Author and broadcaster Clifford Longley, explores the history of the quest for human dignity in the workplace, as part of the CSAN dignity of work project. Clifford is on the CCSTP steering group.
The story of the Factory Acts is the story of the gradual awakening of the Victorian conscience to the indignity to which workers were being subjected as the Industrial Revolution unfolded.
To an extent this awakening followed on from the movement to abolish the slave trade, culminating in the Act of Parliament of 1807 with that name, and overlapped with the campaign to abolish slavery itself in the British Empire, which was achieved, again by Act of Parliament, in 1833.
The first Act in the Factory Act series is usually counted as the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of 1802. The Cotton Mills and Factories Act followed in 1819, mainly concerned with the regulation of child labour in northern cotton mills.
But the overlap is not entirely cause and effect: William Wilberforce, the principal anti-slavery campaigner of his era, was lambasted by William Cobbett for ignoring the condition of white workers at home while worrying about the condition of black workers abroad, accusing him of “monstrous hypocrisy”.
Cobbett is a key figure in the various campaigns at the time to recognise the dignity of labour, though he had farm labourers more than industrial workers in mind. They lived and worked in conditions no better than African slaves on the West Indian plantations, he believed, and often worse.
Class bias and the dignity of labour
Many industrial workers came originally from the countryside, a phenomenon referred to in the mid-Victorian novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. Many of the conflicts and crises of the Victorian working class were viewed by contemporary commentators through the lens of class and what was called “breeding”, which saw humanity as stratified by inherited moral characteristics, according to which one’s station in society was established. The very expression “nobility” referred not just to moral virtue but to birth.
This class bias lowered expectations of what members of the labouring classes were capable of, and this makes any discussion of their condition sound patronising to modern ears.
As late as the First World War, when recruits to the British army were being assessed, those who had been to public (ie independent) school were routinely separated from the rest and selected for officer training.
No doubt this class-based bias shaped attitudes to workers and their rights, and until the fundamental equality of all human beings was generally accepted, talk of the “dignity of labour” would have had unstated prejudices hidden within it.
Biblical ideals and the dignity of labour
It is within that framework that the abolition of slavery and campaigns for the improvement of the condition of the industrial worker attracted individuals who were often well placed themselves within the class system. They accepted most of its implicit assumptions, but wanted a society which corresponded more to what they saw as Biblical ideals.
As with the apprenticeship Act of 1802, reform of morals, education of children, and Christian observance were seen as inextricably linked. But it was also acknowledged that degrading working conditions were not conducive to the cultivation of religious sentiment. In other words they were a barrier to the religious conversion which the campaigners wished to bring about.
Anglican Evangelicalism, Methodism and the Quakers were the most prominent religious movements in both cases. I
n this respect, and despite the doubts expressed by Cobbett as to his sincerity, Wilberforce was typical, while Lord Ashley, later the Earl of Shaftesbury, exemplified it. He was a devout Evangelical, famous for instance for the abolition of the employment of children to sweep chimneys.
Referring to a proposal to allow girls to work in factories after the age of 13, Ashley told the House of Commons in a debate on the Factory Regulations Bill in 1833, “it was absolutely horrifying to impose on young females a period of labour of more than ten hours. In fine, there was no period of a female's life in which she required more care, attention, and protection…” It was a plea for human dignity. Disregard of this principle would lead to ‘”uncontrolled disgust” in the country at large, he said.
Yet ten hours of unrelenting work in a Victorian cotton mill does not sound much like the “care attention and protection” he said they deserved. But this was 1833, and they were, inevitably, children of the poor. It seems unlikely he would have accepted similar working conditions for his own daughters. Ashley was to become the leading voice among Evangelical social reformers of his day, notably in the callous treatment of those that Victorian society labelled “lunatics”.
Economic theory and the dignity of labour
He was right that the public appetite for relief of factory workers ran well ahead of opinion among the mill owners themselves, though with glaring exceptions such as Robert Owen.
The prevailing economic theory of the day was laissez faire, “political economy”, according to which, as a kind of God-given natural law, interference in the workings of the market by the principle of supply and demand, was not only morally and religiously objectionable but also ultimately futile.
The harshest expression of this view was represented by Thomas Malthus: if an unemployed man “cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has a just demand, and if society does not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he do not work upon the compassion of some of her guests.” (Quoted by Brian Inglis, Poverty and the Industrial Revolution, 1971).
In other words, no right to life, certainly not to dignity. Just as people like Shaftsbury argued from Christian doctrine in favour of reform, so Malthus, a clergyman, argued against. He believed economic laws were part of the natural order ordained by God, so attempts to interfere with them were therefore close to blasphemy. And bound to be fruitless. Evangelicals argued the toss either way.
