Factory inspection

“ By the Factory Act, not only are factories proper placed under government inspection, but all proprietors of workshops or workrooms are liable to the salutary visit of the inspector, whose duty it is to see that the terms of the Act are complied with ”

“ Any person removing such labels is liable to a heavy fine. The Factory Inspectors also exercise supervision over the sleeping accommodation provided for shearers in country districts. As the sheep-runs and farms are widely scattered, sometimes in the rough and remote back-country, this part of the work of inspection is no easy task. A woman Inspector of Factories also gives her assistance to the duties of the department, travelling from place to place, and particularly looking into the condition of the operative women and girls. ”

“ This regulation merely states that the Commissioner may authorize inspectors to examine certain processes or formulae; no advance action is required of cosmetics manufacturers, who since the enactment of the 1938 Act have been under a statutory duty to permit reasonable inspection of a 'factory, warehouse, establishment, or vehicle and all pertinent equipment, finished and unfinished materials ”

“ It is only in such laws and their proper administration that a safe remedy is to be found. Your committee are of opinion—That it should be a duty upon all manufacturers to find workshop accommodation for those they employ, whether the number be many or few. That any part or parts of a dwelling house so occupied should be considered a factory, and should be so registered for the purposes of any Act of Parliament made to apply to their supervision, and that all rules and acts made for the inspection and regulation of factories and workshops should be applied equally in all cases. ”

“ Methods of protection from fire and accident must be provided in all factories and workshops, and employers can not by contract exempt themselves from liability for injuries to an employee. The buildings must be provided with proper sanitary arrangements; each room where machinery is placed must be connected with the engine room by speaking tubes, electric bells, or appliances to control the motive power. The most minute regulations relating to the entire economic system of factory construction, operation, and inspection exist ”

“ Whenever in the course of any such inspection of a factory or other establishment where food is manufactured, processed or packed, the officer or employee making the inspection obtains a sample of any such food, and an analysis made of such sample for the purpose of ascertaining whether such food consists in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid or decomposed substance, or is otherwise unfit for food, a copy of the results of such analysis shall be furnished promptly to the owner, operator or agent in charge. ”

“ Article 20
⁠The commodity inspection authorities may, for the convenience of foreign trade, make supervision over the quality supervision, administration and inspection of the export commodities listed in the Catalog before they leave the factory.
Article 21
⁠The agent handling the procedures for declaration for inspection on behalf of the consignee or the consignor of the import and export commodities shall register with the commodity inspection authorities; and shall submit the trust deed to the commodity inspection authorities when handling the procedures. ”

“ Inspection of the factory and of the material was provided for explicitly. Confiscation of the finished product was authorized upon a finding of its unsuitability for food through the use of unhealthful or unwholesome materials, a finding that might be based upon visual or delicate laboratory tests, or upon observation of the use of such materials in the process of manufacture. I.R.C. § 2325; 9 C.F.R. §§ 301.41-301.43. By the statutes and regulations, [22] the Department of Agriculture has authority to watch the consumer's interest throughout the process of manufacture and distribution. ”

“ Much of the work in the clothing trade is now done in shops, especially fitted for the purpose. These shops are more amenable to inspection under our factory laws, and a great deal has been done by state inspectors in this direction. ”

“ The States have enacted codes and established inspection [333] agencies to enforce sanitary conditions for these workers, and to relieve the evils which seem everywhere to spring up about them. To some extent the factory system operated under rigid inspection has replaced home work, and has improved conditions; but garment making is an industry midway in its course of being removed from the home to the factory, and under pressure of intensive production, home work in congested tenements has been difficult to eradicate. ”

“ It shall be the duty of the owner, agent, or lessee of any manufacturing establishment where there is any elevator, hoisting-shaft, or well-hole, to cause the same to be properly and substantially inclosed or secured, if in the opinion of the Factory Inspector, or of the Assistant Factory Inspector, or a Deputy Factory Inspector, unless disapproved by the Factory Inspector, it is necessary to protect the lives or limbs of those employed in such establishment. ”

“ It is rather amusing to find the Inspectors, when the Factory Acts are found to be in any respect impracticable, taunting the manufacturers with pretending to be wiser than parliament; while we here find the Secretary of State not only apparently failing to distinguish the single cases of accident from shafting from the thousands which occur among "machinery" generally, but setting up his opinion against that of eminent engineers, and pressing his suggestions in a case in which they declare that none can avail. ”

“ The states that have passed factory acts and regulated hours of labor “have usually created one or more factory inspectors, charged with the duty of seeing that the statutes are carried out generally with powers to enter personally or by deputy and to inspect all factories at any time.” ”

“ Whether it is true or not, that there are fewer accidents from the shafting of mills than from any other industrial apparatus of any magnitude, it is our business to see how accidents can he best guarded against,—in other words, what is the true relation between the millowner and the government on the one hand, and his workpeople on the other. Whether the deaths be 12 or 12,000 in a year, the question is—what ought to be done? There is the Common Law, which operates for the protection of all; and there are the Factory Acts, which are intended for the special protection of factory operatives. ”

“ From my own knowledge and point of view I should say there is no such supervision of the factory shops at all; during the twenty odd years I have worked there I have never once heard of a factory inspector coming through the shed, unless it were one of the company’s own confidential officials.
The percentage of sickness and accidents is higher at the stamping shed than in any other workshop in the factory. The accidents are of many kinds, though they are chiefly scalds and burns, broken and crushed limbs, and injuries to the eyes. It is remarkable how so many accidents happen ”

