The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection

4. Section 147 (1) 4 shall contain the following clause:

4. Any person who acts in contravention of the final orders issued on the grounds of § 120d, or of enactments issued on the grounds of § 120e;

5. After § 147 (1) 4, shall be inserted:

5. Any person who conducts a factory, in which there are no working rules, or who neglects to obey the final order of the court as to the substitution or alteration of the working rules.

6. Section 147 shall contain at the close the following new sub-section.

In the case of No. 4, the police magistrate may, pending the settlement of affairs by order or enactment, order suspension of the business, in case the continuance of the same would be likely to entail serious disadvantages or dangers.

7. Section 148 shall contain the following extensions:

11. Any person who, contrary to the provision of § 134c (2), imposes such fines on the workers as are not prescribed in the working rules, or such as exceed the legally permissible amount, or any person who appropriates the proceeds of fines or the sums specified in § 134b 5, in a manner not prescribed in the working rules;

12. Any person who neglects to fulfil the obligations imposed upon him by §§ 134e (1), and 134g;

13. Any person who acts in contravention of § 115a, or of the statutory provisions laid down on the grounds of § 119a.

8. Section 149 (1) 7 shall contain the following clause:

7. Any person who neglects to fulfil the obligations imposed upon him by §§ 105c (2), 134e (2), 138, 138a (5), 139b;

9. Section 150(2) shall contain the following clause:

2. Any person who, except in the case prescribed in § 146 (3), acts in contravention of the provisions of this Act with respect to the work register;

10. Section 150 shall contain the following extensions:

4. Any person who acts in contravention of the provisions of § 120 (1), or of the statutory provisions laid down in accordance with § 120 (3);

5. Any person who neglects to fulfil the obligations imposed upon him by § 134c (3).

Common law enactments against neglect of school duties, on which a higher fine is imposed, shall not be affected by the provision of No. 4.

11. Section 151 (1) shall contain the following clause:

If in the exercise of a trade, police orders are infringed by persons appointed by the director of the industrial enterprise, to conduct the business or a department of the same, or to superintend the same, the fine shall be imposed upon the latter. The director of the industrial enterprise shall likewise be liable to a fine if the infringement has taken place with his knowledge, or if he has neglected to take the necessary care in providing for suitable inspection of the business, or in choosing and supervising the manager or overseers.

Article VII

The following provisions shall be substituted for § 154 of the Industrial Code:

§ 154

The provisions of §§ 105 to 133c shall not apply to assistants and apprentices in the business of apothecaries; the provisions of §§ 105, 106 to 119b, 120a to 133e, shall not apply to assistants and apprentices in trading business.

– The provisions of §§ 105 to 133e shall apply to employers and workers in smelting-houses, timber-yards, and other building yards, in dockyards, and in such brick and tile kilns, and such mines and quarries worked above ground, as are not merely temporary, or on a small scale. The final decision as to whether the establishment is to be accounted as temporary, or on a small scale, shall rest with the higher court of administration.

– The provisions of §§ 135 to 139b shall apply to employers and workers in workshops, in which power machinery (worked by steam, wind, water, gas, air, electricity, etc.), is employed, not merely temporarily, with the provision that in certain kinds of businesses the Bundesrath may remit exceptions to the provisions laid down in §§ 135 (2), (3), 136, 137 (1) to (3), and 138.

– The provisions of §§ 135 to 139b may be extended by Imperial decree, with consent of the Bundesrath, to other workshops and building work. Workshops in which the employers are exclusively members of the family of the employer, do not come under these provisions.

Imperial decrees and provisions for exceptions issued by the Bundesrath, may be issued for certain specified districts. They shall be published in the Imperial Law Gazette, and laid before the Reichstag at the next ensuing session.

§ 154a

The provisions of §§ 115 to 119a, 135 to 139b, 152 and 153 shall apply to owners and workers in mines, salt pits, the preparatory work of mining, and underground mines and quarries.

– Women workers shall not be employed underground in establishments of the aforementioned kind. Infringements of this enactment shall be dealt with under the penal provisions of § 146.

