limit, takes such a shape in various British industries that the low price of labour during the so-called normal time compels the labourer to work during the better paid over-time, if he wishes to obtain a sufficient wage at all.[1] Legal limitation of the working-day puts an end to these amenities.[2]
It is a fact generally known that, the longer the working-days, in any branch of industry, the lower are the wages.[3] A. Redgrave, factory-inspector, illustrates this by a comparative review of the 20 years from 1839-1859, according to which wages rose in the factories under the 10 hours’ law, whilst they fell in the factories in which the work lasted 14 to 15 hours daily.[4]
From the law: “the price of labour being given, the daily or weekly wage depends on the quantity of labour expended,” it follows, first of all, that, the lower the price of labour, the greater must be the quantity of labour, or the longer must be
- ↑ E.g., in the Scotch bleaching-works, “In some parts of Scotland this trade [before the introduction of the Factory Act in 1862] was carried on by a system of overtime, i.e., ten hours a day were the regular hours of work, for which a nominal wage of 1s. 2d. per day was paid to a man, there being every day overtime for three or four hours, paid at the rate of 3d. per hour. The effect of this system … a man could not earn more than 8s. per week when working the ordinary hours … without overtime they could not earn a fair day’s wages.” (“Rept. of Insp. of Factories,” April 30th, 1863, p. 10.) “The higher wages, for getting adult males to work longer hours, are a temptation too strong to be resisted.” (“Rept. of Insp. of Fact.,” April 30th, 1848, p. 5.) The bookbinding trade in the city of London employs very many young girls from 14 to 16 years old, and that under indentures which prescribe certain definite hours of labour. Nevertheless, they work in the last week of each month until 10, 11, 12, or 1 o’clock at night, along with the older labourers, in a very mixed company. “The masters tempt them by extra pay and supper,” which they eat in neighboring public-houses. The great dehauehery thus produced among these ‘young immortals’ (“Children’s Employment Comm., V. Rept.,” p. 44, n. 191) is compensated by the fact that among the rest many Bibles and religious hooks are bound by them.
- ↑ See “Reports of Insp. of Fact.,” 30th April, 1863, 1. With very accurate appreciation of the state of things, the London labourers employed in the building trades declared, during the great strike and lockout of 1860, that they would only accept wages by the hour under two conditions (1) that, with the price of the working-hour, a normal working-day of 9 and 10 hours respectively should ke fixed, and that the price of the hour for the 10 hours’ working-day should he higher than that for the hour of the 9 hours’ working-day; (2) that every hour beyond the normal working-day should he reckoned as overtime and proportionally more highly paid.
- ↑ "It is a very notable thing, too, that where long hours are the rule, small wages are also so.” (“Report of Insp. of Fact.,” 31st Oct., 1863, p. 9) “The work which obtains the scanty pittance of food, is, for the most part, excessively prolonged.” (“Public Health, Sixth Report,” 1864, p. 15.)
- ↑ “Reports of Inspectors of Fact.,” 30th April, 1860, pp. 31, 32.
