Chapter VII: Home-Work

There is perhaps no section of industrial life regarding which so much misconception prevails as out-work, or, as it is popularly called, home-work.

To many persons the name home-work is synonymous with the idyllic term cottage industries, and this again calls up the picture of the model villager in the model village. The clean and tidy widow, so dear to the heart of the philanthropist and of the district visitor, is the favourite type. She dwells in an ivy-clad cottage surrounded by all the accessories of highly picturesque poverty, the kettle sings on her well-burnished hob, and geraniums bloom perennially on her window sill.

How does this picture compare with the grim realities of home-work in our city slums? We shall see from the cases which I quote further on, and which have been revealed by the investigations of the Scottish Council for Women’s Trades, and the Women’s Industrial Council of London.

The reason why the popular conception of home-work has lagged so far behind actual fact is, that this is practically the No Man’s Land of the industrial world. Here treads not the foot of the labour agitator, for the home-workers are composed largely of “casuals”--dreary phantoms, who come and go, whence and whither no man can tell, and no organising secretary of any trade union, however enterprising, would waste time or effort in inducing them to join its ranks. Each worker is a sort of industrial Ishmael, working only for his or her own hand.

Nor has the home-worker been much better off in respect of Government protection. For while the factory and workshop hand has had the conditions of her work regulated by law, the home-worker has been treated as a step-child by the State, and has been left outside the protecting pale of the Factory Acts.

Apart from the points of starvation wages and excessive hours, one of the main facts brought out by recent investigations into home-work is the grave danger to the health of both the worker and the community at large arising from the making of garments, etc., in disease-infected and otherwise insanitary houses, and public opinion has been gradually ripening to the conclusion that legal regulation of some kind is necessary as a protection to public health. Further, it is beginning to be recognised that the application to out-work of the laws that regulate labour in the factory is a perfectly reasonable and logical extension, as out-work, in the modern expression of it, is practically an extension of factory work, or it may be more properly described as its back-wash. Out-workers are employed mainly on the surplusage of the factory orders--the unskilled, poorly paid work that the workshop hand rejects, or that the pressure of a big order prevents her wholly overtaking. The low degree of skill required for the most part, and the consequent low earnings, have their inevitable result in placing this section of the industry in the hands of the very class of workers whose conditions most need supervision and control.

Previous to the passing of the Factory and Workshop Act of 1891, some agitation with respect to the conditions of home-work had begun to make itself felt, and in recognition of this a provision was made in that Act giving the Secretary of State power to require employers to keep lists of all the out-workers they employed. These lists were to be open to the inspection of the Factory Inspector and the Sanitary Inspector. This was carried a step further by the Act of 1895, in which it was decreed that copies of these lists should be sent twice a year to the Factory Inspector. But while the latter may visit the homes of the out-workers, he has no power to remedy any defects he may find there; all he can do is to report insanitary conditions to the Local Sanitary Authority; except, of course, in the case of out-workers who employ others to help them, and whose premises thus become a workshop within the meaning of the Factory and Workshop Acts, and are accordingly subject to their provisions. But these after all form a comparatively limited class; consequently the great majority of out-workers are left entirely outside the scope of these Acts.

The following cases will convey some idea of the actual conditions under which out-work is carried on:--

1. Is the wife of a labourer, who is sick and in the infirmary; works from twelve to sixteen hours per day finishing trousers; is paid 4½d. and 5d. per pair; earns 2s. per day; supplies thread and twist, which cost about 8d. per week; works in a very untidy, dirty kitchen. Has no time to clean up except once a week. Children carry the work to the workshop.

2. Is a widow living alone; finishes trousers; is paid 2¼d. and 2½d. per pair; earns 9½d. per day of nine and ten hours, and provides thread, which costs about 9½d. a week. Her earnings are supplemented by 2s. 6d. a week from the parish.

3. Married woman, husband out of work; finishes shirts; is paid 2½d. per dozen, and earns about 7½d. per day of eighteen hours; supplies thread, which costs about 8d. per week. When work is brisk she can earn 4s. 8d. a week by getting up at three and four in the morning.

4. Is the wife of a bricklayer; she works eight to nine hours a day making matchboxes; is paid 2¼d. per gross, and earns about 1s. 4d. a day. A girl of eight out of school hours helps the mother, who has to supply paste and hemp, which costs about 6d. a week.

5. Is the wife of a porter; works ten to twelve hours a day making matchboxes; earns 1s. 3¾d. per day, and her little boy, who is four years old, helps her by folding the paper after it is pasted over the cardboard.

6. Is a married woman; makes bead trimming; is paid ¾d. to 1¼d. per yard, and earns from 1s. to 1s. 6d. per day, working twelve to fifteen hours. Little boy of eight helps out of school hours.

7. Two girls work at fur-pulling eleven hours a day, and earn about 8s. 6d. per week each. Three girls sleep in workroom in one filthy bed. Elder girl said her chest was bad, but she was accustomed to this.

8. Is the wife of a labourer in irregular employment; finishes shirts, and works from 5 A.M. to 11 P.M.; is paid 2½d. to 5d. per dozen; pays about 1d. out of every 1s. earned for thread. The highest wage she ever earned was 4s. 10d. a week, “working late and early.” The eldest girl does the housework. House in filthy condition; work piled upon the floor.

