Who would have thought that there were three or four-year-old child laborers in the capitalists' factories? Not one or two, but hundreds of people appeared.

The lifespan of these child laborers is usually not over twenty years old. Entering the dark factory too early will cause serious damage to their bodies.

Among them, Britain is the most crazy. As the first place of the industrial revolution, the British Isles have a small population and limited labor force. In order to reduce costs, capitalists have turned their attention to women and children.

The salary of an adult male worker can employ 2 female workers and 3 to 7 child workers. The younger the age, the lower the salary.

Compared with adults, child labor is obviously easier to manage, and suppressing strikes is easier to do. Factory where labor intensity is not too demanding is full of a large amount of child labor.

The sources of these child laborers are also diverse. Some of them are forced by the lower-class people to send their children to factories for livelihoods; the other is bought from the trading market.

That’s right, child labor is also a commodity at this time, including orphanages, church aid houses, and human traffickers, and a very small number of them are sold by their parents.

The Blood Factory is the most realistic social portrayal of this era.

While making huge profits by crazily exploiting child labor, he also creates a gentleman appearance in the outside world, donating money to the church and investing in education is called supporting poor students.

Franz was too lazy to complain. Anyway, he didn't believe that capitalists would be so kind. Just look at the private goods contained in these private schools.

The advanced nature of the capitalist political system will only be possessed in the future. The capitalist system of this era is more serious than the feudal aristocrats exploited.

Since the release of Austria's minimum wage bill, Austrian capitalists' interest in child labor has been greatly reduced, which is also related to the national conditions.

Austria's industrialization is just beginning, and the demand for labor is not too large, and its own labor force is large.

After the implementation of the Minimum Wage Act, capitalists found that the rewards they paid to child labor increased significantly, which was not much lower than those of adults, and this temptation was less.

Especially after the government caught several typical cases and was directly fined and went bankrupt, everyone remembered that Austria also had a "Minimum Wage Act".

Prime Minister Felix joked: "Your Majesty, since we have implemented the Minimum Wage Act enough, the number of homeless children in the country has grown dramatically, and the government has now become the largest nursery in the world.

According to the data we have calculated, as of three days ago, we have hosted a total of 38,600 children, and this number is still growing.

Capitalists seem to be preparing to give up on child labor, and now we need to clean up the mess for them."

On the surface, sheltering so many orphans is a burden to the government, but in fact it is a very political bonus.

In ancient Austria, the nobles were deeply influenced by the chivalrous spirit. They were still willing to pity the weak without affecting their own interests.

Now that the Austrian government has taken in these wandering children, it has occupied the moral commanding heights in public opinion, and can also condemn the unscrupulous capitalists.

Black capitalists are also a kind of political correctness in Austria. In the process of the advancement of the industrial revolution, the power of the bourgeoisie will grow rapidly.

Now the Austrian government relies on the aristocratic class to suppress the bourgeoisie, and it may not be able to suppress it in the future. The bourgeoisie with increasing strength will sooner or later reach out to politics.

In order to limit the bourgeoisie, it is very necessary to make some preparations in advance.

Anyway, these are all facts. It is their essential work to expose social reality by the media.

The more black materials there are, the worse the reputation of capitalists, and the more beneficial it will be to the Austrian government. In the future, the bourgeoisie dares to act randomly, and Franz doesn't mind letting them understand what "the iron fist of the Austrian people's dictatorship" is.

Franz thought for a while and said, "This question is left to the Ministry of Education. Earl Huoheng recruits enough teachers as soon as possible and sends these homeless children to receive compulsory education first.

The government has established orphanages in major cities to accommodate homeless children. Some poor families cannot afford to raise children, and those sent here can also be collected."

That's all he can do. After receiving compulsory education, except for the one-percent genius who can enter middle school to continue their studies, these children will enter society.

The reality is really cruel. Even if the compulsory education is completed, these children are only twelve or thirteen years old. In the eyes of later generations, this is abusing child labor.

Unfortunately, this is the first industrial revolution. The crows all over the world are ordinary black, and there is no way to accumulate original capital. This is also a great improvement compared to entering the factory at the age of three or four.

