The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection. A. Schäffle
are more hotly disputed than ever. In spite of the valuable and careful articles on Labour Protection, in the Encyclopædia, of von Schönberg and of Conrad, with their wealth of literary illustration, in spite of the latest writings of Hitze,[1] which, for moderation and clearness, vigour of thought, and wealth of material, cannot be too highly commended, there still remains much scientific work to be done. I myself have actually undertaken a thorough examination of all this literary and legislative material, in view of the national and international efforts of to-day towards the progressive development of Labour Protection, with the result that I am firmly convinced that both Theory and Policy of Labour Protection are still deficient at several points, and in fact that we are far from having placed on a scientific footing the dogmatic basis of the whole matter.
We have not yet a sufficiently exact definition of the meaning of Labour Protection, nor a clear distinction between Labour Protection and the other forms of State-aids to Labour, as well as of other aids outside the action of the State.
We have not a satisfactory classification of the different forms of Labour Protection itself with reference to its aim and scope, organisation and methods.
We still lack—and it was seriously lacking at the Labour Conference at Berlin—a fundamental agreement as to the grounds on which Labour Protection is justified, its relation to freedom of contract, and the advisability of extending it to adults.
The discussion is far from being complete, not only with reference to the real problems of Labour Protection, but also and especially with reference to the organs, methods and course of its administration. Many proposals lie before us, some of which are open to objection and some even highly questionable.
But we find scarcely any who advocate the simplification and cheapening of this organisation in connection with the systematised collective organisation of all matters pertaining to labour, together with the separation, as far as possible, of such organisation from the regular administrative organs.
The proposals of Social Democracy with respect to “Labour-boards” and “Labour-chambers,” are hardly known in wider circles, and have nowhere received the attention to which in my opinion they are entitled.
The proposed legislation for the protection of labour offers therefore a wide field for careful and scientific investigation. I have prepared the following pages as a contribution to this task.
Footnote
[1] Protection for the Labourer! Cologne, 1890.
CHAPTER I. DEFINITION OF LABOUR PROTECTION.
The meaning of the term Labour Protection admits of an extension far beyond the narrow and precise limits which prevailing usage has assigned to it, and beyond the sphere of analogous questions actually dealt with by protective legislation.
In its most general meaning the term comprises all conceivable protection of every kind of labour: protection of all labour—even for the self-supporting, independent worker; protection in service-relations, and beyond this, protection against all dangers and disadvantages arising from the economic weakness of the position of the wage-labourer; protection of all, not merely of industrial wage-labourers; protection not by the State alone, but also by non-political organs; the ancient common protection exercised through the ordinary course of justice and towards all citizens, and thus towards labourers among the rest. All this so far as the actual word is concerned may be included in the term Labour Protection.
But to use it in this sense would be to incur the risk of falling into a hopeless confusion as to the questions which lie within the scope of actual Labour Protection, and of running an endless tilt against fanciful exaggerations of Labour Protection.
The term Labour Protection, according to prevailing usage and according to the aim of the practical efforts now being made to realise it, has a much narrower meaning, and this it is which we must strictly define and adhere to if we wish to avoid error and misconception. Our first task shall be to determine this stricter definition; and here we find ourselves confronted by a series of limitations.
(1) Labour Protection signifies only protection against the special dangers arising out of service-relations, out of the personal and economic dependence of the wage-labourer on the employer.
Labour Protection does not apply therefore to independent workers: to farmers or masters of handicrafts, to independent workers in the fine arts and liberal professions. Labour Protection applies merely to wage-labourers.
For this reason Labour Protection has no connection with any aids to labour, beyond the limits of protection against the employer in service-relations; it has nothing to do with any attempts to ward off and remedy distress of all kinds, and otherwise to provide for the general welfare of the working classes; its scope does not extend to provisions for meeting distress caused by incapacity for work, or want of work, i.e. Labour Insurance, nor to the prevention and settlement of strikes, nor to improved methods of labour-intelligence, nor to precautions against disturbances of production or protection against the consequences of poverty by various methods of public and private charity, savings-banks, public health-regulations, inspection of food, and suppression of usury by common law. Although these are mainly or principally concerned with labourers, and are attempts to protect them from want, yet they are not to be included in Labour Protection in its strict sense. For this, as we have seen, includes only those measures and regulations designed to protect the wage-labourer in his special relations of dependence on his employer.
And indeed we must draw the limit still closer, and apply the word only to the relations between certain defined wage-earners and certain defined employers. Measures which are designed to protect the entire labouring class or the whole of industry, do not, strictly speaking, belong to the category of Labour Protection. Neither can we apply the term to that protection which workmen and employers alike should find against the recent abnormal development of prison competition, although by recommending this measure in their latest Industrial Rescript (the Auer Motion[2]) the Social Democrats by a skilful move have won the applause of small employers especially. For the same reason we do not include protection by criminal law against the coercion of non-strikers by strikers, exercised through personal violence, intimidation or abuse; these are measures to preserve freedom of contract, but they have no connection with the relations of certain defined wage-earners to certain defined employers. Furthermore, Labour Protection does not include preservation of the rights of unions, and of freedom to combine for the purpose of raising wages, except or only in so far as particular employers, singly or in concert, by means of moral pressure or otherwise, seek to endanger the rights of particular wage-earners in this respect. It is almost unnecessary to add that Labour Protection does not include the “protection of national labour” against foreign labourers and employers, by means of protective duties, for this is obviously not protection against dangers arising from the service relations between certain defined wage-earners and employers.
But although none of these measures of security that we have enumerated are to be included in Labour Protection, we must on the other hand guard against mistaken limitations of the term. It would be a mistaken limitation to include only security against material economic dangers in and arising from the relations of dependence, and to exclude moral and personal safeguards in these relations—protection of learning and instruction, of education, morality and religion, in a word the complete protection of family life.
Labour Protection does not indeed include the whole moral and personal security of the wage-earner, but it does include it, and includes it fully and entirely, in so far as the dangers which threaten this