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CHAPTER XXI,

season to season, and depends on the nature of the soil and other factors
which are not constant within a district, varying even within a single
garden, and that the output of the worker also varies according to in-
dividual skill and diligence. It has been already stated that low
earnings do not necessarily denote unsatisfactory conditions, nor do high
earnings always mean that conditions are good. But the objection
seems to us to be based on an imperfect understanding of the operation
of rate-fixing machinery. In Assam, as elsewhere in India, there is a
tendency to assume that statutory wage rates must result in a fixed
sum paid to each worker at the end of a month or some other period,
irrespective of his task or output during that period. This is, in essence,
the system in Ceylon, and when statutory minimum wages were in force
for contract labourers on the Assam plantations, the wage prescribed
took the form of so many rupees a month. We are agreed that such a
system is not capable of general application in Assam. Any system
of statutory wage rates, if it is to work equitably, must take ac-
count of the fact that the labourer is often a part-time worker, and that
in many gardens it is impracticable, even if it were wise, to insist en
every worker doing a full day’s work.
Piece Rates and Time Rates.
Those who recognised that the fixing of statutory wage rates
did not necessarily imply a fixed monthly wage, irrespective of capacity
and output, appeared to be influenced by the belief that it would be
necessary to prescribe in the wage ordinance the exact amount to
be paid in the case of piece or task workers for different kinds of
work such as hoeing, pruning, plucking, etc. The laying down of
specific piece rates would no more be possible in Assam than it has
been in Ceylon, and indeed no more desirable. Agreeing, therefore,
that, so far as this system is concerned, the objections are valid, we
go on to indicate what appears to us to be a system which is not open
to these objections and which we believe to be the most suitable, if not
the only practicable, system for Assam. In the case of workers paid on
a time rate basis, this would involve the determination by the wage-
fixing body of basic rates for male, female and child workers. In the
case of those employed on piece or task rates, who form the vast majority
in this industry, the employers themselves would fix the rate for the task,
after determining its capacity to yield a worker of ordinary skill and
diligence at least the amount determined by the wage-fixing body as the
minimum earning for the given unit of time in the case of the worker
employed by the piece or task. In other words, such a worker, as
opposed to the slow or inexperienced worker, should be assured a
minimum amount for the performance of a given task. The fixing of
only one basic rate for children would be made possible if, as we recom-
mend elsewhere, the starting age for child workers was restricted to 10
years. The existence of the rate would act as an additional check to the
employment of underage children, who would clearly be unable to earn
such a rate. It would be for the wage-fixing body to determine the age