210 Mass. 387 | Mass. | 1912
This is a complaint against the defendant as superintendent of the Davol Mills for employing a woman contrary to the provisions of St, 1909, c. 514, § 48. This section limits the time during which minors under the age of eighteen years and women may be employed in labor in manufacturing and mechanical establishments, to fifty-six hours in each week, and to ten hours in each day, “ unless a different apportionment of the hours of labor is made for the sole purpose of making a shorter day’s work for one day of the week,” except that where employment is by seasons the hours of labor in each week may exceed fifty-six, but not fifty-eight, if the total number of hours of such employment in any year shall not exceed an average of fifty-six hours in each week for the whole year, excluding Sundays and holidays. St. 1911, c. 484, by which the basis of the labor for each week has been reduced from fifty-six to fifty-four hours, was not in force at the time of the offense here complained of.
1. The constitutionality of a statute restricting the hours Of employment of women and children in a single manufacturing service was upheld in 1876 by this court. Commonwealth v. Hamilton Manuf. Co. 120 Mass. 383. See also Opinion of the Justices, 163 Mass. 589, at 594. There can be no doubt as to the constitutionality of such a statute in its application to minors, who are not sui juris, and are in some respects wards of the State. See Berdos v. Tremont & Suffolk Mills, 209 Mass. 489. But the subject latterly has been debated rather widely, so far as applicable to adult women. There appears, however, to be no ground to doubt the soundness of our somewhat early decisions, and we adhere to it, both on reason and on the doctrine of stare decisis. Recently such statutes have been held to be valid under the Federal Constitution and generally in other jurisdictions. Muller v. Oregon, 208 U. S. 412, affirming State v. Muller, 48 Ore. 252. Wenham v. State, 65 Neb. 394. State v. Buchanan, 29 Wash. 602. Commonwealth v. Beatty, 15 Penn. Sup. Ct. 5, 17. Withey v. Bloem, 163 Mich. 419. Ritchie v. Wayman, 244 Ill. 509.
2. This statute plainly prohibits the employment of women longer than fifiy-six hours in any week, or longer than ten hours in any day, save for the purpose of securing shorter hours of labor on one day within the maximum of fifty-six hours per week, and for other purposes not here in issue. The complaint at bar is not framed upon that part of the statute. It is not claimed that the defendant employed any laborers for a longer period in any day or week than the law permits.
3. The crime which is charged is that first created by St. 1902, c. 435, and retained in subsequent re-enactments. It is necessary to examine with exactness precisely what is inhibited. The first part of said § 48 provides that “ No child and no woman shall be employed in laboring ” in the specified occupations except as permitted. It then enacts that “ Every employer shall post in a conspicuous place in every room in which such persons are employed a printed notice stating the number of hours’ work required of them on each day of the week, the hours of commencing and stopping work, and the hours when the time allowed for
The meaning of this language must be determined. It ought to be read in the light of the general purpose of the Legislature in enacting it. That purpose was to establish the rights of children and women, who are treated as in a certain sense dependent and under an industrial disadvantage by reason of age'and sex, to regular hours of employment for limited and designated periods of time with fixed intervals for rest and refreshment, and to protect them in the enjoyment of the rights thus established, to the end that the health and endurance of the individual may be insured and the ultimate strength and virility of the race be preserved. The requirement for the posting of notices where “ such persons ” are employed means wherever women and children are regularly employed for any substantial number of hours daily. It applies to every employer of “ such persons.” Both phrases are wholly general and without restriction or exception. It is not fairly open to the construction that it applies only to establishments where “such persons ” are regularly employed more than ten hours in any one day, and that it does not affect those when on no day is there employment for more than ten hours. All those, who in manufacturing and mechanical establishments employ women and children in practically permanent labor, are required to post the notices, which fix definitely the hours of work. As was pointed out in Commonwealth v. Osborn Mill, 130 Mass. 33, statutes of that character are not intended, either by letter or in spirit, to apply to any except women employed permanently, who labor for full working days, whatever the length may be. The statute does not apply to those who are hired temporarily or intermittently to perform tasks subsidiary to the main business of the factory or shop. A woman engaged for an hour or two a day sweeping the floors or washing windows, although perhaps technically in some aspects a laborer, would not come
