Workers'+Rights+and+Regulations+-+Jenny+J.,+Christine+C.,+Christina,+Claire

=Workers' Rights and Regulations =

__Problems__ **Work Hours** Throughout the Gilded age, many attempts were made to achieve an eight-hour workday for all workers. The National Labor Union succeeded in winning an eight-hour workday for government workers and the Knights of Labor won several strikes for the eight-hour workday. However, without proper laws to enforce the practice, only some industries practiced the eight-hour workday while the others did not. Although the ideal concept of the eight-hour workday was to provide workers extra wage if they voluntarily worked overtime, severe competition between industries – especially in the steel, textile, coal mining, and oil industries – forced the laborers to work seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Every other Sunday, some workers were ven required to work for twenty-four straight hours; this harsh practice was known as the “long turn.”

The harsh reality of the "long turn" was illustrated in the John Andrews Fitch's nonfiction book __The Steel Workers:__  a collection of accounts of real working men during the Progressive Era. //"Mighty few men have stood what I have, I can tell you. I've been twenty years at the furnaces and been working' a twelve-hour day all that time, seven days in the week. We go to work at seven in the morning' and we get through a night at six. We work that way for two weeks and then we work the long turn and change to the night shift of thirteen hours. The long turn is when we go on at seven Sunday morning' and work through the whole twenty-four hours up to morning' and work through the whole twenty-four hours up to Monday mornin'. That puts us onto the night turn for the next two weeks, and the other crew onto the day. The next time they get the long turn and we get twenty-four hours off, but it don't do us much good. I get home at about half past seven Sunday morning' and go to bed as soon as I've had breakfast. I get up about noon so as to get a bit o' Sunday to enjoy, but I'm tired and sleepy all the afternoon. Now, if we had eight hours it would be different. I'd start to work, say, at six and I'd be done at two and I'd come home, and after dinner me and the missus could go to the park if we wanted to, or I could take the children to the country where there ain't any saloons."//

**Child Labor**  As it became more difficult for a single household member to sustain the entire family, more children began to work with the adults, both in urban and rural areas. These children were usually between the ages of ten to fifteen, but some were as young as three. Because children had smaller hands and could complete tasks that older people couldn't, some companies favored employing younger kids. Urban workplaces like factories were very dangerous because children could get easily injured by the machines. The general environment of factories was also harmful in that children could get ill from the smoke and toxins. Children at work naturally didn't have the opportunity to receive education, and their lives became restricted.

**Workplace Accidents**  From 1902 to 1908 15,000 railway workers were killed; During the construction of the Panama Canal, 47,000 were killed; In a Pennsylvania county 526 were killed in a single year. Work place accidents and dangers were widespread - and largely neglected. Even though workers could sue their employers for the damages, chances that they would win were slim: if the employer could prove that the worker was aware of the hazards, was injured by another employee’s blunder, or was partly responsible for his own damage liability was denied. In the other hand, the worker had to prove that the accident was not caused by his own negligence. Several surveys conducted in 1900 showed that only half of the workers with fatal injuries were compensated, the sum approximately half of the worker’s annual salary.

Some jobs were more dangerous than others. Take for example, railroad and coal mining jobs. Railroad workers had to go in between moving cars to couple and uncouple. For miners, flooding water and methane gas from undrained, unventilated coal mining underground posed real threats. Methane gas could easily catch fire and explode. Fires in coal mines were especially dangerous because with poor ventilation, the workers could suffocate from the smoke produced.

__Health Insurance and Workmen's Compensation for Diseases, Illnesses__ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">From 1911 to 1920 there were workmen’s compensation laws passed in 42 states. However, workers were not readily compensated for illnesses and diseases, many of which were job-related. Respiratory illnesses were common among miners and textile workers; hemorrhoids and chronic constipation were common among factory operatives; bronchitis and asthma were widespread among fur workers and bakers.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">During the Progressive Era, America had a dearth of services for the sick and the injured. Opponents of compulsory health insurance claimed that private protective institutions provided adequate protection for the workers, and shunned government intervention that would accompany compulsory health insurance. Others supported compulsory health insurance because current services such as voluntary insurance and factory health clinics were limited to a small number of workers. The reality was that the majority of Americans had no access or limited access to these health care services.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">__Triangle Shirtwaist Fire__ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">One particular workplace accident whose impact still resonates through America is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire (March 25, 2011). The cause of the fire is still unknown, however, with scraps of clothes lying around the floor, the fire spread quickly. Because the exits out of the building were either engulfed by the fire or locked (because the employers suspected workers of stealing materials), the workers were trapped in the building. In the end 164 out of 500 workers were killed. The fact that such incident took place not long after the women workers' strike in 1909, which demanded shorter hours, higher wages, and better working condition, was disappointing.

