United labor bulletin., 1910-01-07
WoRkoAY FOR WOMEN.
Illinois Supreme Court Soon to Decide
on Legal Status of the Girls BILL"
Provisions of the LAVA View
of Both Sides

Is it unconstitutional to limit the
workday of women employed in factories
or laundries to ten hours? Is it an in
fringement upon their liberty" protect
ed by the fourteenth amendment of the
federal constitution? Or
Is it inhuman for any one to make a
woman work more than ten hours a day?
Is it a mockery to say that it is an in
fringement upon woman's liberty to pro-
tect her health, safety, morals and gen
eral welfare" by limiting her working
hours within reasonable bounds?
These are the questions which the SUI
preme court of the state of Illinois will
be called upon to decide in the near fu-
ture. Upon the right Interpretation OF
the word liberty in the fourteenth
amendment will depend the life or death
of the girls BILL as this law is known,
which was passed at the closing mo-
ments of the forty-sixth session of the
Illinois legislature last spring and which
went into effect on July L.
The fight for the life of the law, the
effort to steer the girls bill' safely
through the legal rocks and bubbles
which its enemies have been and will
be putting in its way, will be made by
Louis d. Brandeis, from Oregon who
after a prolonged fight against similar
ten-hour law by the manufacturers OF
Oregon succeeded in having the supreme
court of the United States declare the
law constitutional Attorney Brandeis
goes to Chicago at the invitation of State
Attorney John E. w. Wayman, who, with
Chief Factory Inspector Edgar T. Davies,
is a defendant in the case because of
his attempt to enforce the law.
The fight for the life of the ten-hour
law for women is at present the most
engrossing topic in labor circles, with
the Woman's Trades Union League, the
State Federation of Womens Clubs
and social and sociological workers gen
orally
The law as it was adopted by the IL
linois legislature last spring provides
that no female shall be employed in
any mechanical establishment or factory
or laundry in this state more than ten
hours during any one day"
Its passage was looked upon as
great victory as we'll as wedge" for
further legislation in the interest of
women workers in factories and other
mechanical establishments When Chief
Factory Inspector Davies began to en-
force the law after July 1. w. C. Ritchie
of the paper box manufacturing concerr
of the same name. secured an injunction
against Factory Inspector Davies and
State Attorney Wayman. preventing them
from enforcing the ten-hour law in his
factory.
According to the opponents of the ten
hour law, its enforcement will interfere
with business considerably. Besides,
many of them argue that the enforce
ment of the law prohibiting women from
working more than ten hours day will
be a hardship to their women employees,
who are glad to have the opportunity to
work twelve and fourteen hours a day,
as they can earn more that way and can
support their families, which they could
not do if their workday was limited to
ten hours only.
1t is pointed out that the enforcement
of the ten-hour law work in busy seasons
overtime and night work in busy seasons
and thus would hurt business. AT least.
it would hurt it until the factories and
their clients throughout the country W.
have become accustomed to it and will
have made different working arrange
ments which it would necessitate.
Thus, a factory employing fifty girls
but making them work overtime during
have to employ sixty or seventy girls if
the ten-hour law were enforced This
would require more space in the factory,
more machines and an extensive change
in arrangements. The customers of the
factory likewise would have to be noti-
fed to put in their holiday orders earlier
than they were accustomed to do, as the
factory would not be able to fill these
orders If they came late in the season.
The friends of the ten-hour law, how
ever, say that the Inconvenience which
the manufacturers will be subjected to
by its enforcement will be overcome
quickly enough. On the other hand, the
benefits to the women, and to those yet
unborn-the benefits 10 womanhood
motherhood the gain to country at large
will more than atone for the inconven
fences to a comparatively small number
of manufacturers.
AS for the other argument that the
women workers themselves will lose
by the enforcement of this new law.
those who champion 1t declare that can
be easily remedied by having the en-
pioyers pay better wages. Any woman,
they declare who works ten hours a day
ought to be able to earn her LIVELIHOOD
in that time.
Among the chief arguments for the
ten-hour law are the i'll effects which
long hours have upon the physical vel