Article VIII

Section 155 of the Industrial Code shall contain the following clauses.

– Where reference is made in this Act to common law, constitutional or legislative enactments are to be understood.

The Central Court of the State of the Bund shall make known what courts in each State of the Bund are to be understood by the expressions: higher court of administration, lower court of administration, borough court, local court, lower court, police court, local police court, and what unions are to be understood by the expression, wider communal unions.

– For such businesses as are subject to Imperial and State administration, the powers and obligations conferred upon the police courts, and higher and lower courts of administration, by §§ 105b (2), 105c (2), 105e, 105f, 115a, 120d, 134e, 134f, 134g, 138 (1), 138a, 139, 139b, may be transferred to special courts appointed for the administration of such businesses.

Article IX

The date on which the provisions of §§ 41a, 55a, 105a to 105f, 105h, 105i and 154 (3) shall come into force, shall be determined by Imperial decree with consent of the Bundesrath. Until such time the legal provisions hitherto obtaining shall remain in force.

The provisions of §§ 120 and 150, 4 shall come into force on Oct. 1, 1891.

– The rest of this Act shall come into force on April 1, 1892.

– The legal provisions hitherto obtaining shall remain in force until April 1, 1894, in the case of such children from 12 to 14 years of age, and young persons between 14 and 16 years of age, as were employed, previous to the proclamation of this Act, in factories or in the Industrial establishments specified in §§ 154 (2) to (4), and 154a.

– In the case of businesses in which, previous to the proclamation of this Act, women workers over 16 years of age, were employed in night work, the Central Provincial Court may empower the further employment in night work of such women workers, in the same numbers as hitherto, until April 1, 1894, at the latest, if in consequence of suspension of night work, the continuation of the business to its former extent would involve an alteration which could not be made sooner without disproportionate expense. Night work shall not exceed in duration 10 hours in the 24, and in every shift intervals must be granted of an aggregate duration of at least one hour. Day and night shifts must alternate weekly.

Delivered under our Imperial hand and seal.

Given at Kiel, on board my yacht Meteor, June 1, 1891.

William.von Caprivi.

1

Protection for the Labourer! Cologne, 1890.

2

A motion brought forward in the German Reichstag in July, 1885, and again in 1890 in the form of an amendment to the Industrial Code, by all the Social Democratic members sitting there; called after Auer, whose name stands alphabetically first on the list of backers. – Ed.

3

For regulating the use of machinery in agriculture. (See the Auer Motion.)

4

The artell system, under which groups of labourers with a chosen leader contract themselves to the various employers in turn, for the performance of special agricultural and other operations.

5

Bill, Art. 6 (new § 154).

6

Cf. Conrad’s Encyclopædia, vol. i. p. 154.

7

I, Ia and 6, Resolutions of the Berlin Conference: “It is desirable that the inferior limit of age, at which children may be admitted to work underground in mines, be gradually raised to 14 years, as experience may prove the possibility of such a course; that for southern countries the limit may be 12 years, and that the employment underground of persons of the female sex be forbidden.”

8

This has so far not yet been done.

9

Auer Motion, § 130.

10

Cf. The Commentary on Dollfuss in Brassey’s Work and Wages.

11

Official records for 1885.

12

The motion of Patterson runs thus: “That, in the opinion of this Congress, it is of the utmost importance that an eight hours day should be secured at once by such trades as may desire it, or for whom it may be made to apply, without injury to the workmen employed in such trades; further, it considers that to relegate this important question to the Imperial Parliament, which is necessarily, from its position, antagonistic to the rights of labour, will only indefinitely delay this much-needed reform.”

13

That is, after the largest portion of it.

14

Concluding speech of the Prussian Minister of Commerce.

15

Proposals VI., Ia-d, and II. Ic is as follows: “All the respective States, following certain rules, for which an understanding will have to be arrived at, will proceed periodically to publish statistical reports with respect to the questions included in the proposals of the Conference.”

16

See Appendix.