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This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the use of sanctions to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use.
1. A correction & further clarification: Under the Ordinance of Labourers (1349) & the Statute of Labourers (1351), criminal sanctions could be imposed _by a court_ on (a)'labourers & servants of the inferior sort' who 'without reasonable cause...departed within the agreed term of service' (b) their new employers (c)intermediaries who 'harboured' servants. That is, the former employer had to prove his case in court.
It was already established that the statute did _not_ cover professionals or independent contractors.
However, in the late 14th century, the justices held that a _civil_ case (only) could be brought against the 'servant' under the Statute. And there is a case recorded against a carpenter (a 'craftsman' & _not_ a 'servant'.)
By around 1530, cases could be brought _also_ against intermediaries who 'enticed' servants away, & against apprentices & independent contractors. _But_ by the early 16th century, there was _'no case'_ against a servant who _'left of his own accord'._
J H Baker, 'An Introduction to English Legal History', 4th ed 2002, pp. 333, 457; see esp fn 42.
2. For the 18th century material see:
(a) W R Cornish & G de N Clark, 'Law & Society in England 1750-1950' (Sweet & Maxwell 1989) pp. 286-87, which covers 'servants in husbandry'; pp. 294-95 deals with fines etc imposed on factory & pottery workers.
(b) John Rule, 'The Experience of Labour in Eighteenth Century Industry' (Croom Helm 1981) pp. 130-34, for thefts by domestic workers
(c) John Rule, 'The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial England 1750-1850' (Longman 1986) pp. 136-138 for fines etc as used upto 1830 or so. Only child workers were physically punished; but as machines became more complex, only adults were employed.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel -
4/1/2008
Could you pass along authors and titles of the works you mention? Thanks so much.
Sudha Shenoy -
3/30/2008
I am waiting to read Steinfeld's books. I am particularly interested in the sources & references he uses & relies on, for England.
In the interim, let me clarify what precisely employers could & did do, to 'discipline' their employees, before the 1823 Master & Servant Act. Employers did _not_ necessarily have a free hand, whether legally or otherwise.
1. Under Tudor & earlier legislation employers could only sue intermediaries or other employers who 'enticed' their employees away. If the employee went 'of his own accord' there was _no_ case. That is, both in law & in practice employees were _not_ forced to stay.
Only villeins [serfs] could be forcibly seized & returned. But villeinage had disappeared in practice shortly after the Black Death -- because serfdom became unenforceable with the drastic fall in population.
2. In the 18th century (& earlier), employers could physically punish only those 'servants in husbandry' who were under age. All employers could 'punish' or dismiss employees summarily, for 'insubordination' or 'dereliction of duty'.
In crafts & factories 'punishment' meant employees were fined, demoted, or dismissed, for various failures. Extant 18th century cases show other employees being sued for failing to obey orders, absenting themselves without leave, etc. In other words, employers had to prove their cases in court.
There are also extant cases going the other way: employees sued employers for 'excessive punishment & cruelty'. The employers received a criminal conviction or had to pay damages.
3. In the 18th century, domestic workers who stole raw materials (yarn, wool, leather, etc) were punished publicly -- by order of JPs or courts: ie, the case had to be proved. The 'employer' could _not_ punish on his own.
And finally, the 1823 Master & Servant Act allowed _the court_ to imprison an employee for upto 3 months for breach of contract. Again, a case had to be proved: the employer could not simply do as he pleased.
-----
I should say that the 18th century material above is taken from (1) the anti-business legal history text I mentioned in my other comment (above) & (2) two works on the 18th century by an historian-apologist for trade unions.
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel -
3/30/2008
I'm familiar with both of Steinfeld's books (the other is entitled THE INVENTION OF FREE LABOR: THE EMPLOYMENT RELATION IN ENGLISH & AMERICAN LAW AND CULTURE, 1350-1870) and recommend them. The legal unenforceability of long-term labor contracts and the freedom of workers to quit at well is a nineteenth-century development in both Britain and the United States. The fact that previously long-term labor contracts may have been imperfectly enforced and that not all employers disciplined workers with corporal punishment does not gainsay the significance of the change.
Robert Higgs -
3/29/2008
Excellent point, Sudha. Thirty-five years ago, I found the same thing when I was researching post-emancipation black economic history in the United States. Black Codes and, after their repeal, similar legislation passed by all the southern states, if well enforced, would have reduced the freed blacks to a status approximating quasi-slavery. But these laws never were well enforced, because labor was very scarce, and therefore employers and landlords had an incentive to compete for it (lest they lose money on their operations). When powerful landlords and other important whites violated these statutes, who was to bring them to account? Nobody. These people controlled the local governments, including the sheriffs and the judges. So they violated the statutes routinely. The resulting competition for labor was a major reason why blacks improved their economic status substantially over the long run during which such laws remained on the books in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In general, historians have failed to appreciate this reality, putting much too much weight on "law on the books."
Sudha Shenoy -
3/29/2008
I haven't read either of his books. A _very_superficial_ trawl through Amazon suggests he is impressed by the passage of legislation _per se_ (whether in the fourteenth century, the early modern period, or the 18th & 19th centuries.) I haven't been able to check just how much of the 19th century legislation was actually _used_ by employers.
I am _not_ encouraged by the author's historically- & legally-illiterate reference to common law as state legislation.
An anti-business English legal history text which covers the period 1750-1950 hardly mentions the Master & Servant Acts, except with reference to 'servants in husbandry'[farm labourers] in the 18th century.
The Tudors passed a lot of legislation too which impressed older historians no end but later historians found it remained on the statute book. In fact JPs, being landowners themselves, simply refused to fix wage-rates. Much the same is true of the Statute of Labourers, passed after the Black Death. It proved unenforceable.
