THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED
1. CONTENTMENT IN INDUSTRY
(_b_) Human Status of the Worker in Industry—The Slowness
of Ordinary Conciliation Machinery—The Whitley Councils
Scheme—Joint National and District Industrial Councils—Works’
Committees—The Slow Progress of Works’ Committees—The Success
of Works’ Committees on the Clyde—Executive Management a Matter
for Employers.
(_b_) Human Status of the Worker
The next most pressing reform in our present industrial system is to
secure for the individual worker a definite status in industry. To
describe what is intended is easier than to define it. At present the
individual worker complains that the government of industry is conducted
by the employer entirely as the latter thinks fit. He calls it the
“domination of capital”; he describes himself as treated with scant or no
consideration, and undoubtedly he draws all his industrial inspirations
from an atmosphere in which there is little apparent development of his
human personality. The worker is right and he is wrong. He forgets that
the conduct of industry to-day is not a matter in the uncontrolled hands
of any employer. He loses sight of the fact that in all well-organized
industries the conditions of employment which prevail have been the
matter of extensive adjustment between the employers’ organizations and
the Trade Unions, negotiated, of course, centrally beyond the horizon of
the individual worker.
The Slowness of Ordinary Conciliation Machinery
The real feeling that the worker is trying to express is his sense of
personal insignificance in a great factory, accentuated, when grievances
arise, by the difficulty, in large works, of securing prompt discussion
of them between the workers and the management. All that can be done is
for the worker to report the matter to the shop steward of his particular
craft in the department, who will no doubt report it to the secretary
of his Trade Union district committee. The latter will put it forward
for consideration by the committee and take their instructions upon it,
and the committee will, in course of time, send down him or the district
delegate to the works to see the employer. A discussion will take place,
the results of which the district delegate will report back to the
district committee. If the matter is amicably settled there is an end
of it; if, on the other hand, it still remains in dispute, the district
committee may decide to refer it to the executive council of their Union.
The executive council will then remit it to the central organization of
the employers, to be considered by them at their next meeting. The matter
may be then adjusted, or it may be left over for discussion at one of
the periodical joint central conferences. While this ponderous machinery
is functioning the individual worker is left face to face with the
remembrance of his grievance, and it is not surprising that he gradually
acquires a sense of inferiority and a feeling of being neglected, through
his ignorance that the mills of conciliation grind slowly. The object
first and foremost must be to adapt existing, or provide new, machinery
in all industries to enable grievances to be speedily discussed in the
works in which they arise. It may be found when they are investigated
that they involve some issue common to all the works in the district
engaged in the same industry. Obviously, then, that is a matter to be
discussed between the district employers and the district committees
of the Trade Unions, or through the district conciliation machinery,
whatever it may be. In course of the district discussions it may be
ascertained that the matters of controversy have raised some national
question, then, obviously, for the sake of industrial uniformity, these
questions should be considered nationally between the organizations
representing all the employers in the country engaged in the particular
industry and the Trade Unions representing the men, or through the
appropriate national conciliation machinery.
These are the general lines along which, as Part II shows, industrial
conciliation machinery has developed. In the highly organized industries,
there is machinery, district and national, but not as a rule works’
committees. The drawback in all industries is the delay.
The Whitley Councils Scheme
The want of such machinery became apparent in many imperfectly organized
industries in the early part of the war, and in October 1916, “the
Whitley Committee” was appointed by the Prime Minister with the
following terms of reference:
(1) To make and consider suggestions for securing a permanent improvement
in the relations between employers and workmen.
(2) To recommend means for securing that industrial conditions affecting
the relations between employers and workmen should be systematically
reviewed by those concerned, with a view to improving conditions in the
future.
Of this Committee the present Speaker of the House of Commons, the Right
Hon. J. H. Whitley, was Chairman. It comprised representatives of the
employers and also of the Trade Unions engaged in some of the great
industries. The Committee presented five reports recommending what is now
known as the Whitley Councils Scheme.
Joint National and District Industrial Councils
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.
The Success of Works’ Committees on the Clyde
In the stormy days on the Clyde in the spring of 1916, I had, as Chairman
of the Government Commission for Dilution of Labour, remarkable proofs
of the extent to which workshop committees, when loyally supported by
employers, operate to create industrial contentment. Up to that time the
skilled men in the engineering shops on the Clyde had firmly refused to
comply with the “Treasury” Agreements of March 1915, accepted on ballot
by their own Trade Union, and declined absolutely to permit any woman to
be introduced for the purpose of doing work previously done by a man or
even a boy. The Executive Council of the A.S.E. confessed their entire
inability to persuade their Clyde members to comply with the Agreement,
and left the matter to the Clyde District Committee. We, as a Commission,
found the Clyde District Committee willing to assist, but powerless.
