EWC Act 1920
The expression 'child' means a person of compulsory school age.
The expression ‘employment’ means assisting in any trade or occupation carried on for profit or gain even if no reward is received for the labour.
The expression ‘industrial undertaking’ includes:
- Industries in which articles are manufactured, altered, cleaned, repaired, ornamented, finished, adapted for sale, broken up, or demolished, or in which materials are transformed.
- Construction, reconstruction, maintenance, repair, alteration, or demolition of any building, road, tunnel, bridge, telephone/cable installation, as well as the preparation for or laying the foundations of any such work or structure.
The Health and Safety Executive has ruled that it is the work done that constitutes ‘an industrial undertaking’ and not where the work is done. Therefore, children doing out-work e.g. working at home doing jobs like affixing articles to cards, etc. for employers who have provided such work are deemed to be being employed in an industrial undertaking. The old cottage industries were ‘industrial undertakings’.
A copy of the full Act may be purchased from Office of Public Sector Information / Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
