III. SUMMARY OF RESOLUTIONS OF CON GRESSES OF ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMORIALS CONCERNING LABOUR I. Labour Legislation of General Application. I. 2. Extract from the resolutions of the Committee of the Society for Social Reform, Germany (Gesell. f. Soziale Reform). Extract from the resolutions of the First German Conference for the promotion of the interests of women workers. 3. Resolutions passed at the seventh Annual Conference of the British Labour Party. 4. Extract from the resolutions of the second National Conference on Temporary Emigration (Italy). II. Labour Legislation for Particular Trades. I. Office Employees: Extract from the petition addressed by the League of German Office Employees (Verband deutscher Bureaubeamten) to the Federal Council, 18th March, 1907. III. Employers' Liability and Insurance. I. 2. Resolutions passed at the seventh Annual Conference of Resolution passed at the Leeds Conference of the National I.-Labour Legislation of General Application. 1. Extract from the resolutions of the Committee of the Society for Social Reform (Germany), 19th March, 1907. The Committee of the Society for Social Reform is of opinion that it is both desirable and necessary for the social legislation of the Empire to be extended in principle so as to apply to all wage-earners, and that, in all legislative measures the interests of private employees should be given due consideration. The realisation of this object would be substantially furthered by all trade associations working together on the same lines. The Society for Social Reform will, if desired, gladly assist in bringing this about. At present the most burning question seems to be the unification and amendment of the law regulating the position of private employees in Germany, and in particular : BULLETIN 9 (1) consideration should be given to the needs of all employees in the impending amendment of existing social legislation relating to insurance against sickness, accident, disablement and old age, and also in the preparation of new social insurance laws. The Society for Social Reform will (a) issue reports on the legal position of various classes of employees in respect of social insurance and on improvements desired; (b) enter into communication with the Central Committee for the State Pension Insurance and Dependants' Insurance of Private Employees, and the Social Committee of Associations of Technical Employees, so that the interests of employees may be uniformly and duly represented when the amendment of the Insurance Acts is impending; (c) submit to the legislative bodies, in the form of a memorial, the results of its investigations and reports of any proceedings of its committee or general assembly dealing with this question; (2) further, the law regulating conditions of service, i.e., the regulation of conditions of work by law or by contract, requires unifying and amending. On this point also, the Society for Social Reform will, at an early date, make known in monographs the present legal position and necessary amendments to the law; (3) finally, the Society for Social Reform will issue as one of its publications an explanatory report on the economic and social position of private employees. 2.-Extract from the resolutions of the first German Conference for the Promotion of the Interests of Women Workers, held in Berlin on the Ist and 2nd May, 1907. The Conference demands the following reforms, tending to raise the standard of wages and living of women workers, as being of immediate practical importance: I. State Help.-(a) Reduction of hours of work, at first, to ten hours a day. (b) Further regulation of the employment of women before and after confinement, sick club benefits to be extended accordingly. (c) Protection of women employed in home industries and as outworkers, viz., (i.) by introducing a minimum wage, (ii.) by placing home industries under industrial inspection, (iii.) by extending sick and disablement insurance to persons carrying on domestic industries. II. Self-help. The Conference advocates the organisation of women in trade unions and co-operative societies, (a) as a preliminary condition for self-help, the Conference demands that the State shall grant and secure the right of combination, (b) as a means of promoting self-help, the Conference desires the regulation by law of collective contracts. III. Education.-The Conference considers that it is necessary that girls, whether employed temporarily or permanently should be given as good a training as men, in accordance with the requirements of their trade. By this means it will be possible to prevent the payment to women, as such, of lower wages than to men on the general ground of inferior service. From this point of view also the Conference demands that the State and local authorities shall make the attendance of girls at continuation schools compulsory up to the age of eighteen, the lessons being given in the daytime, and that female apprentices shall be admitted to journeymen's and masters' examinations. The Conference also demands that, whether or not a girl is likely to become later a wife and a mother, instruction in domestic economy shall be compulsory, so that women workers, whatever their position, may be rendered capable of laying out their wages economically. With a view to securing and improving the legal position of working women, the Conference demands: I. As regards Sick Clubs: that, in the impending amendment of the Insurance Act, the autonomy of sick clubs shall, in view of its educational effect, be fully maintained; that, in the other branches of insurance, working men and women shall be given identical rights; and that large centralised sick clubs shall be established. II. As regards Industrial Courts: That working women shall be conceded the right to vote and stand for election on the same terms as men. III.