Labour policy—false and true

by Lynden Livingston Macassey

During the war, the Exchanges were very largely used by the Government for the purpose of organizing the supply of labour for munitions and essential services. The various measures included schemes for (1) registration and enrolment so that skilled and other essential workers could be removed from one part of the country to another, (2) the temporary release of serving soldiers for munitions and essential work, (3) the supply of substitutes to enable more workers to be recruited in the army from essential industries and services, and (4) the recruitment of women workers for munition work.

The Juvenile Employment Committees consist of representatives of educational and industrial interests in the districts, together with other persons especially concerned in promoting the welfare of boys and girls. In the year 1917, the Minister of Labour decided to associate with each Employment Exchange a Local Employment Committee (at first known as a Local Advisory Committee) to secure for the Exchange the full benefit of local knowledge and to bring it into close touch with employers and workpeople in the district. Local Employment Committees are composed of equal numbers of representatives of employers and workpeople, together with a certain number of additional members (not exceeding a third of the total membership) who are not necessarily connected with industry—among the additional members representation of ex-service men is provided for. The Chairman is nominated by the Minister and the Committee themselves appoint a Vice-Chairman. It is one of the most important duties of these Committees to keep a close watch over the state of employment in their area. Where the local unemployment is severe, it is open to them to urge upon local authorities and private employers the need for widening the field of employment where necessary, and also to advise the Minister with regard to any difficulties which might be removed by departmental action. At the present time the Committees assist in the selection of men from the Exchange registers for employment under schemes devised to relieve abnormal unemployment. See pp. [187] and [191].

The Work of the Ministry of Labour

The Committee on National Expenditure[12] (see Parliamentary Paper, 1922, Cmd. 1581) proposed to abolish the Industrial Relations Department of the Ministry of Labour. They observe that “with the knowledge that, in the end, there will be Government intervention, neither side will have the same incentive to make the final proposals which might lead to a settlement of the dispute.” This appears to me an exceedingly hazardous proposal. Anyone with experience of industrial disputes knows that occasions occur when reason disappears, tempers rise and responsibility vanishes, and neither side will meet the other. It is essential in such circumstances for a Government Department to act the go-between if the community is not to suffer. At some time intervention is imperative, and it is a question whether it should be that of the Ministry of Labour working on a consistent policy or of the Cabinet in Downing Street which, lacking the industrial experience of the Ministry, is apt to settle a dispute on any policy, but this question I discuss later at length. The Committee on National Expenditure found that, so long as unemployment insurance is on the present basis, Labour Exchanges are required as agencies for checking payments of unemployment insurance benefits, but not as Labour Exchanges; they recommended that if unemployment insurance by industry could be secured that the Labour Exchanges should be abolished. It is quite clear that that cannot be done, nor does the Committee recommend it to be done while the present National Unemployment Insurance Scheme continues. If insurance by industry is found to be practicable, it may be necessary, from motives of economy, to abolish the Exchanges. Apart from that justification it would be, I think, greatly to the national detriment to do so. While an employer cannot take all his labour through the Exchanges, employers generally learned during the war to appreciate their value. Trade Unions started by being suspicious of the Exchanges, largely because the local delegate of an organized Trade Union regarded it as an important piece of patronage to supply labour of his trade to employers in his district, and he considered the exercise of that patronage as no unimportant factor affecting his re-election. Although in certain districts, no doubt, Exchanges can be abolished, in the main industrial centres their continuance is essential particularly for trades which are ill-organized.

I can say from my own practical experience during the war that the munitions industries could not have been conducted without the expert services rendered by the Labour Exchanges. As Chairman of the Clyde Dilution Commission and of the Tyne Dilution Commission, as Commissioner for Dilution on the Mersey and in Barrow-in-Furness, as Director of Shipyard Labour, I worked in the closest touch with them. Their officers were invariably men known to, and respected by, local employers and Trade Unions, and possessed a complete grasp of district labour conditions. The work they did in the early days of the war, both in connection with the Ministry of Munitions and the Admiralty, in settling labour differences, is as notable as it is unknown. They formed the nucleus on which the local labour staffs of the Ministry of Munitions and the Admiralty were ultimately built up.

CHAPTER XIV
GOVERNMENT LABOUR POLICY FOR THE COAL INDUSTRY

Pre-war Conditions—The South Wales Strike of 1915—Government War-time Control—The Sankey Commission—The Mining Industry Act, 1920—The Strike of October 1920—The Strike of April 1921—The Failure of Part II of the Act of 1920—Royalties—Summary of Government Policy.

Pre-war Conditions

The relationship between employers and employed in the coal industry has been more profoundly modified during the war than in any other great national industry. Before 1914, there existed the Coal Mines Regulation Acts, 1887-1908, and later the Coal Mines Act, 1911, which consolidated and re-enacted with amendments many earlier Acts dealing with employment in mines, payment of wages, and other matters affecting mining. The Act of 1908 limited the hours of work underground to eight per day exclusive of one winding. By the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act, 1912, provision was made for the fixing of minimum rates of wages for miners in each mining district by Joint District Boards of mine owners and miners. Before the war, and indeed up to September 1917, wages were expressed at varying percentages above district basis rates, which had been fixed at various times in the different districts. In one district, Durham, the percentages varied with the selling price of coal. This system was introduced into Northumberland also in 1914. A similar system was at one time in operation in South Wales, but had been abandoned before the war. In October 1912, the Miners’ Federation adopted the Nationalization of Mines and Minerals Bill for constituting coal-mining a Government industry to be worked by a Government Department. Then came the war.