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Extension of Factory Acts. - George Bernard Shaw, Fabian Essays in Socialism [1889]

Edition used:

Fabian Essays in Socialism, ed. G. Bernard Shaw, American Edition Ed. by H.G. Wilshire, (New York: The Homboldt Publishing Co., 1891).

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Extension of Factory Acts.

Object.—To raise, universally, the standard of comfort by obtaining the general recognition of a minimum wage and a maximum working day.

Means.—1. Extension of the general provisions of the Factory and Workshops Acts (or the Mines Regulation Acts, as the case may be) to all employers of labor. 2. Compulsory registration of all employers of more than three (?) workers. 3. Largely increased number of inspectors, and these to include women, and to be mainly chosen from the wage-earning class. 4. Immediate reduction of maximum hours to eight per day in all Government and municipal employment, in all mines, and in all licensed monopolies, such as railways, tramways, gasworks, water-works, docks, harbors, etc.; and in any trade in which a majority of the workers desire it. 5. The compulsory insertion of clauses in all contracts for Government or municipal supplies, providing that (a) there shall be no sub contracting, (b) that no worker shall be employed more than eight hours per day, and (c) that no wages less than a prescribed minimum shall be paid.33

[33.]In America, employers' liability laws, anti-Pinkerton bills, the prohibition of money fines, protection to life and limb, the limitation of child labor, women to be paid as men for equal work, are insisted on by Socialists.