EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION MOVEMENT ; 
plan of representation was inaugurated by the employers without 
pressure from employees.’ 
In addition to plans of employee representation established by such 
private concerns, works committees were also set up in a large number 
of the five-thousand government-controlled plants by the Ministry 
of Munitions. The scope of these committees was somewhat more 
limited than that of those in private plants, their functions being 
primarily to adjust grievances, whereas most of those mentioned 
above were granted a voice in many other matters.28 
The discussion of the Whitley reports soon after their appearance 
in 1917 and 1918 became widespread in American industrial circles 
as well as in England. It is unnecessary, therefore, to describe in 
detail the successive reports of this body which was officially known 
as the “Sub-committee on Relations between Employers and Em- 
ployed to the Ministry of Reconstruction.” The first of its reports 
appeared in March, 1917, and the final report in July, 1918. These 
advocated the formation of councils, representative of management 
and men, starting with local shop committees and expanding through 
successive gradations including district and national joint industrial 
councils. 
Approval of the Whitley reports was voiced by many organizations 
influential in British industry, representative both of employers and 
workers. There was much lively discussion and criticism of the details 
of organization and operation of the proposed councils and some or- 
ganized opposition to certain features. But in the main the senti- 
ment was favorable to the establishment of joint industrial councils 
and works committees along the lines set forth by the Whitley com- 
mittee. 
The Whitley committee did not claim credit for originating the 
idea of works committees nor of joint district and national industrial 
councils. In 1916 Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a London building trades 
employer, presented a plan for industrial representation through what 
he called a “National Industrial Parliament for the Building Industry,” 
* Wolfe, A. B., op. cit., p. 68; also United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
0p. cit., pp. 95-158; Gleason, Arthur, op. cit., p. 595. 
*8 Gleason, Arthur, op. cit., p. 595. 
* Wolfe, A. B., 0p. cit., pp. 53-61. 
35