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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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. - Mines

Collection:: Economics Books

120 CHAPTER VIII, On all grounds, we recommend the gradual supersession of the raising contractor as such, and the substitution of what ig known as sarkar: working. Labour Officers, If the raising contractor is eliminated, it will ordinarily be hecessary to strengthen the management in order to carry out the fune- tions he performed. There are very few mines employing raising con- tractors where the time of the manager is not fully occupied already, and we recognise that his other duties would normally make it impossible for him to give adequate personal attention to labour matters. In some cases we fear that the manager is imperfectly acquainted with the languages native to the workers. This may be one of the reasons for the survival of the raising contractor, but it does not make him indispensable. We recommend that in every important mine there should be a salaried officer directly responsible to the management for the supervision of labour, both in and outside the mine. There may be some among the existing labour contractors who are qualified by experience and tempera- ment for such positions ; but, whoever is appointed, it is essential that be should be able to secure and maintain the confidence of the workers, Regularity of Working. So far as working time is concerned, the principal aim should be greater regularity. The combined effect of seasonal absences and the short week worked by most miners is to reduce the number of the average miner’s working days to well below half the days of the year. Hours of work (with which we deal later) are also frequently irregular. These irregularities are disliked by coal owners and managers, but it is possible that the employment of raising contractors tends to obscure the extent to which they handicap the industry. In overhead charges, in the cost of housing and sanitation and in other ways the employment of men working, perhaps, on 150 days in the year greatly enhances the cost and lowers the remuneration of labour. Greater regularity of work would be to the immediate advantage both of employers and employed. We can put forward no panacea which will effect a revolution in the present irregular methods of work ; but there are directions along which progress is possible. In the first place, irregular daily attendance is associated with long working days. So long as a man, on the days when he goes underground, is required, or even permitted, to remain there for 12 hours at a stretch, it is unreasonable to expect him to present himself for work on 6 days of the week, even if it were legal for him to work more than 54 hours a week. No worker, least of all one who is drawn from the open fields, is likely to be ready, save in cases of dire necessity, regularly to spend long hours underground. The shortening of hours, therefore, to which we refer later, appears essential if greater regularity of attendance is to be secured. Drink and Drugs. A second factor, which has some influence on the regularity of work, is the consumption of intoxicating liquor. The extent of the

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