The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1917-04-28
WORKING PAPERs' IN
! NEW YORK STATE
Report on Employment Certifi-
cate System Published By
Department of. Labor.

WASHINGTON. April 2c.-New
York state has one-ninth OF all the
children under 1s years of age who
are at work in the United States in
non-agricultural occupation. How
the state enforces the 14-year-age
limit, the schooling requirements, and
the test of physical fitness for work
by which the . law aims to protect
these children is described in the
report of the employment-certif1ca
system of New. York state which has
just been published blythe Children's
Bureau of the United States Depart
ment OF Labor.
The report itself makes.no reference
to the new federal child-labor law,
but the Children's Bureau in present.
ing the report issues the following
statement:
The emplOyment-certifi system
of each state will be even more i'm
portant than it is now when the
federal child-labor law sbecomes ef-
fective> on Sept. l.. BY the terms Of
that law, the federal child-labor board
may designate states whose employ
ment-certificates shall be accepted by
federal officials as a substitute for
federal certificates Of age.
1T is most desirable, from every
point of view, that the state certificate
should be satisfactory to the federal
board; the inconvenience and cost
liness-ooth to children ad to en-
ployers-involved in a duplicate sys-
tenn of working papers are obvious.
Which states will be designated can
not yet be learned.
:Further, the federal law is con-
cerned only. with ages and hours of
employment in factories, canneries,
and workshops which are shipping
goods in interstate commerce and with
the enforcement Of a 16-year limit in
mines and quarries The protection
or children In other occupations and
requirements of schooling and phys
ical fitness for all working children
will continue to rest: wholly with the
state. And the enforcement of any
child-labor restriction whatever de-
ponds primarily upon the way in
which employment certificates are is
sued"
Efficient System.
The Chi1dren's Bureau report, in
summing up it's findings on the New
York enlploym emit certificate system,
says that I'm spite Of repetitions and
even contradictions and antiquities in
the law, the standard set is high; the
evidence of age required seems
adequate; the physical examination
must show not only that tho child is
in Sound health but that he is
physically able to do the work pro-
posed; and the requirement. of CON-
pletion of the sixth grade, recently
raised to the eighth grade for children
under Is years of age, is an unusually
high educational standard for the en-
ployment Of children under 16 years
of age in large Industrial state,
1.-THE standards probably are as
rigidly enforced as could reasonably
be expected in many places, including
New York city, which contains more
than half the working children of the
state, and where the foreign element
makes the problem particularly diff.
f1cult"
On the other hand. the report en-
phasizes the lack of uniformity in
different parts of the state. I'm one
city the administrative machinery
breaks down. at one point and in
another city at another point In
some places parents aff1davits are
regularly taken as evidence of age,
although they are not acceptable
evidence under the terms of the law:
in some the physical examination is
merely perfunctory; and in some the
school grade requirement is some
times nullified in prkctice by showing
children UP in grades and by other
means.
Corporation Needed.
THE first, and perhaps greatest,
need in New York, therefore is ma.
chinery for securing uniformity as to
evidence of age, school requirements,
and test OF physical fitness throughout
the state. Under the present system
such uniformity can be secured only
by cooperation among the three
separate departments dealing. with
health, labor, and education
Health officers issue employmet
certificates. New York, it appears, is
the only state in which local health
officials are thus directly concerned