Legislation will undoubtedly play even a bigger part than it has done
in the protection of the workers. Almost all laws for which organized
labor generally works affect women as well as men, whether they are
anti-injunction statutes, or workmen's compensation acts, or factory
laws. But there is another class of laws, specially favoring women,
about which women have naturally more decided opinions than men. These
are laws as to hours, and more recently as to wages, which are or are
to be applicable to women alone. A just and common-sense argument
extends special legislative protection to women, because of their
generally exploited and handicapped position; but the one strong plea
used in their behalf has been health and safety, the health and safety
of the future mothers of society. At this point we pause. In all
probability such protection will be found so beneficial to women that
it will be eventually extended to men.
One group of laws in which labor is vitally interested is laws
touching the right of the workers to organize.
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