Female sweatshop crackdown in Victoria
- 1873 - Supervision of Workrooms Factories Act - Employment of Females Regulation Bill - Factories cleaned up - working hours reduced - female workers - under-age workers -
12 November 1873
- Factories will be cleaned up and working hours reduced
under a new Act to regulate the conditions in ‘sweatshops’ which exploit female
and under-age workers.
The Supervision of Workrooms Factories Act, known previously as the Employment of Females Regulation Bill was passed in the Victorian Parliament yesterday. It states that no female should work longer than eight hours in one day and directs factory owners (those employing more than nine people in manufacturing) to provide a certain standard of cleanliness and warmth.
In recommending the bill to the House, Member for Ballarat West, W. C. Smith, said the exploitation which new legislation would guard against had arisen in his own district.
‘The persons who object to the evils which this Bill is intended to put down are not so the females themselves as their fathers and brothers, because we know that women endure a large amount of suffering and imposition rather than complain ... I contend it is very unfair and unreasonable for employers of labour to keep girls at work, not from nine o’clock in the morning to the hour of leaving off - eight o’clock at night - but on four days of the week from nine o’clock in the morning until midnight, or one o’clock, and, in some instances - as late as three o’clock the next morning. At Ballarat, these late hours have systematically prevailed four days of the week.’
The Act has been criticised for not going enough as some members felt that the girls would be forced to take piecework home with completing the same hours by simply working at home for the night.
Major Smith admitted this could occur but urged the House pass the Bill to give the employees at least some protection against greedy factory owners.
‘We have been told by some persons that, if a measure of this sort becomes law, employers will evade it by sending the work to girls’ homes ... Admitting that it is, I would ask the honourable member whether it would not be better that the girls should take the work home, and do it under the eyes of their parents, than that they should have to walk home at mid night through the public streets of Melbourne, Ballarat, or any other centre of population?’
Any employer found guilty of breaching the Act will be fined £20.