Subcontracting and low pay kill: lessons from the health and safety consequences of sweated labour in the garment industry, 1880–1920

ABSTRACT

Over the past 20 years, regular reports of eroding safety standards and deaths among workers, customers and other members of the public in an array of industries ranging from transport (ride-share platforms, long-haul trucking and aviation), construction (including, in Australia, insulation batts installation), mining, oil rigs and refineries, and factories, have emerged. These workplace deaths shared one largely overlooked characteristic; all involved subcontracted work arrangements and sometimes very elaborate supply chains. Where these fatalities have been subject to critical investigation, three causal factors consistently emerge, namely economic/cost pressures compromising safety, disorganisation, and regulatory failure. These failures raise important political and industrial questions, not the least of which is the social cost of dominant neoliberal policy-settings that encourage subcontracting practices. Furthermore, historical object lessons can provide insights because subcontracting of work is by no means new. Drawing on evidence from the garment industry, predominantly in the UK, but with reference to the USA and other countries, this paper highlights substantial historical evidence of the safety risks embedded in this type of business/work arrangement. The inquiries and investigations into sweated labour discussed here not only highlighted risks to health; they also suggest a contemporary need for urgent reform to the regulation of work in order to mitigate the prospective risks of injury and disease, including epidemics.

KEYWORDS:

• Sweated labour
• subcontracting
• workplace health and safety
• regulation

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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3. Report of the Lancet Sanitary Commission on the ”Sweating” and ‘Home-Work’ systems and their influence on public health. The Lancet, 29 January 1876, 175–176.

4. Levey, J. (1890). Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories on the ‘Sweating System’ in connexion with the Clothing Trade in the Colony of Victoria, 5.

5. Parliament of Victoria. (1895). Minutes of Evidence and Appendices of Factories Act Inquiry Board. Melbourne, 6–7.

6. British Parliamentary Papers. (1888). First report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix. (361), London, 3–25.

7. Cited in Raffle, P., Lee, W., McCallum, R. & Murray, R. (1987) Hunter’s Diseases of Occupations. London: Edward Arnold, 145–146.

8. Special Sanitary Commission on Sweating in Birmingham and the Black Country. The Lancet, 2 June 1888, 131 (3379), 1100–1101.

9. The Lancet Special Sanitary Commission on ‘sweating’ among tailors in Liverpool and Manchester. 21 April 1888, 131(3373): 740.

10. Suicide and Sweating. The Lancet, 30 June 1888, 131(3383), 1306.

11. British Parliamentary Papers. (1888). First report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 26–28.

12. Ibid., 120–123.

13. Ibid.

14. Special Sanitary Commission on the Sweating System in Glasgow. The Lancet, 23 June 1888, 132(3386), 37– 39.

15. Report of the Lancet Special Sanitary Commission into the Sweating System. The Lancet, 7 July 1888, 132(3384), 37–39.

16. Special Sanitary Commission on ‘sweating’ among tailors in Liverpool and Manchester. The Lancet, 21 April 1888, 131(3373), 792.

17. Report of the Lancet Special Sanitary Commission on the sweating system in Glasgow. The Lancet, 30 June 1888, 131(3383), 1313–1314.

18. Special Sanitary Commission on ‘sweating’ among tailors in Liverpool and Manchester. The Lancet, 14 April 1888, 131(3372), 740.

19. British Parliamentary Papers. (1888). Second report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 437–447.

20. Report of The Lancet Sanitary Commission on the ‘Sweating’ and ‘Homework’ Systems and their influence on Public Health. The Lancet, 29 January 1876, 107(2735), 175–176.

21. See, for example, Special Sanitary Commission on ‘sweating’ among tailors in Liverpool and Manchester. The Lancet, 21 April 1888, 131(3373), 793; Special Sanitary Commission on the Sweating System in Edinburgh. The Lancet, 23 June 1888, 131(3382), 1261–62; and Special Sanitary Commission on the Sweating System in Glasgow. The Lancet, 23 June 1888, 132(3386), 38–39.

22. British Parliamentary Papers. (1889). Third report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 3–17.

23. See British Parliamentary Papers. (1888). First report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 1888, 250–251.

24. British Parliamentary Papers. (1889). Fourth report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 389–392.

25. British Parliamentary Papers. (1888). First report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System; together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and appendix.

Hansard, London, 795; Madichie, N. & Yamoah, F. (2017). Revisiting the European Horsemeat Scandal: The Role of Power Asymmetry in the Food Supply Chain Crisis. Thunderbird International Business Review, 59(6): 663–675.

26. See, for example, Quinlan, M. (2014). Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster: Learning from fatal incidents in mines and other high hazard workplaces. Sydney: Federation Press.

27. Cited in The Select Committee’s Report on Sweating. The Lancet, 10 May 1890, 135(3480), 1026.

28. Mr Arnold White on the Sweating Report. The Lancet, 2 August 1890, 136(3492), 246.

29. The Sweating Question. The Lancet, 15 October 1892, 140(3607), 893.

30. Quinlan, M. (2011). We’ve been down this road before: Vulnerable work and occupational health in historical perspective. In M. Sargeant and M. Giovanne (Eds), Vulnerable Workers: Safety, Well-being and Precarious Work. Farnham Surrey: Gower, 21–56; Quinlan, M. (2013). Precarious employment, ill-health and lessons from history: The case of casual (temporary) dock workers 1880–1945. International Journal of Health Services, 43(4), 721–744.

31. ‘Sweating’ in Germany. The Lancet, 15 February 1896, 147(3781), 436.

32. The sweating system in Paris. The Lancet, 29 February 1908, 171(4409), 658.

33. A French view of the sweating system. The Lancet, 2 October 1909, 174(4492), 1008.

34. Sweated industries and the health of the masses. Medical Record, 7 March 1908, 398.

35. Kelley, F. (1895). The Sweating System. In Thomas Crowell (Ed), Essays on Problems Growing Out of the Social Conditions, New York, 27–45.

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37. Kelley, F. (1911). Minimum-Wage Boards. The American Journal of Sociology. 17(3), 303–314.

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39. Goldmark, J., McLean, F., Bixby, J., Lakey, A., Kendall, E., Holcombe, A., Kimball, R., Hermann Kinnicutt, G., & Manvel, F. (1911). Work of National Consumers’ League. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 38 (supp), 1–77.

40. Brisbane Courier, 13 February 1888, 7.

41. Brisbane Courier, 5 June 1890, 4.

42. Levey, 1890, 8.

43. Report of the Royal Commission on Strikes. (1891). Precis of Evidence, Government Printer, Sydney.

44. Brisbane Courier, 14 October 1896, 7.

45. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Gregson

Sarah Gregson teaches employment relations and industrial law in the School of Management at UNSW. She is co-editor and co-author of The Regulation and Management of Workplace Health and Safety (Routledge, forthcoming) and she practices what she teaches as a branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union.

Michael Quinlan

Michael Quinlan is emeritus professor of industrial relations in the School of Management at UNSW. He has written extensively on occupational health and safety. His most recent book is The Origins of Worker Mobilisation: Australia 1788–1850 (Routledge, New York, 2018) with a sequel Contesting Inequality and Worker Mobilisation: Australia 1851–1880 (Routledge) due out in August 2020.