-As regards Labour Councils: (a) The immediate organisation of bodies representing the legal interests of the wage-earning classes. These bodies (Labour Councils) to be composed of equal numbers of employers and workers; (b) working women to be conceded the right to vote, and to stand for election to labour councils, on the principle of absolute equality with men ; (c) the labour councils to be created as independent organisations, since— apart from other reasons-if they were attached to the industrial courts, it would not be possible under existing conditions, to give women the right to vote. For the protection of women before and after confinement, the Conference demands the introduction of State maternity insurance on the following principles (1) Compulsory insurance to be extended by Imperial law to workers in agriculture and forestry, and to servants, outworkers and persons employed in domestic industries, of both sexes. (2) Sick insurance to be extended generally to the family of a sick club member living with him, the benefits to be proportionately lower than those accruing to the member himself. (3) Existing additions to the Sick Insurance Act relating to maternity insurance to be developed into a more effective system by complete incorporation with the system of sick insurance, without any distinction being made between the payments of male and female, married and unmarried, members respectively. (4) Maternity insurance benefits to consist of: (a) maintenance for six weeks before and six weeks after confinement, employment being prohibited by law during these periods, and the maintenance to amount, in the case of members,. to the full wage in respect of which contributions are paid, or, in the case of women dependent upon members, to the current wages of adult women in the locality; (b) midwives' services and medical attendance to be allowed free during confinement; (c) free domestic help in case of need, at the discretion of the governing body of the club; (d) bonuses amounting to 25 Mk. for mothers who suckle their infants for three months, and a further 25 Mk. for mothers who are still suckling their infants three months later; such bonuses not to be payable if the doctor forbids the mother to suckle her infant. (5) The club to be authorised to lend or grant funds for the establishment, management or maintenance of centres for advising nursing mothers, lying-in homes and crèches, and for providing assistance in the teeding of infants. (6) The provisions of the Industrial Code (Gewerbeordnung) prohibiting the employment of women before and after confinement to be brought into conformity with those of the law regulating maternity insurance. (7) If German insurance legislation is unified later on, the question of maternity insurance to be taken into consideration. The system to be subsidised by the State. With a view to alleviating the burden of factory work combined with maternal duties, endeavours should be made to introduce, besides maternity insurance, the following direct and indirect measures of reform, as being of the greatest importance :-(1) Reduction of hours of work. (2) Further regulation of women's work in particularly unhealthy industries. (3) Education of girls in domestic economy and the care of children, either in Class I. of the elementary schools or in compulsory continuation schools. (4) The encouragement of crèches and nurseries, to be promoted, in the first place, by local authorities, or by associations, or on co-operative lines. (5) To alleviate the burden of household duties falling on women industrially employed, a series of modern improvements should be introduced into working-class households, such as central heating, convenient arrangements in workmen's dwellings for washing and bathing, the facilitation of cooking by gas, electricity, cooking stoves (Kochkiste), etc. Valuable improvements of this kind are to be found in some dwellings built by workmen's housing societies, and might well be taken yet further into consideration as housing reform progresses. 3. Resolutions passed at the Seventh Annual Conference of the British Labour Party, held at Belfast, January 24th to 26th, 1907. EIGHT HOURS DAY : That in the opinion of this Conference it is essential, in the interests of the workers and the general public, that a legal eight hours day, or maximum 48 hour week, should be pressed forward by the Labour Party in Parliament. TRADE UNION LAW AMENDMENT: That it be an instruction to the Labour Party in Parliament to bring in an amendment to the Trade Union Amendment Act, 1876, Clause 12, to remove the present restriction, that the consent of not less than two-thirds of the full membership of each trade union must be obtained for the purpose of amalgamation, and to substitute for it that a two-thirds majority of the members of each trade union voting on the question of amalgamation shall be sufficient to meet the requirements of the Act. FACTORY ACT AMENDMENT: That this Conference hereby instructs the members of the Labour Party in the House of Commons to endeavour to secure the adoption of a clause in the next Factory and Workshop Acts Amending Bill which comes before the House, prohibiting any working in paper mills from 12 noon on Saturdays until 6 a.m. on Mondays, except to do repairs. SHOP WORKERS LEGISLATION: That this Conference strongly condemns the radius" agreements which, as a condition of obtaining or retaining employment, many shop managers are coerced into signing; it expresses the conviction that contracts, which debar shop workers from earning their livelihood within a certain distance and time after leaving or being discharged from a firm, are an unjust infringement of the rights of workers and tend directly to depress wages, to lessen opportunities for industrial betterment, and to increase unemployment; and therefore calls upon the Parliamentary Labour Party to introduce a measure making such restrictions illegal, and leaving the shop employee unhampered in accepting a situation whenever and wherever the opportunity occurs. That in view of the almost universal failure of the Shop Hours Act, 1904, this Conference heartily approves the amending Bill drafted by the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks, and introduced by Sir Charles Dilke, which seeks to establish uniform and compulsory closing and a limitation of the hours of shop workers to sixty per week, including meal hours; and hereby instructs the Labour Party to bring pressure to bear upon the Government to include this in the Bills to be dealt with in the Session of 1907. THE TRUCK ACT: That in view of the legalised existence of the iniquitous system of deductions of wages from, and the imposition of fines upon workpeople by their employers, this Conference instructs the Labour Party in the House of Commons to seek such amendment of the Truck Act of 1896 as will make all such fines and deductions illegal. |