History 112: Factory Regulations (Part II)

Part I

Apprenticeship Contract for Young Women Employed in the Silk Mills of Tarare, France, 1850s

Art. 1. To be admitted, young women must be between the ages of thirteen and fifteen, of good character and in good health, intelligent and industrious, and must have been vaccinated. They must present their birth certificate, a certificate of vaccination, and a trousseau.
We are dealing with girls from the country. How many of them have been vaccinated or have birth certificates? In order to get these things these girls are going to have to spend money, which likely means borrowing money. So many of these girls are already going to be starting off in debt. It is a lot easier to take advantage of people who are in debt and are, therefore, not in a position to leave.

Art. 4. The pupil promises to be obedient and submissive to the mistresses charged with her conduct and instruction, as well as to conform to the rules of establishment.
What does it mean to be obedient and submissive? Not to complain about conditions, report abuses or anything to upset the management.

Art. 6. If the sick pupil remains in the establishment, every care necessitated by her condition will be given to her.
Medical care for those who get sick? Not exactly. The management only has to take care of those sick girls that they decide to keep in the establishment. They can just kick out every girl who gets sick and save themselves the trouble.

Art. 8. The director along has the right to authorize or refuse leaves. Hey will be granted only on the request of the father or guardian of the pupil.
Most of these girls are not from the immediate area and their fathers are not on hand to ask for leave. A girl would have to get letter or telegram sent to their father who would then have to send a message back. So for all intents and purposes no requests to leave can be made.

Art. 10. The effective work time is twelve hours. Summer and winter, the day begins at 5 o’clock and ends at 7:15. Breakfast is from 7:30 to 8:15; lunch is from 12:00 to 1:00; snack is from 5:30; supper is at 7:15. After the second year, pupils will receive lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic. They will be taught to sew and do a little cooking.
So these girls are to be given an education to help them move up in the world. The funny thing is that with all the emphasis on the specific times for everything there is no time given for education. So, for all intents and purposes, we can assume that these girls are not being given a meaningful education. It is not in the management’s interest to do so. People who do not have an educated have fewer options and can be forced to work for less.

Art. 12. Wages are not due until the end of the year. …
Art. 13. Any apprentice who leaves the establishment before the end of her term, or who has been dismissed for bad conduct, conspiracy, rebellion, laziness, or a serious breach of the rules loses her rights to wages for the current year; beyond this, in such a case, the father or guardian of the pupil agrees to pay the director of the establishment the sum of one hundred francs to indemnify him for the non-fulfillment of the present agreement. …
The management can decide to fire a girl in December for bad conduct, conspiracy, rebellion or laziness, which of course can mean anything that upsets the management, and the girl would lose a full year’s pay. Not only that but her father would have to pay the management.

Art. 16. On her arrival, the apprentice will submit to inspection by the house doctor. Any girl who has a skin disease or who found to be sickly will not be accepted and will be sent away immediately at her own expense.
The management can just send girls home whom they decide they do not want and do not have to pay anything. Where would these girls get the money for a return trip? Many of them would have likely needed to borrow money just to make the trip. So will they will have to borrow more money and go further into debt.

(From Documents in European Economic History, vol. 1, the Process of Industrialization, 1750-1870 and Victorian Women: a Documentary Account of Women's Lives in Nineteenth-Century England, France and the United States)

History 112: Factory Regulations (Part I)

I would like to discuss the two examples of factory regulations in the reading. It is very easy to what is interesting in the rather lurid accounts by factory workers of their working conditions. By comparison the factory regulations seem rather prosaic. For me it is precisely these factory regulations that interest me. While a casual reading of these regulations may make them appear rather begnin, and this was most likely the intention of those who wrote them, one has to just scratch below the surface to see a far darker picture. These regulations are designed to make it impossible to engage in any form of protest and place workers completely at the mercy of the whims of those in charge.

Rules for Workers in the Foundry and Engineering Works of the Royal Overseas Trading Company, Berlin, 1844

(1) The normal working day begins at all seasons at 6 a.m. precisely and ends, after the usual break of half an hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner and half an hour for tea, at 7 p.m., and it shall be strictly observed. … The doorkeeper shall lock the door punctually at 6 a.m., 8.30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4.40 p.m. Workers arriving 2 minutes late shall lose half an hour’s wages; whoever is more than 2 minutes late may not start work until after the next break, or at least shall lose his wage until then. Any disputes about the correct time shall be settled by the clock mounted above the gatekeeper’s lodge. … They shall be unconditionally accepted as it will not be possible to enter into any discussions about them.
So we have some pretty extreme penalties for arriving late. Anyone more than two minutes late is in really serious trouble and is going to lose a significant portion of his day’s wages. If there is any dispute or any sort of extenuating circumstances the worker has no means of protest. He is not even allowed to complain.

(5) Entry to the firm’s property by any but the designated gateway, and exit by any prohibited rout, e.g., by climbing fences or walls, or by crossing the Spree, shall be punished by a fine of fifteen silver groschen to the sick fund for the first offence and dismissal for the second.
Why are the entries and exits so carefully guarded? Why is access so carefully monitored? At issue here are not outsiders coming in but the workers themselves. This does not sound like a free and open place full of happy people going about their business. This sounds like an armed fort or even a prison. One assumes that the main concern was sabotage. Why would happy content workers want to damage their own place of work? Why should factory owners be afraid of their own workers?

(7) All conversation with fellow-workers is prohibited; if any worker requires information about his work, he must turn to the overseer, or to the particular fellow-worker designated for the purpose.
This rule seems designed to forestall any attempt to organize or engage in collective action. Considering the hours these workers were putting in, they would not have had any other opportunity to talk to each other about their working conditions except during work hours. What we also have here is what was probably the most common excuse to cover such actions: “I was just asking him to explain something about work.” Again, what we clearly have is a strictly controlled environment in which workers are kept under tight vigilance.

(14) Untrue allegations against superiors or officials of the concern shall lead to stern reprimand, and may lead to dismissal. …
What is the difference between an “untrue” allegation against superiors or officials and a true one, particularly when it is these same superiors and officials who get to decide? For all intents and purposes this clause really means no allegation or complaint, no matter how well based in fact, may be put forth. Anyone who does complain will be fired on the spot.

(15) Every workman is obliged to report to his superiors any acts of dishonesty or embezzlement on the part of his fellow workmen. … Conversely, anyone denouncing a thief in such a way as to allow conviction of the thief shall receive a reward of two Thaler, and, if necessary, his name shall be kept confidential. – Further, the gatekeeper and the watchman, as well as every official, are entitled to search the baskets, parcels, aprons etc. of the women and children who are taking dinners into the works, on their departure, as well as search any worker suspected of stealing any article whatever. …
What we have is a climate where workers are being asked to spy on each other. The rule of the day is complete suspicion of everyone. If this were a government we would label it as absolutely tyrannical.

(To be continued …)