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">__Upton Sinclair's The Jungle__ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Upton Sinclair’s gory, graphic description of meatpacking industry’s working condition in The Jungle (1906) also imprinted the minds of numerous Americans. Below is an excerpt from The Jungle, describing the physical deterioration that the workers suffered:

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">//"There was another interesting set of statistics that a person might have gathered … The workers in each [room] had their own peculiar diseases. And the wandering visitor might be skeptical about all the swindles [he had heard about], but he could not be skeptical about these, for the worker bore the evidence of them about on his own person—generally he had only to hold out his hand. There were the men in the pickle rooms, for instance … scarce a one of these had not some spot of horror on his person. Let a man so much as scrape his finger pushing a truck in the pickle rooms, and he might have a sore that would put him out of the world; all the joints in his fingers might be eaten by the acid, one by one. Of the butchers and floormen, the beef boners and trimmers, and all those who used knives, you could scarcely find a person who had the use of his thumb; time and time again the base of it had been slashed, till it was a mere lump of flesh against which the man pressed the knife to hold it. The hands of these men would be crisscrossed with cuts, until you could no longer pretend to count them or to trace them. They would have no nails—they had worn them off pulling hides; their knuckles were swollen so that their fingers spread out like a fan. There were men who worked in the cooking rooms, in the midst of steam and sickening odors, by artificial light; in these rooms the germs of tuberculosis might live for two years, but the supply was renewed every hour. There were the beef loggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator cars, a fearful kind of work, that began at four o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful man in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time limit that a man could work in the chilling rooms was said to be five years. There were the wool pluckers, whose hands went to pieces even sooner than the hands of the pickle men; for the pelts of the sheep had to be painted with acid to loosen the wool, and then the pluckers had to pull out this wool with their bare hands, till the acid had eaten their fingers off. There were those who made the tins for the canned meat, and their hands, too, were a maze of cuts, and each cut represented a chance for blood poisoning. Some worked at the stamping machines, and it was very seldom that one could work long there at the pace that was set, and not give out and forget himself, and have a part of his hand chopped off."//

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Laws/Regulations & their Effectiveness** <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">If employees were hurt on the job, there were no compensation laws set to support them until 1910. Before that, workers had to face an extremely bad accident record in the steel mills, mines, and railroads of the U.S. Between 1880 and 1900, some 35,000 workers perished each year in factory and mine accident. The only expenses the company may have made were the 75-dollar contribution toward funeral processes, but most of these were when the accidents proved "beyond human control." Because of this, workers had to largely rely on their unions and associations for further support.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Female activists made laws that restricted child labor in 38 states by the late 19th century. But these laws did not eradicate child labor; instead, they just set a maximum ten-hour workday and established the minimum wage for employment at twelve years. Plus, 60 percent of the children worked in agriculture, which were excluded from the laws.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">In response to this, progressives helped enact state legislation that gave financial aid to working mothers in eight states by 1913, and in all but four by 1930.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Some also began providing help for elders in 1914 (early version of social security).

__<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Obstacles __ <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">One of the chief obstacles that makes compromise difficult is the clashing financial interests of the employees and the employers: While employees seek to earn money adequate for supporting their families, employers seek to maximize productivity with minimum costs. By modern standards, it would only seem fair for these employers to ban child labor, decrease long work-hours, and provide compensation for work injury. But during the late late 19th, early 20th century such was not the case: child labor, long work hours, lack of worker compensation were the norms. Therefore, compromise between employers and employees had to occur based on the “give-and-take” principle or partial satisfaction of the workers’ pleas. Also both the employers’ and the employee’s myopic perspectives of the issue were significant obstacles in making alterations: because the workers were primarily concerned about financially supporting their families and the employers were concerned about making profits, they altogether overlooked the fact that workplace problems such as child labor were going to subjugate the future generation to low-tier and low-paying jobs. Another obstacle that made it difficult to convince the employers of providing better treatment and improving working conditions was the huge labor pool. Because there were long lines of workers waiting to take on the jobs of absent workers and injured workers, workers were seen as replaceable “commodities” by employers. Employers saw no need to “repair” their workers, when they could easily get a “new one."

