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to workers is sometimes fixed and in many cases the law specifies that employers must permit the use of the seats when work will not thereby be interfered with.1 These laws are of little real importance in protecting health, however, since it is practically impossible to see that employers and foremen allow the seats to be used even when provided."

Nearly all the states likewise require sanitary and separate toilets for women workers in addition to those for men, and about a third make provision for women's dressing-rooms. These provisions form a very important factor in maintaining the health and morals of women workers in any establishment; the character of the employment frequently makes necessary a change from street clothes to work clothes, and it is also highly desirable that a suitable place be provided where women and girls may eat lunch, secure a little rest at the noon period, and retire in case of illness.

For the lead industries, especially, careful wash-room standards have been worked out, specifying hot and cold water, a definite ratio of basins or of trough length to the number of employees, soap, nail-brushes, and towels. In the best lead laws, also, such as those of New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, hot and cold shower-baths are required, to be used at least twice a week on the employer's time, and to insure the use of the baths a bath register must be kept. A few states require a sufficient supply of pure drinking-water to be kept in a readily accessible place. Sometimes, especially in connection with foundries and casting-rooms, the lead trades and compressed-air work, the dressing-rooms must be properly heated and ventilated, and often supplied with lockers and with facilities for drying clothes.

e. Protection from Infectious Disease. Modern industrial processes subject large numbers of employees not only to dangerous dusts and vapors, but also to a variety of diseasebreeding organisms, carried either by fellow-workmen or by the materials worked upon. As a protection against such infection a number of legal regulations have been adopted.

1 See Kentucky, Laws 1912, C. 77, Sec. 3, for both such provisions. 2 A law of this class which plainly defeats its own intent is the Delaware statute of 1913 (C. 176) which provides that no girl under eighteen may work in any employment which "compels her to remain standing constantly, unless seats are provided."

Several states, for example, forbid sleeping in workrooms, some require cuspidors to be furnished and to be cleaned and disinfected daily. Massachusetts in 1913 required that cloths or other material provided for cleaning printing-presses must be sanitary,' and a California law of the same year laid down the rule that all wiping-rags must be sterilized.' In every industrial state hundreds of cases of infection or "blood-poisoning" occur yearly, and about six out of every seven of these are the result of small scratches. The requirement now found in some states for a first-aid kit in factories, workshops, and mercantile establishments should assist in reducing this needless danger.

Prominent among the infectious diseases of industry is anthrax, which arises in the handling of infected hides or hair. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy have all turned their attention to eradicating this malignant malady, but the United States remains inactive. The commonest legal safeguards are provisions for thorough washing. for overalls, neck-coverings, and gloves, and for treating instantly scratches and slight wounds which offer an entrance to the bacillus. Disinfection of bristles and bales of hair from suspected localities before any work is done on them is insisted on in some countries.

f. Tenement House Manufacture. Difficult as are the problems connected with the regulation of labor conditions in factories, they are not more troublesome than those encountered in the regulation of tenement workshops, where the work is done by the family group in its customary livingquarters.

Tenement house manufacture is often looked upon as a pleasant and easy method whereby the mothers of the poor may add to the family income in their leisure moments. The fact is that such work has usually proven a menace to health, to wage standards, and to the existing labor laws. Congestion, insanitary quarters, lack of restriction on child labor, absolutely unregulated hours, and miserable pay combine to create a condition which endangers the lives not only of the workers, but of the purchasers of their product. Often tene

1 Massachusetts, Laws 1913, C. 472. 2 California, Laws 1913, C. 81.

ment dwellers have been found at work on garments and articles of food while suffering from contagious diseases.1

As early as 1885 New York sought to end the "sweating" or tenement workshop system by prohibiting the manufacture of cigars and other tobacco products in tenement houses in cities of the first class. The law was declared unconstitutional, the court holding it an abuse of the police power and an infringement of the cigar-maker's liberties in that it sought to force him "from his home and its hallowed associations and beneficent influences, to ply his trade elsewhere.' Had this pioneer statute been sustained, the entire problem of tenement house labor might have been disposed of almost at its beginning.