It then occurred to us that the best way to achieve our purpose of
introducing women was to establish in each workshop a workshop committee
consisting of an equal number of workers and management. We explained the
scheme of dilution to the committee, leaving it to be discussed between
the men on the one side and the management on the other, all information
being given and objections, so far as possible, being met by us in the
course of the discussion. The workers’ side of the committee would then
report to a mass meeting of the workers and come back in a day’s time
to a further meeting of the committee, when adjustments, if necessary,
would be made by us in the scheme. The result was truly amazing; the men
who previously had been adamant against dilution soon realized there
was no desire on our part to force some cast-iron proposal down their
throats, and that there was a definite opportunity reserved to them as
of right for discussing matters, for eliciting information on doubtful
aspects, for pointing out and securing a remedy for objectionable
features and for introducing safeguards for the protection of their
craft. Hostility softened into suspicion, suspicion mellowed into
confidence, and confidence in time begat co-operation. Almost insensibly
the scope of these committees widened by general consent, and other
workshop grievances, apart altogether from dilution, were submitted for
discussion and disposed of in the same amicable way. The engineering
employers on the Clyde wholeheartedly supported the scheme, and a number
of them voluntarily took the initiative in enlarging the sphere of
matters to be discussed. It should not be forgotten that this was in one
of the most revolutionary districts of the country, where for their own
purposes extremists had been long fomenting workshop grievances. When
those grievances were remedied in this way there was very little left for
the extremists to turn to their own ulterior ends, and the Clyde settled
down. After the Commission was dissolved in October 1916, by the Ministry
of Munitions, which did not like to see an outside authority doing
successfully what it had previously failed to do, the influence for good
of these committees rapidly declined under the hard hand of bureaucratic
control.
At first I had entertained fears of Trade Union hostility to workshop
committees, because local delegates are apt to think that the discussion
of workshop grievances is a matter entirely for them, which, if
appropriated by a workshop committee, may impair the necessity for
their official existence. This difficulty, however, we surmounted in a
very simple way. The committee consisted as a rule of seven or eight
members elected by the workers in the shop, and an equal number of the
representatives of the management. Notice of any meeting of the committee
and of the agenda before the committee would be sent to the district
delegate of the Union concerned, who would be invited ex-officio, if he
cared, to attend and take part in the proceedings. As a rule the delegate
invariably did attend, and his presence was most helpful.
In the course of six months’ work the Clyde Commission established nearly
200 workshop committees which met each week, and had the satisfaction
of seeing them dispose of workshop grievances and other works disputes
in a harmonious, business-like and effective manner. It produced the
best possible feeling among the men; they felt—as many of them told me
personally—they were no longer under the heel of the foreman, but had
an opportunity of putting their complaints fully before the management,
being called, of course, as witnesses by the workers’ side of the
committee. They felt, they said, that their labour was being no longer
treated as merely raw material in industry, and that they had at last
attained a human status. This, however, we did insist upon, that a worker
had to go through the constitutional shop procedure for disposing of his
grievance before it could be brought up at a meeting of the committee; in
other words, if shop procedure provided for the question being dealt with
by the foreman with an appeal from him to the manager, that it should
be exhausted before the committee could take the matter up. In the same
way the worker had to exhaust his Trade Union procedure, reporting the
matter, it may be, to his shop steward, who would follow the progress of
the controversy in the accustomed manner.
Executive Management a Matter for Employers
The cause of what I hope is only a temporary stoppage in the progress
of Joint Councils and Works’ Committees is due to the fact that extreme
sections of Labour have taken the view that these Councils and Committees
seriously interfere with their projects of bringing industry to an
end, so as to enable the workers to acquire control of it, and have,
therefore, instigated the workers in certain districts to advance demands
going to the very root of the employer’s right and responsibility to
manage his business, which do not admit of discussion. The employers
rightly have objected to this. But for the way in which moderate workmen
have unwittingly lent themselves to these tactics, there is no doubt
that the scheme for Works’ Committees would have made greater headway.
To give an actual illustration: One of our mammoth liners, in shipyard
after being repaired, required a few hours’ overtime on the part of six
fitters to enable her to go to her home port to load for departure. The
fitters refused to work overtime until the matter was discussed between
their shop steward and the management; a discussion took place, the
former would not agree, and insisted on convening his workshop committee
in a couple of days. The ship was all this time being detained, and
eventually had to sail, as she could wait no longer, but as a result of
the delay, she missed the tide at her home port. While a limitation on
the total amount of overtime to be worked per working week is a matter
for legitimate agreement between management and men, when and how the
overtime is to be worked is obviously a question for the management.
The Whitley machinery is admirable, but however excellent it may be, it
can do nothing unless there is the right spirit on both sides—a spirit
of compromise and mutual endeavour to arrive at some fair and equitable
basis of self-government, leaving it to the employer to manage his works
in accordance with the principles that have been agreed. Labour cannot
seek to settle the principles by negotiation, and in addition manage the
works. No employer claims to dictate what the principles shall be.