Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter IX. - Railways

Collection:: Economics Books

RAILWAYS, 147 actually received. The same may alse be said of bonus additions to provident funds and gratuity benefits, especially as we are informed that only about one-third of the workers are actual subscribers to Railway Provident Funds. The cumulative value of these concessions and addi- tions to ordinary wages is considerable, and those railway workers in receipt of them undoubtedly have advantages enjoyed by few industrial workers. We have been furnished With comparisons of rates of wages ruling in different industries and dea] with this question in another section of our Report. Here we need only express the opinion that railway service is becoming increasingly attractive, with the result that not only is a better type of applicant available, but the supply generally is in excess of requirements. Wage Movements, In pre-war days, wages were fixed in accordance with the rates prevailing in other industries In recent years, however, rates have been revised to meet changed conditions in the cost of living and improved standards of comfort, and, although there are differences of opinion on this subject, it may be accepted that the law of supply and demand has ceased bo be the sole determining factor. Except in one or two cases, service agreements contain no reference to rates of wages, although schedules of rates are in existence on all railways. There is no uniformity of practice on the various railways or even in similar departments of the same tailway. Pay generally is fixed on an incremental basis so as to admit of the grant of increases as an employee’s service and age increase. Certain classes are divided into grades, and Promotion from one gradeto another depends on the occurrence of a vacancy in the higher grade and on the suitability of the men for such promotion. As a rule the initial pay given is the minimum pay of the scale, although exceptions are frequently made, for example in the case of labourers and of men recruited for some workshops who, after trade tests, have bheir initial pay fixed according to skill. Complaints are made that there are $00 many grades, that men gre blocked for years in lower grades until vacancies occur in the higher, and that the wages of railway workers gre not based on the principle of g living wage. Revisions of Wages. We have been supplied with statements regarding revisions of wages made during the war and Post-war years to meet the changes in the cost of living. War allowances were given on various railways from 1917 ‘and increased from time to time, until they were merged in genera] revisions of the scale of pay carried out between the years 1920 and 1922, We are formed by the Railway Board that the scheme of revision was framed with due regard to the increased cost of living in the various pro- vinees traversed by the several railways and that, as the lower paid em- ployees were Particularly affected by the increase in the cost of the necessaries of life, the Percentages were fixed on a sliding scale, giving much larger proportionate Increasesin the lower grades. The following table indicates the percentages of increase over 1914 scales of pay, 3

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