CHAP. 10.—PROTECTION OF HOME WORKERS 87
Outlook

ARGENTINA, like Mexico and Uruguay, has begun to apply
minimum wage legislation to vast groups of its population
outside of the sweated trades—to men as well as to women. These
laws in scope rival those of the Australian States and exceed those
of most other countries.

GERMANY

G ERMANY passed a law in 1911 for the protection of home
workers. Trade boards were set up to provide for the health
and safety of workers, to combat child labor, and to eliminate delay
In the giving out of materials and the receiving of the finished work.
The proposal to give power to these boards to fix minimum wages was,
however, lost in committee of the Reichstag by one vote, that of the
chairman. The boards were authorized only to encourage the voluntary
 conclusion of collective agreements fixing rates of pay.” Experience
 has proved that no effective protection is thereby afforded
to the workers.
Dr. Kaethe Gaebel reviews the results of the law in an article in
Soziale Praxis (Berlin) for May 26,1920 (p. 801), as follows:
(1) In some enterprises the loss of time, when work was handed over to the
workers and given back by them, was diminished.
(2) In other enterprises hygienic defects have been eliminated, but the
humber of these enterprises compared to the total was small. The trade
boards created in 1919 had no power to fix minimum wages.
The movement for social reform stimulated by the revolution
has filled the gap. A new law was passed on June 27, 1923, giving
trade boards the power to establish compulsory minimum wages.
Machinery of Present Law 2

THE Federal authorities, or in their default those of the State, are
authorized to establish the boards, to consist of equal numbers of
representatives of employers and of home workers with an impartial
chairman and two assessors possessing technical knowledge (secs. 19
and 22). The State authorities appoint chairman and assessors and
the representatives of both sides, these latter having been nominated
by employers’ and employees’ associations (par. 23). The boards ascertain
 the usual wages and are called upon to promote the conclusion
of collective contracts. They may declare the stipulation of such
a collective contract to be generally enforceable if the home workers
within the district “ are obviously paid inadequate wages” (par. 20).
If that proves to be impossible; they may fix minimum wages for
home workers in the branch of the industry and area concerned ( par.
32). The German law thereby goes to extremes. to give preference
to the encouragement of voluntary agreements over legal-wage fixa-®

 Broda, R.: Inweiweit ist eine gesetzlische Regelung der T.ohn-und Arbeitsbedingungen
miglich? Berlin, 1912; see for critical examination of the first draft of the law and proposed
 amendments; Documente des Fortschritts, Berlin, September, 1911, p. 557: Das
croblem der Heimarbeit,” by R. Broda.
® International Labor Office. Legislative series 1923— Germany 4: Promulgation of
the home work act as amended, dated June 80, 1923.