Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

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 VIII. - Mines

Collection:: Economics Books

MINES, 125 coalfields a new form of register, showing daily hours, had been introduced shortly before our visit. At that time some of the clerks were not keeping this register properly. The register appeared adequate for the purpose and if accurately kept should provide a reliable basis for checking the observance of the law as well as the necessary safety record of the number of men underground at any given moment, We think that the personal responsibility of managers for the accuracy of these registers should be impressed upon them and that, for a time at least, the special attention of the inspectorate should be given to checking them. We recommend that new registers, in the same form ag those in use for coal mines, or with such modifications as may be found necessary to meet varying circumstances, be prescribed for all mines under the Act. The Working Day. We have now to consider the suitability of the legal limits on the working day and the working week. The provisions of the Bill which was passed as the Act of 1928 met with criticism because with an existing weekly limit of hours of 60 above ground and 54 below ground, the introduction of a 12 hour day meant no advance. On the other hand, it was urged that the object of the Act wasnot the reduction of working hours, but the enforcement of some regularity in their arrange- ment. The whole case for and against a shorter daily limit wags examined with care by the Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly, which considered the Bill in 1928. The members of that Committee were agreed that the 8 hour shift is the system towards which advance should be directed. But, for reasons given in their report, the Committee decided to adhere to the 12 hour shift, recommending to Government that, after the Act had been in force for three years, the situation should again be examined to see whether an 8 hour shift could then be introduced. As the three years did not commence to run till April 1930, we have had no opportunity of seeing the Act in operation and it is not possible, therefore, to say that the considerations which led the Committee to sug- gest an experimental period have lost their force. We do not suggest that twelve hours is a suitable working day for a miner working regularly, hut under the present law the miner working regularly cannot work more than nine hours. The smooth working of the statutory system of shifts, com- bined with other changes recently introduced, will not be an easy task either for the industry or for the administration. There is the further consideration that, during the next few years, many miners will have difficulty in adjusting their work to meet the position caused by the exclu- sion of their women, ; and a fresh and drastic limitation of the kind involved in an 8 hour day might make adequate adjustment impossible. Finally, the industry still depends to considerable extent on the miner who comes in for g few days from a village some distance away and desires to put in the maximum of work during that time in order to secure as long a period as possible at his home. The introduction of 8 hour shifts will tend to eliminate work of this kind. While we are not prepared to Say that compelling the industry to depend on those classes of miners who

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