In its first Report (Parliamentary Paper, 1917, Cd. 8606) the Committee recommended the establishment for each of the principal industries of a triple form of organization, representative of employers and employed, consisting of National Joint Councils, Joint District Councils and Works’ Committees, each of the three forms of organization being linked up with the others, so as to constitute an organization covering the whole of the trade, capable of considering and advising upon matters affecting the welfare of the industry and giving to Labour a definite and enlarged share in the discussion and settlement of industrial matters with which employers and employed are jointly concerned, each Council and Committee exercising such powers and duties as are determined by negotiation between the employers and the Trade Unions in the industry in question.
As part of its second Report (Parliamentary Paper, 1918, Cd. 9002) the Committee proposed for trades in which organization is weak or non-existent the adoption of the system of Trade Boards, and for trades in which organization was considerable, but not yet comprehensive, a system of Joint Councils, with Government assistance, to be dispensed with in each case as soon as these industries advanced to the stage when the full organization could successfully be created for them. The Committee also proposed a scheme in its second Report under which the National Joint Council of an industry, once it had agreed upon a minimum standard of working conditions for those employed in the industry, could secure the enforcement of those conditions either throughout a given district or over the whole country.
Works’ Committees
Prominently in its third Report (Parliamentary Paper, 1918, Cd. 9085) the Whitley Committee emphasized once more the need for the constitution in each factory or workshop, where the circumstances of the industry permitted, of a Works’ Committee, representative of the management and the men and women employed, to meet regularly to consider questions peculiar to the individual factory or workshop which affected the life and comfort of the workers.
In the Committee’s fourth Report (Parliamentary Paper, 1918, Cd. 9099) it recommended the establishment of a standing Arbitration Tribunal to deal with cases where the two sides of a Joint Industrial Council had failed to come to an agreement and wished to refer the dispute for settlement by arbitration.
The far-sighted proposals of the Whitley Committee represent the machinery that is necessary if the government of industry is to be a matter of mutual arrangement between the employers and the employed. Great progress has already been made in establishing Whitley Councils; in some industries they have operated remarkably well, and have succeeded in conferring a very considerable measure of joint self-government on employers and employed. But in other industries where they have been started they have not worked so satisfactorily. On paper no doubt the number of National Joint Industrial Councils which have been established appears large, and the number of Joint District Councils substantial, but their effect in avoiding disputes in some industries is negligible. The reason, in my opinion, is that too much attention has been paid to setting up National Councils and too little to forming Works’ Committees. Progress would have been much more marked if employers generally had been prepared to press forward more enthusiastically with the constitution of Works’ Committees—they are the crux of the position. It is they which deal directly with the individual worker who is necessarily out of personal touch with the Joint National or District Councils.
The Slow Progress of Works’ Committees
There are several explanations of employers’ want of sympathy with Works’ Committees. In a number of establishments where they were formed the workers used them to deal, not with matters in which the employer and the employed were jointly interested, but with matters of executive responsibility solely appertaining to the employer. This was done sometimes out of keenness, sometimes out of ignorance; in some localities it was a definite attempt on the part of revolutionary elements to use these workshop committees as a means of acquiring the control of the industry. Again, enforcements of discipline were treated as illustrations of the “domination of capital” and tabled by the workers as matters for joint agreement. In some works, it has been surprising to me how far employers have been able to go in discussing matters of discipline, even to the extent of making dismissals for infraction of works’ rules a matter for consideration by the workshop committee. That, I am afraid, is a course which cannot be recommended. I have had some experience of the endless agitation which simmered in one yard where that particular plan was followed.