4. This being the meaning of this section of the statute, the question is whether as thus construed it is constitutional. Arguments which would be decisive against its constitutionality if it applied to men as well as to women (Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, Opinion of the Justices, 208 Mass. 619, 622) may be laid aside. It is to be noted that it applies only to “ manufacturing ” and “ mechanical ” establishments. These words as defined in § 17 of the same act include those places popularly known as mills and shops, where, as matter of common knowledge, continuously operating machinery and constant service by attendants throughout the whole day are not essential to economical manufacture, and where ordinarily machinery is stopped for the noon hour. The statute does not extend in that respect to stores or to branches of manufacture or industry where continuity of labor by somebody is necessary from the beginning to the end of the work day. Other provisions are made for these classes of employment. See said c. 514, §§ 47, 68, 69, 70, which recognize the practical difficulty, if not impossibility, of requiring a suspension of all labor by regular employees during a midday or other meal intermission, and do not prohibit labor except before the beginning and after the end of the established working day. A classification of employment of women and children confined to manufacturing and mechanical establishments of this character is within the legislative power. Such a classification is sustained as valid when it can be ascertained to rest upon some sound principle, and to be not arbitrary in its nature. There is a legislative right of reasonable selection among various businesses and indus
It may be conceived that the purpose of requiring by the imposition of a penalty a strict observance of the posted hours of labor was to facilitate the enforcement of the law. It might be regarded as difficult to detect violations of the prohibition against employment for a longer time in the day or week than is allowed, while it would be comparatively easy to observe working outside of designated hours. Although difficulty in enforcing a statute can never justify unconstitutional “ modes of accomplishing a laudable purpose, and of carrying into effect a good and wholesome law” (Fisher v. McGirr, 1 Gray, 1, 31), reasonable regulations to this end should be upheld. When the constitutionality of the statute limiting the hours of labor of women is settled, the means by which the aim of the statute may be forwarded within reasonable bounds are matters for legislative determination. This statute requires the hours of labor to be stipulated in advance, and then to be followed until a change is made. It does not by its terms establish a schedule of hours. This is left to the free action of the parties. Nor does it in the sections now under consideration restrict the right to labor to any particular hours. See People v. Williams, 189 N. Y. 131. It simply makes imperative strict observance of any one table of hours of labor while it remains posted.
The end of the statute is the protection of women within constitutional limits, and the requirement that the hours posted in the notice shall be followed is a means to effectuate the attainment of that end. That it in substance also requires performance of the contract implied from laboring under the notice does not
5. The complaint is sufficient in form. It alleges that the woman, whose employment outside of the hours posted in the notice is charged, was “ required to work in laboring during the hours set forth in said notice,” and thus avoids the defect which was held to be fatal in Commonwealth v. Osborn Mill, 130 Mass. 33. It alleges also that the defendant, being then and there the superintendent of a named manufacturing corporation, “ did then and there employ in laboring in said mill ” a certain woman. This is a sufficiently direct and positive averment, that the defendant employed the woman in his capacity as superintendent, and brings him within the substance of the description “ as superintendent . . . for another ” used in § 49 of said c. 514. Nothing is left to inference or implication as in Commonwealth v. Dunn, 170 Mass. 140, 142, relied on by the defendant.
6. The evidence on which the defendant was found guilty appears to be meagre. But in view of decided cases it is not so slight as to be capable of being pronounced insufficient. It could not have been ruled rightly that the defendant did not employ the woman. The word “ employ ” is used in divers significations,
The other exceptions are either expressly waived or treated as waived because not argued.
Exceptions overruled.
