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83
None of these remarks relating to default or neglect apply to the City, all
information asked for having been supplied annually in the form suggested
by H.M. Secretary of State.
Obviously, there can be but comparatively few premises in the City where
homework is done, which after all is the principal object of the clauses in the
Act relating to outworkers.
At present there are 229 premises registered in the City where work is
received to be done for others, constituting the persons who receive the work
"outworkers" under the Act. Most of these are contractors having workshops
in the City, which, of course, appear in the Workshop Registers. Out
of the total of 229 registered outworkers, only 64 may be said to be homeworkers,
i.e., persons who do the work at their own homes. These places
are inspected periodically by your Women Inspectors, and any structural
defects dealt with. Some account of this work appears upon another page of
this Report, under the heading "Women Sanitary Inspectors."
The principal obligation of the Corporation in the matter of outworkers
is to transmit the names and addresses of outworkers received from firms in
the City to Local Authorities outside, and from the Home Office Return it
would appear that work was given out in the City in 1904 to a larger
number of persons than in any Metropolitan Borough except Finsbury; the
figures being for the City 3,334, and for Finsbury 3,891, the next highest
figure being Hackney with 1,579.
The following figures show the yearly increase in the number of outworkers
received and notified to outside districts by the Corporation from
1904 to the present date, viz.:—
Outworkers notified.
1904 3,334
1905 7,891
1906 14,376
It will be seen that the numbers are greatly increasing, and this will
continue to be the case until all employers of outworkers are registered.
The Tailoring trade, employing the largest number of outworkers, has
received special attention in the City, and recent visits to a large number of
these firms show the need for constant supervision to ensure compliance with
the provisions of the Act.
The greatest difficulty experienced is in getting employers to keep the
List of their outworkers at their premises in the prescribed form. A recent
investigation into this question showed that out of a total of 105 firms
visited, only six kept the List as required, and a number have failed to send
in any List at all.