HC Deb 03 July 1895 vol 35 cc147-8

"(1.) In any laundry carried on by way of trade, or for purpose of gain, the following provisions shall apply:—

  1. (i.) The period of employment, exclusive of meal hours and absence from work, shall not exceed—for children, ten hours, for young persons, twelve hours, for women, fourteen hours, in any consecutive twenty-four hours; nor a total for children of thirty hours, for young persons and women of sixty hours, in any one week, in addition to such overtime as may be allowed in the case of women.
  2. (ii.) A child or young person or woman shall not be employed continuously for more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal.
  3. (iii.) Children, young persons, and women employed in laundries shall have allowed to them the same holidays as are allowed to children, young persons, and women employed in a factory or workshop under the Factories and Workshops Acts, 1878 to 1895.
  4. (iv.) So far as regards sanitary provisions, safety, accidents, the affixing of notices and abstracts, and the matters to be specified in such notices (so far as they apply to laundries), notice of occupation of a factory or workshop, powers of inspectors, fines, and legal proceedings for any failure to comply with the provisions of this section, and education of children, the Factory Acts shall have effect as if every laundry in which steam, water, or other mechanical power is used in aid of the laundry process were a factory, and every other laundry were a workshop; and as if every occupier of a laundry were the occupier of a factory or of a workshop.
  5. (v.) The notice to be affixed in each laundry shall specify the period of employment and the times for meals, but the period and times so specified may be varied before the beginning of employment on any day.
  6. (vi.) Sections seventeen and eighteen of the Act of 1891 shall apply to laundries in like manner as to factories or workshops.

(2.) In the case of every laundry worked by steam, water, or other mechanical power—

  1. (a) a fan or other means of a proper construction shall be provided, maintained, and used for regulating the temperature in every ironing-room, and for carrying 148 away the steam in every washhouse in the laundry; and
  2. (b) all stoves for heating irons shall be sufficiently separated from any ironing-room, and gas irons emitting any noxious fumes shall not be used; and
  3. (c) the floors shall be kept in good condition and drained in such manner as will allow the water to flow off freely.
A laundry in which these provisions are contravened shall be deemed to be a factory not kept in conformity with the principal Act.

(3.) Nothing in this section shall apply to any laundry in which the only persons employed are—

  1. (a) inmates of any prison, reformatory, or industrial school, or other institution for the time being subject to inspection under any Act other than the Factory Acts; or
  2. (b) inmates of an institution conducted in good faith for religious or charitable purposes; or
  3. (c) members of the same family dwelling there, or in which not more than two persons dwelling elsewhere are employed.

(5.) The exception created by section fifty-three of the principal Act with respect to overtime shall apply to laundries."

MR. ASQUITH moved to omit Subsection 4 in order to insert the following words:— (4) Women employed in laundries may work overtime, subject to the following conditions—(a) No woman shall work more than 14 hours in any day; (b) the overtime worked shall not exceed two hours in any day; (c) overtime shall not be worked on more than three days in any week or than 30 days in any year; (d) the requirements of Section 66 of the principal Act and of Section 14 of the Act of 1891 with respect to notices shall be observed. He said that he moved the Amendment because there were no fixed hours for the beginning and for the ending of the work in laundries; and therefore special provisions were more applicable to the case.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 23:—