Summary: Poor Work Conditions In Britain

When the Industrial age came sweeping over Europe, Britain was one of many nations to have seized the opportunity. Mass migration of people into the cities where work became available in factories resulted in poor living conditions for most of Britain’s people during the nineteenth century due to overcrowding. It was estimated around seventy percent of Britain’s total population were working class people by the nineteenth century. This meant poor hours, small wages, and children were forced to work for the family to survive. Had it not been for necessity children would not have worked in conditions where they were continually ill-treated at least for one man who, in a survey conducted about the conditions of the work environment stated, “Necessity

Many admitted to being beaten when they were late as children, having only an hour off at noon to eat, and children had to work in the poor and often dangerous conditions.

In the same interviews presented to Parliament, a worker reported working from six in the morning until eight at night, an average of fourteen hours per day for mere cents, and that was during the ‘normal’ production months. Long hours, low wages, and child labor were nothing new to the poor, but the conditions still took a toll on families. Hours and hours went into work, which left little time for a family to spend time with one another, and children not able to learn skills from their parents once the industrialization of the common world came into play, not only in Britain but also on a worldwide scale.

Many Europeans moved across the sea to the Americas to find work when jobs were taken back home. Conditions of work varied, though were still dangerous and the pay was low, women in the U.S. were often convicted of ‘stealing jobs from men’ and denied entry into unions. Though the conditions were similar, the United States could offer more jobs than those in the UK or in Latin American countries, more space was available to newcomers could afford to take their own land, and the new population numbers contributed to greater expansion across U.S.

In Indonesia children are working in factories to supply tobacco to companies worldwide, like children during the industrial era, the children in Indonesia work in hazardous conditions and perform heavy labor. Unlike the children of the past, in Indonesia, the child workers are exposed to pesticides, a recent development in time, that may compromise their health. Not only are they exposed to pesticides, but they also work with tobacco with their bare hands and without protective