SEASONAL FACTORIES,

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particular provinces concerned, of any other groups which are entirely
or almost entirely seasonal.
Differential Hours for Women.

A number of witnesses advocated differentiation between the
maximum legal daily and weekly hours which men and women may work
in seasonal factories, mainly on the ground that the existing hours,
under the free use of exemptions, were excessive in the case of women
workers. We believe such hours to have been excessive for both men
and women and our recommendations have been made in that belief.
The better policy, wherever possible, is to fix hours that are reasonable
for adults of both sexes, thus avoiding a course of action likely to
prejudice the work of women unnecessarily and to disorganise industries
where, as occurs in many cases, the processes performed by men and
those performed by women are interdependent.

Spreadover for Women.

It was also stated that industries such as ginning are handi-
capped by the restriction of the period during the 24 hours in which
women may be employed to those between 5-30 4.m. and 7pM. Our
proposals in Chapter IV, if adopted, will extend from 13% to 17 hours
the period within which factories may employ women, although the
period within which any individual woman may be employed is reduced
from 13% to 13 hours. This recommendation should go far to meet the
difficulty. We are aware that, in some of the cotton-ginning areas, not-
ably the Punjab, employers have proved unwilling to conform to legal
requirements in respect of working hours, the overworking of women
being particularly prevalent. The number of prosecutions in a year
for such offences in that province represents a high percentage of the whole,
and we understand that the prohibited hours clause in respect of women
is valued by an overworked Inspectorate on the ground that without it
such punitive action would not be possible. To combat the over-
working of women in seasonal factories is a specially difficult task,
since this class of rural worker generally knows nothing of the law,
has no means of checking the time, and in the bulk of cases could
easily be persuaded, were persuasion even necessary, to work any
number of hours for the sake of the extra wages accruing. The
women employed at a particular ginnery may be worked for more than
13 hours, even if no woman is found op the premises before or after the
specified hours. This regulation, therefore, is in itself no certain
remedy for this evil. The increased spreadover proposed in respect of
women’s hours makes it unnecessary for the seasonal factory owner to
overwork any particular body of women. For this reason and in the
absence of any shortage of labour, we feel that a policy of strict admi-
istration should henceforward be adopted wherever this evil is pre-
valent. At the same time, we recommend, as an additional precaution,
that provincial Governments should have the power to prohibit in any
particular group or class of seasonal factory the employment of women
outside such hours, not being less than 11 in the aggregate, as they
may specify. This power should be used only where a Government is

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