Child Labor Laws In Effect

Wednesday, September 16, 1903.  Starting on October 1, strict new state laws regulating child labor with a potentially significant impact on Collar city businesses will take effect,  The Record reports.

 

In town today to explain the new laws is Fred S. Hall, the secretary of the New York State Child Labor Committee.  He tells our reporter that children aged 12 or 13 will no longer be allowed to leave school for work, even under the “certain circumstances” that were allowed under the former law.

 

“No child under sixteen is now allowed to begin work in a factory or store unless supplied with a board of health certificate,”  Hall explains, “and after October 1 messenger boys, office boys, and boys employed in hotels must get certificates.

 

“Not only must the child be fourteen years of age, -- a fact to be determined by filing a birth certificate, -- but the child must have reached a certain standard in school.”

 

Specifically, the youth must have spent at least 130 days in class over the previous school year, and must be “thoroughly familiar” with mathematics “up to and including fractions.”

 

Once the new law takes effect, Troy will have two officers assigned “to spend their entire time in stopping illegal leakages from the school to the factory” in the form of underage workers, Hall says.  He adds, “I am informed that this clause will affect a large number of children in the factories and department stores of this city,’ but doesn’t go into further detail.

 

Hall does note one additional safeguard for juvenile workers.  The new laws dictate that no one under the age of 16 will be allowed to work more than nine hours a day.

 

Reprinted from:  The Record Newspaper, Troy, NY