372

Puerto Rico has long recognized that employment of men, women, and children under conditions detrimental to health and general welfare results in injury, not only to the workers immediately affected, but also to public interest as a whole. This recognition has produced a broad program of regulatory legislation to conserve the public welfare. The continuance of an unregulated industrial [home-based work] system in this Commonwealth runs counter to that program, since it is always accompanied by excessively low wages, long and irregular hours, and unsanitary dwellings or dwellings otherwise inadequate for work. Employment of young children in industrial [home-based work] occupations is frequent, but effective supervision of this child-labor evil has not been attainable under the present status. The preservation of this system, moreover, endangers the protection of the workers in industrial factories.After careful study and investigation, the Legislature is convinced that [home-based work] must be strictly controlled in the interest of the wage earners of this Commonwealth and of industry. History —May 15, 1939, No. 163, p. 812, § 1, eff. 90 days after May 15, 1939.