Sectional Railway Councils
Sectional Railway Councils will consist of not more than twelve elected representatives of the employees, and not more than twelve appointed representatives of the company, and not more than five Sectional Councils are to be established on any railway. Each side will have its own secretary, who will have the right to take part in the proceedings. If one takes a railway on which the whole staff of the company is divided into the usual five sections, viz., (1) clerks, station-masters, supervisors, etc.; (2) locomotive men; (3) traffic department men; (4) goods and cartage staff, and (5) permanent way department men, platelayers, etc., each section will elect representatives to the Sectional Council, and the number of representatives of each section will be according to the proportion of the employees in the groups of the grades in the section. In addition, the number of representatives elected to each group of grades will be distributed as nearly as possible by districts. Sectional Councils will deal with: (a) local application of national agreements relating to standard salaries, wages, hours of duty and conditions of service other than subjects submitted directly to the Central Wages Board by railway companies or the Trade Unions; (b) suggestions as to operating, working and kindred matters; (c) other matters in which the company and the employees are mutually interested, such as co-operation with a view to securing increased business, greater efficiency and economy, the well-being of the staff, recruitment and tenure of service, etc.; (d) subjects remitted by the Railway Council to a Sectional Council.
Railway Councils
For each railway a Railway Council is to be appointed consisting of not more than ten representatives of the company and ten representatives of the employees. The representatives of the employees will consist of two members of each Sectional Council; each side will have a secretary with power to take part in the proceedings. The Railway Council will deal with all matters with which a Sectional Council can deal, and which are of common interest to two or more sections, but it can deal with no matter before a Sectional Council has had an opportunity of considering it. If a Sectional Council is unable to agree on any matter, the employees’ side may refer it to the Trade Unions concerned, or the Council may, by agreement, refer it to the Railway Council. If a Sectional or a Railway Council cannot agree on any question of the local application of national agreements in regard to rates of pay and conditions of service, the matter of difference may be submitted by the employees’ side to the Trade Unions concerned, who take it up with the Company, and, failing agreement, may refer it to the Central Wages Board. Before employees can submit any question to a Sectional or Railway Council they must first submit it to the company to consider in the ordinary way, but, failing a satisfactory answer within twenty-one days, the facts may be reported to the employees’ secretary of the Council concerned, and the company itself must proceed in the same way. The working of the Railway Councils and Committees will be followed with the greatest interest by all concerned in the development of industrial conciliation machinery.
CHAPTER XVI
GOVERNMENT LABOUR POLICY FOR AGRICULTURE
Government War-time Control—Government’s New Policy in 1921—The Establishment of Joint Conciliation Committees in England and Wales—The Work of the Conciliation Committees—Agriculture and Unemployment Insurance.
Government War-time Control
The necessity during the war of encouraging the production of food at home led to the Corn Production Act, 1917, which provided for control by the Ministry of Agriculture of cultivation, the constitution of an Agricultural Wages Board to fix minimum rates of wages for persons employed in agriculture, and for guaranteed minimum prices for wheat and oats. Minimum rates were fixed, and from time to time varied. Although the Board did not wipe out wholly the pre-war county agricultural wage-differentials, they very largely reduced them—the final percentage of increase varying from about 110 per cent. to 230 per cent. over pre-war. After the Armistice, the Government wisely realized it would be a mistaken policy to try and continue to fix minimum prices for oats and wheat, or to control cultivation and regulate wages. When wholesale prices broke in 1921, and the community became unable to pay the minimum prices, the Government decided it would be unsound finance to maintain prices and wages out of a national subsidy. In war-time it may be right to compel farmers to grow wheat and oats because of the country’s needs—it is wholly wrong to do so in peace-time—the right policy is to leave them to cultivate their land as they, in their own interests, think fit.