.FRIST FACTORY ACT 1881
In 1875, the first committee appointed to inquire into the conditions of factory work favoured legal restriction in the form of factory laws.
During Lord Ripon's time, the first Factories Act was adopted in 1881 . The Factory Commission was appointed in 1885. The researcher takes only one instance, the statement of a witness to the same commission on the ginning and processing factories of Khandesh:
Features of the first Factories Act:
The legislation was projected as the panacea for all the ills that plagued factory and industrial administration in India. It limited endless working hours, stipulated the minimum ages of those to be employed, and tried to ensure that there would be some gubernatorial safeguard in place for the conditions of the workers in factories. It was designed to protect children and provide measures for the health and safety of the workers.
The Factories Act dealt with the powers of industry owners, governed the regulation of the employment of children, the fencing of machinery, affixed the duty of notifying accidents to the government on industry owners, and provided for the powers of the local governments to make rules for carrying out the provisions of the Factories Act. It did not attempt to regulate adult labour, male or female. The health and safety of workers found no place in the Factories Act. Except in so far as it provided for the fencing of machinery and notice of accidents, the Factories Act did not impose any obligation on mill-owners for the protection of adult workers. The scope of the law has therefore been recognised as limited.
Justice Chandru explained the context in which the law came into force. At that time, there were two large industry bodies – the Lancashire Mill Owners Association and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. “At that point of time, out of a need to compete with the other, each group exploited labour to the best of its capacities to ensure that produce was always on par with, if not higher than that of the other group. This led to massive exploitation. The 1881 Act was enacted to target the exploitation consequent to that competition.”
Bipan Chandra says that the primary problem that the Factories Act tried to deal with was that of child labour. It fixed the minimum age of employment of children at seven years. Children between the ages of seven and twelve years were not to work longer than nine hours during a day and had to compulsorily be given an hour of rest each day exclusive of these nine hours. Furthermore, four holidays were mandated in one month.
The Factories Act was applicable to factories that used mechanical power and employed hundred persons or more. It specifically excluded indigo factories and tea and coffee plantations from its scope. The hours of work of men and women, though, remained unregulated. Overall, the legislation was quite rudimentary and half-hearted.
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