"2

The setback in the Jacobs case radically changed the method of attack on the sweating system. Prohibition having been declared invalid, for three decades nearly all effort was directed toward regulation and the imposing of minor restrictions through a licensing system. In 1891 Massachusetts passed "An act to prevent the manufacture and sale of clothing made in unhealthy places," and the following year New York inserted in its newly codified labor law a provision for the licensing and regulation of tenement workshops. Similar provisions now exist in about a dozen states.3

These statutes ordinarily require that home work on garments, foodstuffs, and tobacco must be done only in rooms licensed by the factory inspection department. Only members of the immediate family, which is carefully defined, may be employed, and licenses may be issued only if fire-escape, toilet, and all other health and safety laws have been complied with. In case of disease, work must cease until the board of health has declared the illness at an end and has fumigated the apartment. A register must be kept of names and addresses of persons taking out work, and goods given

1 See Second Report of the New York State Factory Investigating_Commission, "Manufacturing in Tenements," Vol. I, pp. 90-123; Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, Vol. II, "Men's Ready-Made Clothing."

2 In re Jacobs, 98 N. Y. 98 (1885).

In 1915: Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

out must be labeled with the name and address of the manufacturer. Licenses are revokable for failure to comply with the law, or, in some of the newer acts, "if the health of the community or of the persons employed thereunder requires it."1

The results of attempted regulation under even the best of these laws have, however, never been satisfactory. On February 1, 1915, for instance, there were almost 13,000 licensed tenements in New York City alone, and over 500 in the rest of the state. As the working day of a factory inspector is eight hours long, it would require three inspectors to each tenement, or an army of over 40,000 in all, to set a continuous day and night watch upon these dwellings to see that no violations of the law were going on; and this estimate takes no account of the fact that home work is covertly carried on in unlicensed as well as in licensed houses. "After twenty-one years," declare those who have long been sympathetic observers of this legislation, "the difficulties of inspection have been proved insuperable." "

3

In 1913, therefore, after the able investigations of the state factory investigating commission, New York once more returned to the prohibitory method in dealing with this question, and forbade work in tenement homes on food products, dolls or dolls' clothing, and children's or infants' wearing-apparel. The prohibition covered both work done directly for a factory and indirectly through a contractor, and was applied to these articles first because of their close relation to public health, especially the health of children. There is little doubt that in the present state of public knowledge these restrictions will be followed by others.

(2) Mines and Tunnels

Underground work of any sort obviously subjects the workman to greater dangers, both as to health and to safety, than

1 See, for instance, Maryland, Laws 1914, C. 779, Sec. 248.

2 Constitutional Amendments Relating to Labor Legislation and Brief in Their Defense, submitted to the Constitutional Convention of New York State, June 9, 1915, by a committee organized by the American Association for Labor Legislation, p. 51.

New York, Laws 1913, C. 260.

do most of the manufacturing industries. Distance beneath the surface, artificial light, poisonous gases, explosive dusts, dampness, intestinal parasites, extreme heat, and in some kinds of work abnormal air pressure amounting often to several atmospheres, all contribute to render underground occupations extraordinarily hazardous. It is for this reason that the validity of hour legislation for adult men has become thoroughly established in the mining industry, although in many other lines of work such restrictions are still subject to attack on the score of unconstitutionality.

a. Mining. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that mining furnishes a higher fatal accident rate than any of the other main groups of industry. Metal-mining has a higher death-rate than coal-mining, and employment in anthracite coal mines is more dangerous than in bituminous mines, since the former are deeper and more subject to accumulations of noxious and explosive gases.

Coal-mining appears to be more dangerous in America than in any other country. Standing second with regard to numbers employed, the United States leads all other important coal-producing countries both in total number and in rate of fatal accidents. During the ten years ending with 1910 the average fatal accident-rate per 1,000 employed in coalmining was 3.74 for the United States, 2.92 for Japan, 2.11 for Germany, 1.69 for France, 1.36 for Great Britain, 1.04 for Austria, and 1.02 for Belgium.1

Health dangers and occupational diseases among miners have been given much less legislative attention than has the subject of accidents. Accidents are usually more spectacular, their causes are more certain and more easily located, and, moreover, an employer may be held in damages for accidental injuries to mine workmen, while only two American states have provided compensation for occupational diseases." Among the more important legal provisions for safeguarding the life and health of miners are the requirements for detailed

United States Bureau of Mines, Bulletin No. 69, "Coal-Mine Accidents in the United States and Foreign Countries," Frederick W. Horton, p. 87. For a further discussion of this subject see Chapter VIII, "Social Insurance."

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