Young Persons (Employment) Act 1938
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1938 c. 69 |
| Year | 1938 |
Young Persons (Employment) Act, 1938
(1 & 2 Geo. 6.) 69.
An Act to regulate the hours of employment of persons under the age of eighteen years employed in certain occupations; to amend the Shops Act, 1934, with respect to the regulation of the hours of employment of persons under the age of sixteen years, and with respect to the determination of the number of working hours of persons under the age of eighteen years; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
[29th July 1938]
B E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part I.
Eighteen Yeas.Employment of Persons under the Age of
Hours and Holidays.
1 Conditions of employment.
(1) The total number of hours worked by a young person to whom this Part of this Act applies, exclusive of intervals allowed or meals and rest, shall,—
(a ) in the case of a person who has attained the age of sixteen years, not exceed forty-eight in any week;
(b ) in the case of a person who has not attained the age of sixteen years, not exceed, during one year from the commencement of this Act, forty-eight in any week, and thereafter, forty-four in any week:
Provided that, a person who has attained the age of sixteen years may, on occasions of seasonal or other special pressure or in cases of emergency, work overtime, that is to say, in excess of the permitted weekly hours, so, however, that the number of hours overtime that may be worked by that person shall not exceed six in any week or fifty in any year, and where in any year, in connection with a business carried on at any premises, overtime employment of any young persons to whom this Part of this Act applies under an employer has taken place in twelve weeks (whether consecutive or not), no further overtime employment of any such persons under that employer or under any person succeeding to his business shall, during the remainder of that year, take place in connection with the business carried on at those premises.
(2) A young person to whom this Part of this Act applies shall not be employed continuously for more than five hours without an interval of at least half an hour for a meal or rest, and where the hours of employment include the hours from half-past eleven in the morning to half-past two in the afternoon, an interval of not less than three-quarters of an hour shall be allowed between those hours for dinner.
(3) On at least one weekday in each week, to be notified in the prescribed form and manner, a young person to whom this Part of this Act applies shall not be employed after one o'clock in the afternoon.
(4) A young person to whom this Part of this Act applies shall, in every period of twenty-four hours between midday on one day and midday on the next day, be allowed an interval of at least eleven consecutive hours which shall include the hours from ten o'clock in the evening until six o'clock in the morning.
(5) A young person to whom this Part of this Act applies shall not be employed on a Sunday unless he receives in respect of his employment on that Sunday a whole holiday on a weekday either in the week beginning with that Sunday or in the previous week, being a weekday other than that on which under subsection (3) of this section he is not to be employed after one o'clock in the afternoon.
(6) The Secretary of State may by regulations prescribe further conditions for the purpose of safeguarding the welfare and interests of young persons to whom this Part of this Act applies or any class of them, including, if he thinks fit, conditions with respect to the daily period of employment of those persons, and no such person shall be employed otherwise than in accordance with those conditions.
(7) The Secretary of State may by regulations increase, as respects any class or description of business, the number of hours overtime that may be worked in any week by a young person to whom this Part of this Act applies, or the number of weeks in any year in which overtime employment can take place in connection with a business carried on at any premises under an employer or any person succeeding to his business, if he is satisfied that owing to the exigencies of businesses of that class or description the increase is necessary.
(8) In the case of any contravention of, or failure to comply with, the foregoing provisions of this section, the employer shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ten pounds.
(9) Any regulations made under this section may contain such supplemental and consequential provisions as the Secretary of State considers requisite for giving full effect to the regulations, and shall be laid before Parliament as soon as may be after they are made, and if either House of Parliament within the next subsequent twenty-eight days on which that House has sat after any such regulations have been laid before it resolves that the regulations shall be annulled, the regulations shall forthwith be void, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder or to the making of new regulations.
2 Records and notices.
(1) The employer of any young persons to whom this Part of this Act applies shall, in the prescribed form and in the prescribed manner, keep a record of the prescribed particulars as to those persons, including particulars of the hours worked by them, and of the intervals allowed for rest and meals to them; and particulars of all employment overtime shall be separately entered on the record.
(2) The employer of any young persons to whom this Part of this Act applies shall, in the prescribed form and in the prescribed manner, keep exhibited on the premises a notice setting forth the number of hours in the week during which those persons may, in accordance with the provisions of this Part of this Act, be employed, and such other particulars as may be prescribed.
(3) In the case of any contravention of, or failure to comply with, the foregoing provisions of this section, the employer shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding five pounds for every day on which the contravention or failure to comply occurs or continues.
(4) If any person with intent to deceive makes, or causes or allows to be made, in any such record or notice as aforesaid an entry which is to his knowledge false in any material particular, or wilfully omits or causes or allows to be omitted from any such record or notice an entry required to be made therein, he shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or to both such imprisonment and fine.
Supplementary.
3 Enforcement.
(1) It shall be the duty of the local authority to enforce within its area the provisions of this Part of this Act, and for that purpose to institute and carry on such proceedings in respect of contraventions of, or failures to comply with, those provisions as may be necessary to secure the observance thereof, and to appoint inspectors; and an inspector so appointed shall for the purposes of his powers and duties have in relation to any premises in connection with a business carried on at which young persons to whom this Part of this Act applies are employed all the powers conferred on inspectors in relation to factories by section one hundred and twenty-three of the Factories Act, 1937 , and that section and section one hundred and twenty-five of that Act shall have effect accordingly; and an inspector may, if so authorised by the local authority, institute and carry on any proceedings on behalf of the local authority:
Provided that, for the purpose of the enforcement of the provisions of this Part of this Act in their application to young persons employed as mentioned in the two following subsections, the provisions of those subsections respectively shall have effect to the exclusion of the provisions of this subsection.
(2) An inspector appointed under the Factories Act, 1937, shall have the same powers and duties for the purpose of the enforcement of the provisions of this Part of this Act in their application to young persons employed by a railway company elsewhere than at a residential hotel, or employed in the employment mentioned in paragraph (d ) or (h ) of subsection (1) of section seven of this Act, as he would have if those provisions were provisions of that Act, and as if the premises in connection with the business carried on at which those persons are employed were a factory.
(3) Inspectors...
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