Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter IV. - Hours in factories

Collection:: Economics Books

a J CHAPTER 1V. factories, coupled with the long hours, vitiate energy and prevent in- creased efficiency and production. They hold the view that the essential requirements of a worker, working under Indian conditions, is first a shorter working day and second, the provision of suitable rest periods during the working day. In their opinion the institution of an 8 hour day in factories under present conditions is not only desirable but both practicable and necessary. They believe that, within a reasonable period of time, it would result inincreased efficiency on the part of the worker, improved organisation on the part of the employer, and as a result would be a sound economic proposition. They suggest that two hours should be allotted for the provision of suitable rest periods. The settlement of the length of the rest time and its allotment should be determined by local factors. They therefore recommend that in factories the existing weekly and daily limits be reduced to 48 and 8 respectively and that pro- vision be made for adequate rest periods. Distribution of Hours. We turn now to the consideration of the distribution of hours throughout the day. The present requirements of the law ordinarily involve the grant of an interval of an hour. For this two half-hours may be substituted at the request of the operatives, and where in factories the working day is not more than 8% hours, and the operatives so desire the local Government can permit men, but not women, to have only one half-hour’s interval. Not more than 6 hours’ work can be done con- tinuously if an hour’s interval is given and not more than 5 hours’ work in other cases. The only remaining restriction on the distribution of the hours of work for adults is designed to prevent the night work of women, and precludes their employment between 7 p.M. and 5-30 a.m. ; these times can be varied somewhat by the local Government so long as the gap of 104 hours between the two is retained. Suitable Intervals. The principle of an interval is of long standing, and, so far as women are concerned, the Act of 1891 (which introduced the prohibition of night-work) prescribed a longer period than is now obligatory. The subsidiary provisions date from 1922 and 1926, and the idea of mak- ing intervals vary with the consent of the operatives was introduced by the legislature in 1922. Employers and workers have not shown much readiness to co-operate in experiments with shorter intervals, and a single interval of an hour or longer is the most common practice. Experience in other countries shows that fatigue can be diminished by frequent short intervals, and although the Indian operative is apt zenerally to be “slow off the mark ”’, more endeavours should be made to discover the best form of intervals. The long continuous spells of work have probably some responsibility for the frequency of unauthorised inter- vals and, if hours are to be’ reduced, it is the more important that these should be lessened. We recommend that the statutory intervals should ordinarily amount to not less than an hour in the aggregate, and that, sub- ject to the sanction of the Chief Inspector of Factories. employers should

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