<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">__ Plan __ <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">The plan at large includes four different areas of focus:
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Work hours,
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Child labor,
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Work environment,
 * 4) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Enforcement of legal measures.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Work Hours** <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">In the area of work hour regulation, we took into consideration several factors of concern.
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">The workers need a limit in the maximum number of mandatory work hours, because they are currently forced to complete many additional hours of unpaid and intense labor. Creating a limit would curb such exploitation. An average of eight hours per workday, based on a five-day week, would be ideal.
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">The industries, at certain periods of time, need to meet exponential demands due to a sudden boom or success. When they need more workforce, companies may have to resort to forcing workers to work for longer hours per day, for the interest of the company. The same may be a reason for why industries use long turns.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Hence we present the following solution:
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">During the **non-prime season**: The mandatory working hours for all employees/workers should not exceed 40 hours per week, based on a five-day week. Any voluntary, extra hours of work will be paid additional wages, 100% value of the normal wage.
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">During the **prime season**: The limit on mandatory working hours may become more flexible, up to 50 hours per week, based on a five-day week. Any number of hours over the 40 line, however, is still considered “forced.” Work done in these “forced” extra hours, without the workers’ consent, will be paid with 110% of the rate of the normal wage.
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">**Long turns**, or the practice of forcing work 24-hours straight every other Sunday, are banned.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Child Labor** <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">In the context of child labor, we are aware that:
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">It would be unrealistic for us to entirely eliminate children from the workplace, seeing that so many are already found in the factories all throughout the nation.
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Many children are hired due to their smaller bodies and hands, which including crawling into small spaces in the mines, as well as operating very intricate machinery. These machines and workplaces are often among the most dangerous environments, and the children’s economic situation give them no choice but to accept the perils.
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">As the United States should set a world example and establish itself as a leading world power and among the rising nations, it must practice and standardize the ultimate goal of eliminating child labor from the labor force.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">So we hereby propose the following series of legal measures, of escalating degree: <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">*Note: These legal measures will be taken one at a time, over an unspecified period of time. The length of the time period will vary based on how effective the former measure is. If the first succeeds, then we move on to implement the next, and then if that one works out, then to the following one. Thus it continues until the end — a total ban of child labor.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;"> If child labor should exist — if children should be hired, for whatever economic reason — these children must be stationed in workplaces that call for fewer safety protocols, and do not require heavy physical labor. Children may work only a maximum of 5 hours per day, which should amount to a total of less than 25 hours per week.
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Children are no longer able to participate in mining activities.
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Children may not operate high-speed or heavy machinery.
 * 4) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Children should not be forced to carry loads heavier than 50% of their own weight.
 * 5) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Primary education that involves basic skills of reading and writing is compulsory.
 * 6) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Children are banned from labor, mainly those contractual.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Accidents and Working Environment** <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">We determined that the main weaknesses of the common working environment lied in: <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">So we propose the enforcement of the following measures:
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Safety (ex: efficient system of exits for buildings)
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Sanitation (ex: ordinary sanitary facilities like bathrooms)
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Require federally appointed engineers to conduct regular checkups on the factory machinery. These checkups should be scheduled every month, as these machines are used so extensively.
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Every factory needs to go through an initial step of governmental approval before it begins to operate. The criteria for approval will revolve around major safety measures. These will be reviewed, and renewed reports published, every quarter of the year, through unannounced federal agent inspections. The criteria are as follows:
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Proper and sufficient fire exits
 * 4) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Ample supply of fire extinguishers
 * 5) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Presence of windows
 * 6) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Clean bathrooms and other such sanitation facilities.
 * 7) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">We call for the enhancement of compensation laws, for workers who are either sick or injured. These laws will include the following terms:
 * 8) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">7 days of recognized sick and emergency leaves;
 * 9) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Compensation for job-related injuries:
 * 10) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">100% support of treatment costs if the injury is caused by machine malfunction, as determined by the federal engineer checkup after the occurrence of an accident.
 * 11) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">50% support of treatment costs for all other injuries in the workplace.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">**Enforcement** <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">We believe that proper enforcement of the above guidelines and legal measures is integral to the effectiveness of the plan. We are aware that the level of enforcement at the federal, state, and city level are often undermined by corruption.

<span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Therefore, we propose that:
 * 1) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">A local (town) commission be set up, that:
 * 2) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Includes representatives from each of the factories within the area, through direct vote from within the factories;
 * 3) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Consists of town leaders, and a number of voters within the town unrelated to the industrial work;
 * 4) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Can investigate and monitor any suspicious actions of federal agents, namely the engineers and officials making the quarterly and monthly observations.
 * 5) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Would, if there should be any signs of corruption, report the matter to the federal government for appeal, and conduct a recall/referendum within the workers in relevant factories of the area to fire or excuse the accused.
 * 6) <span class="s1" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif;">Existing women organizations be given the responsibility to double-monitor and double-regulate the enforcement of existing frameworks — even of the leaders of the aforementioned local commissions — and, should any unusual actions be noted, report them to the local commissions. The groups will also file separate appeals to the federal government directly. This system will keep the power of the commissions in check.