A similar distaste for intevening in the outcome of what were regarded as the providential workings of market forces was active among the other principal religious group campaigning for social reform, such as the Quakers. They had a prominent role, alingside Evangelicals and Methodists, in the campaign to abolish slavery.
A number of well-run businesses were created in the 19th century by Quaker entrepreneurs, names such as Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Huntley and Palmer, and Barclays and Lloyds in the banking sector. As factory owners they were more than averagely sensitive to working conditions, and most tended to support, rather than oppose, the Factory Act reforms.
But their ethos was Puritan, with an emphasis on rewarding honest hard work rather than on the dignity of labour as such. And some Quakers were strong supporters of laissez faire economics – the capitalist system which had made them rich. It was said of them that they "set out to do good, but instead did well".
The movement for change
This was the raging tidal current of “political economy” against which all the Factory Act campaigners had to push back. Which they did, with growing if gradual success. Starting with the employment of apprentices, then child labour especially girls, then women and more generally.
A particular issue was the length of the working day, with campaigns to limit it to ten hours. The movement also extended its scope beyond the cotton and cloth industries to factory work in general, and also to coal mining.
However reform of agricultural work was resisted by rich landowners and farmers using the Combination Acts, which outlawed trade union activity such as strikes as an unlawful conspiracy to induce breaches of employment contacts, by binding union members to take part under oath.
From the apprentices legislation until Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 there were some 20 pieces of legislation passed by Parliament which partly or wholly touched on working conditions. It is fair to regard the 1974 Act as the great achievement and consummation of the Factory Act movement, though that Act itself is by no means the end of the story.
Human dignity is still an unattainable goal for many workers. Indeed, many are still uncertain what the term means.
The meaning of human dignity
The abolition of slavery and the campaign for dignity at work were connected and indeed overlapped, and the two issues, when compared, may have something to offer towards a definition. The disagreement between William Wilberforce and William Cobbett over the nature of slavery was illuminating.
Cobbett saw it as a matter of human dignity, so that whether a worker was a slave or not depended on the conditions in which he or she was forced to work.
Wilberforce saw it as a legal status – which allowed a human person to be the property of another human person, to be used or sold as the owner thought fit.
Wilberforce was late to the abolition argument; indeed he only joined it when asked to lead it, by William Pitt the Younger. (The oak tree under which this conversation took place is still known as the Wilberforce Oak, although only the stump remains.) He was in contact with the abolitionist campaigners who had brought about the release from slavery of James Somerset, originally from West Africa, who had been a slave on a plantation in Virginia and brought to England by his master.
Granting a writ of habeas corpus, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield declared that slavery was unknown to the common law of England and not based on any statute, and hence the detention of Somerset by his owner was unlawful.
This case may be said to be the origin of the idea that the opposite of slavery was freedom, in this case freedom to enter into a contract of employment and freedom to decline to do so. The common law presumed that two persons entering a contract were both free. This had a powerful influence on Wilberforce’s understanding of slavery.
Cobbett’s, understanding however, was that this freedom was a legal fiction in many cases, not a reality. To Cobbett the opposite of slavery was human dignity, and whether or not a person could be called a slave depended on how he or she was treated.
He saw that the great majority of agricultural or factory workers were not in fact free – regardless of their legal status – if their only alternative was imprisonment or starvation. That absence of the freedom to say No was his definition of slavery. It was a moral rather than a legal definition. It also gives us a way of defining human dignity.
What makes a slave a slave?
If we imagine a spectrum, with nil dignity at one end and full and complete dignity at the other, we may find that that nil dignity is properly called slavery, the worst kind of which is chattel slavery. That is where the employer is also the owner, and not just of the slave’s labour and its product, but of the slave him or her self, mind body and soul, every minute of every day.
So if we can describe slavery in detail, we may find ourselves with a description of the dignity of labour, as the obverse or opposite, like a photographic negative as it were where dark is light and light is dark. It is striking that the 19th century campaign to improve conditions in factories contains many links and comparisons with the campaign to abolish slavery.
The word itself often occurs in criticisms of industrial working conditions: “…a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the labouring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.” Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII,1891.
This would enable us to plot various positions on our spectrum according to the extent to which a particular job contains elements of slavery, hence elements contrary to dignity. And out of that could come criteria which could be applied in considering whether a particular job is on the whole compatible with the dignity of labour, or not as the case may be.
It would be convenient and in keeping with the theological context of this product to take “integral human development” (Populorum Progressio etc) as what we think dignity at work should protect and promote.
This is what slavery looks like in detail – I assume a male slave for the sake of the argument.
Like a beast of burden, a slave works when he has to, on pain of punishment.
He does not choose the time he works, or how long for, or who with.
He cannot refuse even if the work is dangerous or unhealthy.
