from a study of this survey will be confirmed if we further examine into the scope, legislative methods, and organisation of the separate measures of Labour Protection, in addition to the classification of industrial wage-labour, as dealt with by protective legislation, which I attempted in Chapter II., and if we bear in mind the great differences in the degree of protection extended to the separate classes of protected workers.