9. Two single women living together, the daughters of a city missionary deceased; work about ten hours a day finishing children’s shirts and making pinafores, and earn from 4s. to 6s. per week each. On the day visited, one had worked seven hours and had made 7d. Her wages-book for ten consecutive weeks showed 2s. 4d., 4s. 4d., 5s. 8d. (week and half), 7s. ½d., 3s. 1½d., 3s., 2s. 3d., 3s. 9d., 3s. 1d., and 5s. House, attic room, beautifully clean, rent 8s. per month.

10. Is the wife of a labourer irregularly employed; has three young children; “makes shirts throughout and finishes them,” earns 5s. to 6s. per week, working twelve to fourteen hours per day. She pays 1s. 6d. per week for machine, and 4d. per six dozen for thread. Occupies house of two rooms, very dirty and almost destitute of furniture.

11. Is a widow; lives in one-roomed house, which is very dirty; “finishes” woollen shirts; is paid from 2½d. to 6d. per dozen, according to the amount of work put upon the garments. Her average earnings are from 5s. to 6s. per week. Two children were lying ill in the room, and were covered up with the shirts on which the mother was employed; she could not tell what was the matter.

12. Is the wife of a surfaceman earning 16s. a week; makes aprons, pinafores, and chemises, and earns about 5s. per week. She is in delicate health; has had eight children, only one of whom now survives.

And so on, through this dreary tale “of poverty, hunger, and dirt.”

The evidence collected in respect to out-work by expert investigators in these and other cases seems to prove conclusively that it is usually accompanied by very low wages, inordinately long and irregular hours, and distressingly insanitary conditions. With the matter of wages British legislators have not yet seen fit to deal directly, and it is obvious that any regulation of hours for work carried on by workers in their own homes would be extremely difficult to enforce. What remains is the sanitary condition of the house and of the worker. And there is the double ground for interference here, in that the making of clothing and other articles for public use in insanitary dwellings is not only a danger to the workers themselves, but also to the public generally.

How does the law on this point at present stand? Perhaps the most important legislation we have had dealing with out-work is to be found in sections 5 and 6 of the Factory Act of 1895, which contain the following provisions:--

See. 5. (1) “If an inspector gives notice in writing to the
occupier of a factory or workshop, or to any contractor employed
by any such occupier, that any place in which work is carried
on for the purpose of or in connection with the business of the
factory or workshop is injurious or dangerous to the health
of the persons employed therein, then, if the occupier or
contractor after the expiration of one month from receipt of the
notice gives out work to be done in that place, and the place
is found by the court having cognizance of the case to be so
injurious or dangerous, he shall be liable on summary conviction
to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.

(2) “This section shall apply in the case of the occupier of any
place from which any work is given out as if that place were a
workshop.

(3) “Provided that this section shall not apply except in the
case of persons employed in such classes of work, and in the
case of persons giving out employment and employed within
such areas, as may from time to time be specified by the
Secretary of State by order made in accordance with section 65
of the principal Act, and no such order shall be made except
with respect to an area where, by reason of the number and
distribution of the population or the conditions under which
work is carried on, there are special risks of injury or danger
to the health of the persons employed and of the district.

Sec. 6. “If any occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry or
of any place from which any work is given out, or any contractor
employed by any such occupier causes or allows wearing apparel
to be made, cleaned, or repaired in any dwelling-house
or building occupied therewith, whilst any inmate of the
dwelling-house is suffering from scarlet fever or smallpox,
then, unless he proves that he was not aware of the existence
of the illness in the dwelling-house, and could not reasonably
have been expected to become aware of it, he shall be liable to
a fine not exceeding ten pounds.”

I have no doubt sub-section 1 of section 5 might have gone a long way to improve the sanitary conditions under which out-workers are employed, and reduce the danger to the public, had it not been for the restriction imposed by sub-section 3, which makes it practically inoperative.

Notwithstanding the many overcrowded and insanitary districts in our large cities, I am not aware that a single area has been specified to which the section should apply. The reason for this will probably be found in the difficulty to prove the existence of “special risks of injury or danger to the health of the persons employed _and_ of the district.” And in any case the month’s notice to be given would simply mean that by a system of removing--which would be nothing unusual with the class of workers concerned--the purpose of the Act could be successfully evaded.

It would seem to be the desire of the legislature to place all responsibility for compliance with the law upon the employer, or the person giving out the work, but it stops short at providing him with the means of ascertaining whether the law is being complied with.

The limited space at my disposal will not allow me to deal with the many economic issues involved in the question of out-work. I can only make a brief reference to its possible effect on wages.

Many of the more intelligent workers in the factories and workshops speak very strongly against it on the ground that the long and irregular hours tend surely, if indirectly, to lower wages, and workshop hands in some cases, even where the total earnings were very low, have on principle refrained from taking work home to finish after the workshop hours, through fear of thus producing an artificial standard of wages. Out-workers are often used as a lever for reducing rates of wages. They are not restricted by any law to a specified number of hours per day as in factories, and they are often found working from early morning till late at night. With the help of some other members of the family, a fair wage may be earned, in consequence of which the employer is inclined to make comparisons which show the factory hands at a disadvantage. Subsequently rates are reduced for everybody.

It may be interesting to note that a large number of out-workers met with during these inquiries were in receipt of parochial relief, although they were working full time for their employers. Attention has been directed to this subject from time to time in the official reports of the Factory Department, and various suggestions have been put forward as to the best methods for the efficient regulation of home-work; but sooner or later the Government will be obliged to deal with this question, and as the matter will therefore be in the hands of the Home Office it would be unwise of me to anticipate the manner in which they might treat the subject.

A. BALLANTYNE.