Economics Volume II: Modern Economic ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
Economics Volume II: Modern Economic Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
These exceptions have come in various ways. There is first, the
eight-hour limitation in public employment, required in federal
employment in 1868, really effective since 1892, and now in force
likewise in about two thirds of the states. In almost the same
jurisdictions--national, state and municipal--eight hours is the legal
day on work done in private business for the governments. Work on
railroads and street railways, particularly in the direct operation of
trains, such as the work of dispatchers, signal men, and trainmen,
is subjected to a large variety of regulative measures, hours being
limited in some cases to 8, in others to 9, 10, 12, or 16, and in
a number of cases a specified minimum number of hours of rest is
required after the maximum hours of labor. These laws are primarily
for the protection of the public, but they afford a protection to the
employee much needed, as many well-authenticated cases of excessive
and exhausting hours demonstrate.
The limitation of hours has very recently been extended to many
private businesses in which exceptional conditions exist affecting the
health of the workers or the safety of the public. This development
has occurred almost entirely since the United States Supreme Court in
1898 (Holden vs. Hardy) sustained a Utah statute limiting to eight
the hours of labor in underground mines. Now 8 hour laws in certain
specified cases are found applying to mines, smelters, tunnels, and a
variety of other kinds of work, and in a few cases the limit is 9, 10,
or 11 hours.
§ 8. #Broader aspects of this legislation#. The subject took on a new
aspect when the legislature of Oregon, in 1913, declared broadly that
"no person shall be hired, nor permitted to work for wages, under
any conditions or terms, for longer hours or days of service than
is consistent with his health and physical well-being and ability to
promote the general welfare by his increasing usefulness as a healthy
and intelligent citizen," and fixed ten hours as the limit of work
consistent with such a measure of health and welfare, in work in any
mill, factory, or manufacturing establishment. This law was sustained
by the Supreme Court of that state and was carried on appeal to
the United States Supreme Court.[6] In support of the law there was
presented a voluminous brief giving a most impressive body of evidence
from scientific and from practical business sources, to show the many
evils, popularly unsuspected or underestimated, that result from long
hours even in industries of no exceptional hazards.[7] Physiological
and psychological tests demonstrate that the fatigue following more
than a moderate working period not only reduces immediate efficiency,
but so poisons the system that greater liability to accident, disease,
intemperance, immorality, and premature decay, results.
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