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WORKSHOP SUPERVISION
55
included in the August list? If not, the return of outworkers must be always incomplete,
and a number never come under the supervision of the authorities. In any case, six months
may elapse before a new outworker will come under supervision, and much may happen
during that time.
It is not uncommon for work to be given out on condition that the outworker takes no
work from other firms, a condition which the experience of the Department indicates is
frequently evaded. Hence, when "outworkers" are discovered by the Officers of the
Department in the course of their other work, it is impossible to get to know the names of
the firms from whom such work is received. Of the 35 outworkers already mentioned as
discovered during the year, only 12 disclosed the names and addresses of the firms employing
them. There is no machinery for dealing with this evasion of the Act.
The object of the Act is twofold—to protect the public from the dangers which may
arise from work being done under conditions likely to spread disease, and the workers
themselves from "sweating" and unfair treatment. The intentions are excellent; the
present machinery inefficient, not to say clumsy.
What is wanted is some simple system by which "outworkers"—persons who carry
on a manufacture outside the factory or workshop of the person giving the work—shall be
promptly known to the Factory Department and the Local Authority. The present
procedure might be limited to "homeworkers"—persons doing the work in their homes—
and all "outworkers" in factories and workshops, which are otherwise dealt with under
the Act, be specifically excluded from this part of the Act. The persons giving out the work
should be required to keep registers of all work given out, in addition to the names and
addresses of the persons to whom the work was given, such registers, as at present, to be
open to inspection. No work should be given to any "homeworker" except on production
of a certificate from the local authority of the district in which such home is situate, that
the premises were on that authority's register. Duplicates of such certificates should be
forwarded periodically (say each month) to the Home Office. The issue of the certificate
should be simply a record of the inscription of the homeworker on the local register and
should be issued without any preliminary requirements as to sanitary condition of the homeworker's
home. The provisions of the Public Health and Factory Acts would be sufficient to
secure proper sanitation and the due protection of the public against disease, supposing all
"homeworkers" be known.
It is believed that such procedure would secure a practically complete registration of
"outworkers" (who would be more properly described as "homeworkers") and would save
a good deal of the labour and worry—not to mention delay in supervision—which attend the
present little understood system.
Inspections.—During the past year 3,258 inspections were made of the premises on the
Registers (see Table 33), as compared with 2,025 in 1905 and 3,414 in 1904. The Inspectors
measured up 197 rooms, being 89 more than in the previous year, but 23 less than in 1904.
In 107, instances the workrooms were found to be used as bedrooms, an increase of 21 over
the number discovered in the previous year (86). The prescribed "Abstract" was not displayed
in 50 workshops, as compared with 15 instances in 1905 and 65 in 1904. Each case
was duly reported to the Home Office, within whose jurisdiction this offence falls. The
notices required to secure the remedying of defects found numbered 133 in 1903, 96 in 1904,
54 in 1905, and 42 last year. The Inspectors, however, always endeavour to secure the
rectification of defects without notice whenever possible, and much work is done on such
verbal requests.