Bill.

ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES.

Clause.

1. Limit of working hours in industrial employments.

2.

3.

4.

Authorised exceptions.

Overtime.

Provisions for facilitating enforcement of Act.

5. Determination of questions.

8.

Orders and regulations to be laid before Parliament.

9. Power to refer matters to industrial court.

10.

11.

12.

Power to suspend Act in cases of emergency.
Exercise of powers of Minister.
Interpretation.

13. Application to Scotland.

14. Short title, commencement and extent. SCHEDULE.

A

BILL

то

Limit the hours of work in industrial

undertakings.

WHEREAS at a

HEREAS at Washington on the twenty-eighth day of November, nineteen hundred and nineteen, a general conference of the International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations adopted a draft convention 5 containing the articles set forth in the Schedule to this Act, and it is expedient having regard to the said draft convention that the provisions hereinafter contained should have effect:

Be it therefore enacted by the King's most Excellent 10 Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

A.D. 1924.

1.-(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, the Limit of 15 working hours of persons employed in any industrial working undertaking (exclusive of recognised intervals for meals hours in or rest) shall not exceed eight in any day or forty-eight employin any week.

(2) For the purposes of this Act the expression 20 "industrial undertaking means any undertaking or branch or department of an undertaking wholly or mainly engaged in any of the following operations

(a) Mining, quarrying, and other works for the ex-
traction of minerals from the earth:

industrial

ments.

A.D. 1924.

(b) The manufacture, alteration, cleaning, repairing,
ornamenting, finishing, adapting for sale, break-
ing up or demolishing, of any articles (including
shipbuilding); operations in which materials are
transformed; the generation, transformation 5
and transmission of electricity or motive power
of any kind :

(c) The construction, re-construction, maintenance,
repair, alteration or demolition of any building,
railway, tramway, harbour, dock, pier, canal, 10
inland waterway, road, tunnel, bridge, viaduct,
sewer, drain, well, telegraphic or telephonic
installation, electrical work, gas work, water
work or other work of construction, as well as
the preparation for or laying the foundations of 15
any such work or structure:

(d) The transport of passengers or goods by road or
rail, including the handling of goods at docks,
quays, wharves or warehouses, but excluding
transport by hand:

20

Provided that where in any industrial undertaking as so defined there is a separate branch or department, wherein the work performed is of a commercial character, the Minister of Labour (hereinafter referred to as the Minister) may by order provide for excluding from the 25 operation of this Act the persons employed in that branch or department.

Authorised 2. (1) Where by law, custom, or agreement exceptions. between organisations of employers and workers in any class of employment, or, where no such organisa- 30 tions exist, between representatives of employers and workers in any class of employment, the hours worked on one or more days of the week are less than eight, the limit of eight hours may as respects the workers affected by the law, custom, or agreement be exceeded on the 35 remaining days of the week if an agreement to that effect is arrived at between such organisations or representatives:

Provided that the daily limit of eight hours shall in no case by virtue of this subsection be exceeded by more 40 than one hour.

(2) Where in any undertaking the working hours are so arranged that the hours worked in the undertaking

on one or more days of the week are less than eight, the A.D. 1924. limit of eight hours may, as respects the workers employed in that undertaking, be exceeded on the remaining days of the week if an agreement to that 5 effect is arrived at between the employer and those workers:

10

Provided that the daily limit of eight hours shall in no case by virtue of this subsection be exceeded by more than one hour.

An agreement for the purposes of this subsection may be made between the employer and a majority of the workers employed in the undertaking, and when so made shall, whilst in force, be binding on all the workers employed in the undertaking, notwithstanding that any 15 of the workers may have ceased to be, and others may have become, workers in the undertaking.

(3) Where persons are employed in shifts, a person may be so employed in excess of eight hours in any one day, and of forty-eight hours in any one week if the 20 average number of his working hours over the period of alternating shifts usual in the district in which he is employed does not exceed eight per day, or forty-eight per week.

(4) In the case of persons employed in processes 25 which are required by reason of the nature thereof to be carried on continuously by a succession of shifts, the limits on the number of working hours of any such person may be exceeded provided that his total working hours in the week do not on the average exceed fifty-six.

30

(5) If in the case of any class of employment or of any class of undertaking an agreement has been arrived at between organisations of employers and workers, or where the Crown is the employer between the Crown and any organisation of workers, concerning the limit 35 on the working hours, the Minister, if satisfied that owing to the exceptional circumstances of the case the class of employment or class of undertaking is one to which it is not reasonably practicable to apply the limit imposed by section one of this Act, and that the 40 number of working hours authorised by the agreement does not exceed on the average forty-eight per week, may by order provide that as respects that class of employment or that class of undertaking the limit of working hours shall be that specified in the agreement.