1917

CHAPTER 20

An Act for the Protection of Persons employed in Factories, Shops and Office Buildings.

(Assented to April 5, 1917.)

HIS

IS MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Alberta, enacts as follows:

SHORT TITLE.

1. This Act may be cited as "The Factories Act."

2. In this Act

(a) "Bake-shop" shall mean any building, premises, workshop, structure, room or place wherein is carried on the manufacture or sale of confectionery, or bread, biscuits, cakes or any other food product made from flour or from meal or from both, in whole or in part, and shall include any room or rooms used for storing the confectionery, bread, biscuits, cakes and other food products and materials; (b) "Child" shall mean a person under the age of fifteen years;

(c) "Court" shall mean the justices of the peace or police magistrates, as the case may be, to whom jurisdiction is given by this Act to hear and determine prosecutions under this Act;

(d) "Employer" as applied to a factory or shop shall mean any person who in his own behalf, or as the manager, superintendent, overseer or agent has charge of any factory, shop or bakeshop and employs persons therein, and in the case of an office building shall include the superintendent or manager thereof; and shall include contractor or subcontractor;

(e) "Factory" shall mean

(1) Any building, workshop, structure or premises of the description mentioned in schedule A together with such other buildings, structures or premises as the Lieutenant Governor in Council may by proclamation declare to be factories within the meaning of this Act.

(2) Any other building, workshop, structure, premises, room or place wherein or within the precincts of which steam, water, electrical power

or energy or other power is used to move or work any machinery employed in preparing, manufacturing or finishing, or in any process incidental to the preparing, manufacturing or finishing of any article, substance, material, fabric or compound, or is used to aid the manufacturing process carried on there.

(3) Any other building, workshop, structure, premises, room or place wherein the employer of the persons working therein has the right of access and control, and in which or within the precincts of which any manual labour is exercised by way of trade or for purposes of gain in or incidental to the making of any article or part of any article, the altering, repairing, ornamenting or finishing of any article, or the adapting for sale of any article.

(f) "Inspector" shall mean an inspector appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council for enforcing the provisions of this Act and shall include the Chief Inspector;

(g) "Mill-gearing" shall include every shaft, whether upright, oblique or horizontal, and every wheel, drum, pulley or other appliance by which the motion of the first moving power is communicated to any machine appertaining to a manufacturing process;

(h) "Minister" shall mean the member of the Executive Council charged for the time being with the administration of this Act;

(2) "Office" shall include a building or that part of a building occupied and under the control of a separate employer and used for office purposes;

(5) "Office building" shall mean a building used or occupied for office purposes and not as a shop or factory, and shall include a part of a building when so used or occupied;

(k) "Owner" shall mean the person for the time being entitled in his own right or as a trustee, mortgagee in possession, guardian, committee, agent or otherwise to receive the rents, issues and profits of any premises used as a factory, shop, bake-shop or office building so far as such rents, issues and profits are not payable solely in respect of the use or occupancy of land apart from any buildings or other improvements erected or situate thereon;

(1) "Regulations" shall mean regulations made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council under the authority of this Act;

(m) "Shop" shall mean any building, or warehouse or a portion of a building, warehouse, booth, stall or place where goods are handled or exposed or offered for sale, and any such building or portion of a building, booth, stall or place

where goods are manufactured and which is not a factory to which this Act applies, but shall not include any place where the only trade or business carried on is that of an hotel or a boarding house but shall include restaurants;

(n) "Week" shall mean the period between midnight on Sunday night and midnight on the succeeding Saturday night;

(0) "Woman" shall mean a female person of fifteen years of age and upwards;

(p) "Outworking" means the giving out of articles or materials to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished or repaired or adapted for sale in the home of the employee or elsewhere;

(q) "Day shift" refers to the hours between 7 o'clock in the forenoon and 6 o'clock in the afternoon and "night shift" refers to any other hours of the day; where any part of a shift is before 7 a.m. or after 6 p.m. it shall be deemed a night shift;

(r) "Apprentice" shall mean a person who has not for a period of one year been engaged in the particular line of work in which he seeks employment or is employed.

APPLICATION OF ACT.

3. Nothing in this Act shall in any way conflict or interfere with the powers and duties of local boards of health or the officer appointed under The Public Health Act.

(2) For the purposes of this Act in respect to sanitary measures the Chief Officer of Health or any health officer may act jointly with, or independently of the inspector under this Act.

