In the Second Series of Articles the Council Deals With Contract Labour and Accidents the second of the s ries of three activi of the Shanghai Municipal the first of which appeared in these report deals with the various systems articles dealing with the Council Industr: columns yesterday. of employment, including contract labour, apprenticeship etc., and the abus n d. It also goes into the question of industrial accidents and the q of compensation.
Lengthy reference is made in the report toms of Employment. Dealing with Contract Labour, it is pointed out that it has long been known that there existed in Shanghai industrial enterprises certain systems of employment which cannot be regarded as complying with acceptable standards. The custom of hiring labour through a compradore, or contractor, in some cases to the extent of paying the compradore on the basis of amount of goods produced, and otherwise taking no responsibility for employment of workers, has existed in some foreign. undertakings. In others, both foreign and Chinese, though employment is "direct", and wages are paid by the mill authorities to the worker, it does not follow that these wages are indeed the property of the worker. In many cases the worker is under contract to a sub-contractor, who has paid a lump sum to the family of the worker and is entitled to all earnings during a period of contract, usually three years. The fact that the workers are for the most part young women, and that they are usually in the control of men contractors, is an unwelcome aspect of the situation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.