Government announces imperial commission into factory conditions January 5070
FORT WILLIAM, ORANGE — The government has announced that an imperial commission will be held into conditions in the factories of Shipleyriding and Middenriding. The two seaboard regions have over the past century emerged as the world's leading centres of manufacturing, giving Luthori its sometime title of "workshop of the world" even as more high-tech manufacturing continues to elude the country, but this has taken place in an environment of economic deregulation and pro-business policies both on the national and regional levels which have sometimes been criticised by social reform groups for leading to poor working conditions in the areas.
Attempts at change under the Harper government (5054—5058) were stymied by an inability to get alleviative legislation through the Diet, and what was passed, such as a requirement for two-thirds of company boards to be made up of employees, was easily evaded. The great manufacturers and industrialists, with their influential support for the Liberal Party, successfully lobbied to prevent preceding and subsequent governments from taking action. The Conservatives, however, with their base in the countryside and landed gentry, have few such political concerns to cause them hesitancy.
George Rutherford, patriarch of the Rutherford family of industrialists and hitherto a loyal supporter of the Conservatives, said that he was "disappointed" by the government's move. "While it may seem innocent enough, and my family has been devoted at every turn to ensuring working conditions at our factories are of the highest caliber, it worries me that this will be nothing less than the starting shot for socialism."