Factory inspector

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The factory inspector must have right of access, and a certificate must be obtained from him for a separate licence. The casual home-worker would be discouraged." In other words, factory inspectors should apparently be authorised to break without a search warrant into private houses. They should certainly be empowered to prosecute a working man if he defended the privacy of his house by refusing the inspector admittance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is allowed to stand as an indication of the frequent misunderstandings our investigators met with regarding the L.C.C. This body appeared to be charged with everything that caused irritation.
The L.C.C. put a premium on burglary by making it compulsory to have a way out on to the roof. The Factory Inspector was not a practical man, and ordered a great deal of unnecessary fencing of machinery. He told me how one night he kept the girls late without giving notice (the work came in unexpectedly) , and sat by the telephone so as to send up notice to the forewoman if the inspector came. ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ General powers are reserved to the secretary of state, where he is satisfied that the Factory Act or law relating to public health as regards workplaces has not been carried out by any district council, to authorize a factory inspector during a period named in his order to act instead of the district council. Other general sanitary provisions administered by the government inspectors are the requirement in factories and workshops of washing conveniences where poisonous substances are used ”

“ The powers of an inspector are to enter, inspect and examine, by day or by night, at any reasonable time, any factory or workshop (or laundry, dock, &c.) , or part of one, when he has reason to believe that any person is employed there; to take with him a constable if he has reasonable cause to expect obstruction; to require production of registers, certificates, &c., under the acts; to examine, alone or in the presence of any other person, as he sees fit, every person in the factory or workshop, or in a school where the children employed are being educated ”

“ Clause 13 of the Bill prohibited the making up of apparel outside a factory except by those who had received a permit from the chief inspector, which was not to be given unless he were satisfied that the person applying for it was prevented by domestic duties or bodily affliction from working inside a factory or workroom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the eight-hour working-day is right for men, it is even more needed by women. [Pg 230] Laws regulating factory conditions are of little value unless there is sufficient inspection to enforce them, and the number of inspectors employed is always inadequate. Women inspectors are needed for factories in which women are employed; but there are only four women factory inspectors in the entire State. ”

“ The official authority which comes into the most direct relation with the child labor problem is the Factory Inspection Department. In some of the more advanced states, the issuance of certificates has been placed in the hands of the school authorities, but even in such states, the factory departments have the largest measure of responsibility for enforcing the law. The statistics furnished by the factory departments are interesting, if not conclusive. The work of the factory inspectors is usually curtailed by lack of either inspectors or of office force, or of both. ”

“ It is a very small department of factory legislation that we are going to speak of. The great subjects of hours of labour and wages do not concern us here; nor does the general heading of the security of machinery, though Lord Palmerston and the Factory Inspectors mislead the public, and, perhaps, themselves into thinking that it does. The one point on which the existing controversy proceeds is not the securing the entire machinery in factories, but only horizontal shafts ”

“ 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. ”

“ He says, by his own pen, or his contributor’s [let us say, then, his contributor’s] ‘But the factory inspectors will proceed for penalties? Certainly they will; and then, if these gentlemen be members of the National Association of Factory Occupiers, they will have their case defended for them and their fine immediately paid.’ Yet while the writer declares his information to be drawn from the papers of the Association, he ignores the following conspicuous passages from their First Report”—the retractation then being quoted. ”

“ As compared with similar European and American laws, it may fairly claim to be advanced and minute. Under its pivot clause all workshops, where two or more persons are occupied, are declared to be factories, must register, pay an annual fee, and submit to inspection at any hour of the night or day. A master and servant working together count as two hands. Inspectors have absolute power to demand such cubic space, ventilation, and sanitary arrangements generally as they may consider needful to preserve life and health. The factory age is fourteen; there are no half-timers ”

“ It points out that factory inspection has become the primary investigative device for enforcement of this law, that it is from factory inspections that about 80 percent of the violations are discovered, that the small force of inspectors makes factory inspection, rather than random sampling of finished goods, the only effective method of enforcing the Act. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Inspectors would be empowered to notify to mill-owners whenever they observed that any portion of their machinery was dangerous, and that in their opinion it required to be cased or covered up: and if after such notification any accident should occur injurious to any of the workmen employed, then the inspector would be empowered to institute a suit for recovering compensation for such injury, and the damages awarded should be given to the injured party. ”

“ The inspectors, again, are under the district superintendent or engineer, who makes frequent inspections both by walking and on the engine. The ganger, if in want of men or materials, reports to his inspector, who, if they are required, sends a requisition to the engineer, keeping a small stock at his head-quarters to supply urgent demands. The engineer in his turn keeps the whole in harmony, sanctioning the employment of the necessary men, and ordering the materials, the only check upon the number of men or quantity of materials being the total half-yearly expenditure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although the three engineers were responsible for the proper operation of the machinery during their shifts, and, as the factory manager testifies, 'in charge of management of the property,' none of them could fire or hire or give orders to any man in the boiler-room. ”

“ The writer is quite sure that in his own case, as a young man, no one element was of such assistance to him in obtaining new opportunities as the practice of invariably training another man to fill his position before asking for advancement.
The first of the functional foremen to be brought into actual contact with the men should be the inspector; and the whole system of inspection, with its proper safeguards, should be in smooth and successful operation before any steps are taken toward stimulating the men to a larger output ”

“ 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. ”