4. Nothing in this Act shall extend to a mechanic, artisan or labourer working only in repairing either the machinery in or any part of a factory, shop, bake-shop or office building, or to a watchman, or to any person temporarily engaged in such repairing.

5. A part of a building used as a factory, shop, bakeshop or office building may, with the written approval of an inspector, for the purposes of this Act be taken to be a separate factory, shop, bakeshop or office building.

(2) Where a place situate within the close or precincts forming a factory is solely used for some purpose other than the manufacturing process or handicraft carried on in the factory such place shall not be deemed to form part of that factory, for the purposes of this Act, but shall, if otherwise it would be a factory, be deemed to be a separate factory and be regulated accordingly.

(3) Any premises or place shall not be excluded from the definition of a factory by reason only that such premises or place are or is in the open air.

6. Every shop, building or room in which one or more persons are employed in doing public laundry work by way of trade or for the purpose of gain shall be deemed a factory to which this Act applies.

(2) This section shall not apply to a dwelling in which a female is engaged in doing custom laundry work at her home for a regular family trade.

7. Except as otherwise expressly provided this Act shall not apply to any factory where not more than five persons are employed and no power other than manual labour is used in aid of the manufacturing process carried on there.

(2) A factory in which in any calendar year more than five persons are employed at any one time shall during that year be deemed a factory unless the inspector is satisfied that less than six persons are usually employed therein.

(3) This Act shall not apply to any shop where only members of the employer's own family are employed.

8. Where any owner, occupier or tenant of any premises, building, workshop, structure, room or place who has the right of access thereto and control thereof contracts for work or labour to be done therein by any other person or lets or hires out any part thereof for that purpose, and such other person engages or employs therein any employee, child or woman in or for the carrying out or performing of such work or labour, or any part thereof, every such employee, child or woman shall, for all the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be in the service and employment of such owner, occupier or tenant.

(2) In computing the number of persons employed in any place in order to ascertain if such place is a factory to which this Act applies every such employee, child or woman shall be counted.

9. Every person found in a factory, except at meal times or except while all the machinery of the factory is stopped, or for any other purpose than that of bringing food to the persons employed in the factory, shall, until the contrary is proved, be deemed for the purposes of this Act to have been then employed in the factory.

(2) Yards, playgrounds and places open to public view, waiting rooms and other rooms belonging to the factory in which no machinery is used or manufacturing process carried on shall not be taken to be part of the factory for the purposes of this section.

10. Any person who works in a factory either in a manufacturing process or handicraft, or in cleaning any part of the factory used for any manufacturing process or handicraft, or in cleaning or oiling any part of the machinery, or in any other kind of work whatsoever incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process or handicraft, or connected with the article made, or otherwise the subject of the manufacturing process or handicraft therein shall, save as is herein otherwise provided, be deemed to be employed in such factory.

11. In every factory and shop the employer shall keep a register of the employees employed in the factory and shop and of their employments in form 1 in schedule B, and shall send to the inspector such extracts from any register kept in pursuance of this Act as the inspector from time to time requires for the execution of his duties, and shall permit the inspector at all times to inspect such register.

(2) For every contravention of this section the employer shall incur a penalty not exceeding $30.

12. Where, in a factory or shop, the owner or hirer of a machine or implement moved by steam, water, electrical power or energy or other power in or about or in connection with which machine or implement any person is employed, is some person other than the employer, and such person is in the employment and pay of the owner or hirer of such such machine or implement he shall, so far as respects any offence against this Act which may be committed in relation to such person, be deemed to be the employer.

13. Before erecting any building or altering any existing building which it is intended thereafter to use as a factory the owner shall submit the plans of such building or of the proposed alterations to the inspector; and the inspector shall examine the same, and if he finds that the plans provide for the fulfilment of the requirements of this Act as to the construction of factories, he shall certify his approval thereon, and the owner shall not proceed with the erection or alteration of such building without such approval.

14. The owner, proprietor or manager of any factory shall not begin operations until he has received from the inspector a certificate of inspection of the factory and a permit to operate the same. (Form 2.)

(2) Any person who contravenes the provisions of this section shall incur the penalties provided for in section 59.

15. Every person shall, within one month after he begins to occupy a factory, transmit to the inspector a notice, form 3, schedule B, containing the name of the factory, the place where it is situate, the address to which he desires