...

The most important thing about any decree is to implement it. Compulsory education has become the highest national policy of the Austrian government, so it is an inevitable choice to crack down on capitalists' use of child labor.

Prohibiting the use of child labor? This is impossible. Not only capitalists cannot accept it, but also the lower-level people.

These days, there are many children, and it is common for ordinary people to have five or six children. There are even more than a dozen children. How can they raise them?

If Franz hadn't understood the current social situation and allowed the government to bear all the expenses in the compulsory education stage, he would have blindly formulated a compulsory education law, which would have ended up being another human tragedy.

Vienna

As the core of Austria and the origin of the Labor Protection Act, the Minimum Wage Act was also promoted from here.

After the Hungarian rebellion was suppressed, the Austrian Empire became peaceful. The government abolished local tariffs, abolished the serfdom, and released the vast rural market. Industry and commerce in Vienna began to flourish.

Looking at the daily increase in orders, Daniel was not happy, but felt very uncomfortable. As the owner of a hydraulic cotton mill, he was the biggest victim of the Minimum Wage Act.

The labor intensity of the cotton spinning factory is not high. After using the machinery, the requirements for workers' physical strength and technical proficiency are reduced. As long as the head is broken, it is enough.

In order to reduce labor costs, Daniel naturally learned from his British colleagues' successful experience and hired cheaper women and children into factories.

But now it is not possible. As soon as the minimum wage law is released, child labor in Austria is no longer cheap.

Although the labor costs in this era are low and even if labor costs are increased, they also have generous benefits, but how can capitalists' greed be satisfied?

Daniel dared not to break the law directly. A realistic example is right in front of him. One of his competitors was that he was fined by the Vienna government until bankrupt because he ignored the Labor Protection Law.

Looking at the factory manager he hired "high salary", Daniel asked: "Weisen, is there any way you can reduce the labor cost to me?"

"Sir, why not we should also use piece-based system to formulate a task that workers cannot complete, and their wages will be deducted at that time?" Weisen suggested sinisterly.

Daniel shook his head and said, "It's useless. I have consulted a lawyer. The government's reference standards are formulated by state-owned enterprises. If the piece-based system exceeds this standard, we have no right to deduct wages.

Even if a contract is signed, it is useless. The Vienna government will determine it as an invalid contract, and we will face a fine of at least a thousand times starting and not capping it.”

Since the outbreak of the March Revolution, the Vienna government has become disharmonious to capitalists, and the friendships of the past have no effect.

Daniel has become more careful when speaking. If it were something like this before, he would have been in conjunction with his colleagues, but now he dare not.

If the Vienna government is considered a conspiracy to rebel, the heads will soon fall to the ground. The Great Purge that took place in Vienna a few months ago is still fresh in his memory.

If he hadn't been lucky, he happened to be sick during that time and had not attended the capitalist party, so he could not continue to work here now.

Capital has no borders, this is the future. In this era, capitalists dare not move casually. Without a background, they will go to a strange place, and keep it to a piece of hair that you swallow.

Despite being very dissatisfied with the Austrian government, Daniel continued to do business in Vienna, with less profits as much as possible. Let's just take risks.

In contrast, Austria's labor costs are relatively harmonious compared with Western European countries such as Britain and France. After all, Austria is a grain exporter, and its price level in living materials is lower and there is no shortage of labor.

London has the highest average wage in the capitalist world, one-third to one-half higher than Vienna, which is after Austria has a labor protection law.

There are policies above and countermeasures below.

Daniel still thought of ways to reduce labor costs, such as reducing overtime wages, deducting the time for workers to go to the toilet, and deducting the time for machinery to stop operating.

These are all routine operations, which are a little more powerful. Some capitalists have built free toilets a few kilometers away, and have set up paid toilets inside the factory.

Some capitalists even use inferior fabrics to make work clothes and sell them to workers at a high price.

With high-priced work clothes, high-priced food is naturally indispensable. Capitalists prohibit workers from bringing food into factories and then selling them high-priced food for profit.

...

In short, as long as you can’t imagine and do nothing, capitalists have racked their brains to reduce labor costs.

.m.
Chapter completed!