“ We need only say, in illustration of the spirit of the Inspectors' reports and of Lord Palmerston's proceedings, that the coroners' reports show that, in the factory districts, the fatal accidents from carts and other agencies concerned in labour were 79 to 29 in factories; and of the factory accidents, not five per cent are owing to machinery. ”

“ In such circumstances the hirer defers to the special qualifications of the contractor in both the selection and use of the equipment. Relying on the supplier's control of the work and with confidence in the supplier's expert knowledge and competence, he makes at most only a routine inspection of the equipment employed. ”

“ Then, when production is proceeding, each part is inspected by viewers. This department is a most important one, and in a high-class factory is always so regarded. The viewer may in some cases be quite a subordinate, but he or she is provided with most accurate gauges which are tried on every part; with lightning like quickness the gauge detects inaccurate workmanship, an error or wear of tools, and back go the faulty parts to the producer to be rectified or they may, on detection, have to be scrapped altogether. ”

“ Dust exhausts on grinding wheels protect lungs of the workmen.
Inspection of Factories, Public Buildings, etc.—It is the duty of a city to inspect the condition of all public buildings and especially of factories. Inspection should include, first, the supervision of the work undertaken. Certain trades where grit, dirt, or poison fumes are given off are dangerous to human health, hence care for the workers becomes a necessity. Factories should also be inspected as to cleanliness, the amount of air space per person employed, ventilation, toilet facilities, and proper fire protection. ”

“ Where, as in the case of the textile trades, a definite working day is laid down and overtime is absolutely prohibited, the administration of the Acts is a comparatively simple matter. The factory inspector and the factory clock between them are a match for the employer who is disposed to let his machinery run beyond the legal limit. ”

“ The factory inspector is, however, supposed to make his own investigation and get his own evidence, though it is generally believed that in many cases he contents himself with a visit to the office only and a 192polite exchange of social amenities with the employer. While the factory inspector is expected to take a personal interest in his figures, it involves a lot of extra work for him and serious trouble for the employer, if the latter is so thoughtless as to inconvenience him by entering into embarrassing particulars in regard to children. ”

“ To carry the factory regulations and those relative to schooling into effect, England has an efficient corps of factory inspectors. The manufacturers of England are unanimous in acknowledging that to the activity, to the sense of impartiality, displayed by these inspectors, is due the fact that an entire application of the law has been possible without individual interests being thereby jeopardized to a very serious extent. ”

“ As regards manufacturing industry, the Industrial Code lays no obligation on employers to report accidents, and until the Accident Insurance Law of 1889 came into force no statistics were available. In Austria, unlike Germany, the factory inspectorate is organized throughout under a central chief inspector. ”

“ But if the manufacturers did not succeed in making the workpeople speak as they wished, they themselves shrieked all the louder in press and Parliament in the name of the workpeople. They denounced the Factory Inspectors as a kind of revolutionary commissioners like those of the French National Convention ruthlessly sacrificing the unhappy factory workers to their humanitarian crotchet. This manœuvre also failed. Factory Inspector Leonard Horner conducted in his own person, and through his sub-inspectors, many examinations of witnesses in the factories of Lancashire. ”

“ The power of inspectors to "enter, inspect, and examine at all reasonable times by day or night, a factory or a workshop, and every part thereof, when he has reason to believe that any person is employed therein, and to enter by day any place he has reasonable cause to believe to be a factory or workshop," is in fact not applicable in the case of dwelling-rooms used for workshops. ”

“ Warehousemen must provide space on warehouse tickets or other tags or labels used by them for showing the grades as determined by an authorized inspector. Sec. 8. The Secretary is authorized to publish and distribute, without cost to the grower, timely information on the 'market supply and demand, location, disposition, quality, condition, and market prices'. Sec. 9. Violation of the requirement of inspection and certification at designated markets, is made a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $1000 or imprisonment for not more than one year or both. ”

“ Provisions of factory acts relating to the sanitary condition of factories and workshops and the safety of employés have been enacted in nearly all the manufacturing states of the Union. They prohibit overcrowding, and require proper ventilation, sufficient light and heat, the lime-washing or painting of walls and ceilings, the provision of exhaust fans and blowers in places where dust or dangerous fumes are generated, guards on machinery, mechanical belts and gearing shifters, guards on elevators and hoistways, hand-rails on stairs, fire-escapes, &c. ”

“ Women and youths cannot be employed for more than forty-five hours a week, except in woollen mills, where forty-eight hours are allowed, and if men are employed for more than forty-eight hours in a week they must be paid overtime.
Factory inspectors are constantly on the alert in all parts of the colony, with unlimited powers in regard to investigation and inquiry. All factories must be registered. Plans must be submitted of all new factories, and inspectors may have them altered to remedy defects. ”

“ There can be no hope of finding expert engineers (if that is what the M.P.’s want) as inspectors here. The cartridges are pouring from that factory at a rate of millions a week. Walking about the works, you see girls shovelling brass cases with a thing like a big coal-scoop into the capacious maws of hoppers to machines that joggle and jolt the cylinders into their back teeth, and turn and solemnly chew them over, and slide them out in a clicking and tinkling stream, with one more operation performed on their way to completion. ”