Meal times are not at his discretion nor type of food.
He lives and sleeps where and when he is told to.
He cannot rest when he needs or wants to.
He performs bodily functions when allowed to, not when he needs to.
The type of work is defined for him by others.
He is not allowed to use his initiative in his work.
He has no control of time and place.
If sick, physically or mentally, he has no choice but to work, and if unable to he has no say whether he can have treatment or not.
He is not paid for his work, nor may he save money or own property.
He will have no access to education, or allowed to learn to read or write.
As a chattel he may be bought and sold by his master without his consent.
He has no say in who owns and controls him.
His relationships and interactions with other workers are rigidly controlled by his master.
His religious observances and activities are entirely at the discretion of the master.
Female slaves are required to breed with fellow slaves, and the master has the right to engage in sexual relations with his slaves, regardless of their consent.
Slaves may be killed by the master as a punishment or for any other reason.
No laws restrict the rights of the master, and slaves have no access to the courts or the criminal justice system.
Slaves do not take part in political activity, or vote.
Slaves may not organise or combine collectively with other slaves.
Slaves may be bullied, insulted or abused without restrictions.
Slaves have no influence over the purpose of the enterprise for which they work.
If we turn these 24 descriptions of slavery into their opposite, we have 24 criteria of whether a particular work context meets the test of dignified work – ie, a definition. They could be judged on a binary system, yes or no, or each criterion rated on a ten point scale, zero for no score, ten for fully compliant, and the rest in between.
To take a few examples:
Human dignity means:
Workers are free to combine with other workers and organise to negotiate terms and conditions.
Workers must not be subject to bullying, insults or abuse.
They have the right to influence the purpose of the enterprise for which they work.
They are allowed to choose who owns or controls their work.
They are allowed to use their initiative in their work.
They may refuse to undertake work which is dangerous or unhealthy, or demand extra protection and additional pay.
If they are sick or injured by their work, they have the right to appropriate treatment and if necessary, compensation.
Human dignity means women are protected from sexual abuse or any degrading treatment based on their sex.
Human dignity means workers are subject to reasonable hours of work with suitable rest periods and breaks for food.
Human dignity means fair treatment in the workplace with remedies and compensation available for unfairness.
It means non-discriminatory practices based on protected categories under equalities legislation.
It means adequate protection for whistle-blowers and effective ways to deal with problems that whistle-blowers might highlight.
This list is not exhaustive. If any worker experiences problems which feel like slavery, it probably is slavery.
It was to William Cobbett that we owe this approach to slavery and its opposite, dignified work. He saw slavery in a variety of guises and degrees and not just as a binary legal status - one either is or isn't a slave, depending on one's legal category.
To that extent his insight was more profound than Lord Mansfield's when the Lord Chief Justice declared James Somerset to be a free man bacause slavery was not a category known to English common law. Cobbett saw slavery as a moral category and not merely a legal one. One could be a slave, socially, culturally and morally, even if not legally. Throughout his Rural Rides through the English countryside in early 19th century England he saw farm labourers who were, in his opinion, no freer than African slaves in the southern United States. Indeed some of the conditions he saw were worse.
Thus he implicitly invented the concept of degrees of slavery and types of slavery. His criterion was human dignity, not technical status. Wilberforce repeatedly refused to see this. He thought that as long as a man or woman was legally free to work or not – regardless of the dire consequences of the latter choice, even if he starved to death – that person was not a slave.
Wilberforce failed to back factory law reform, even though, as an Evangelical, he could see that degrading working conditions did not condition a slave's soul to accceptance of the Word of God. This was one of the abiding forces driving the slavery abolition movement in the United States.
The barrier to religious belief represented by the cruelties of slavery was summed up in a remark at the end of uncle Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, when fellow slave Cassie declares "I never have prayed since my children were sold!" For Stowe, abolition was a necessary condition for religious conversion. Indeed, Lord Shaftesbury would see degrading factory conditions in a similar light. Neither he nor Stowe would see the issue as human dignity.
Cobbett did. He turned to the theme of slavery many times "Are there any of these, or did feudal times ever see any of them, so debased, so absolutely slaves, as the poor creatures who, in the ‘enlightened’ north, are compelled to work fourteen hours in a day, in a heat of eighty-four degrees; and who are liable to punishment for looking out of a window of the factory!"
William Cobbett’s History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland argues that the Reformation was a devastating looting of monastic wealth and influence that impoverished the English and Irish poor. Cobbett, himself an Anglican, emphasised the social and economic destruction after the physical destruction of the monastic system, and defended the pre-Reformation Catholic Church and its many monasteries, convents and abbeys, as an admirable guardian of the interests of the lower classes and the poor. In other words, a guardian of the dignity of labour.