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

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VIII. - Mines

Collection:: Economics Books

128 CHAPTER VIII, obvious is the loss of wages to the women, for whom alternative employ- ment is not available and, where these are the wives or connections of the male workers, a corresponding reduction in the family income. Against this, in the opinion of competent observers, must be set the in- creased effort evoked by the new conditions and greater regularity of attendance on the part of male workers. If this proves to be the case, the change will be all for the good ; but the adjustment is not likely to be easy and, for some years, special importance must be attached to pro- viding every possible method of increasing the miner's efficiency. We recommend that, in order to mitigate hardship amongst women excluded or about to be excluded from underground workings, employers should reserve for them vacancies occurring among surface workers, wherever practicable. Secondly, since the work of women underground has been the loading of the cut coal into tubs, in future this work will have to be done by some other means, either by the coal cutter himself, by male workers or by machinery. Figures for 1929 show that the number of male loaders has increased from 8,774 in 1928 to 12,592 in 1929, i.e., by 43%, so that this adjustment should not be difficult. Thirdly, the release of so many women of the miners’ families from the industry should make possible the raising of the miners’ standard of home life, with a consequent increase in their efficiency, to the benefit of employer and employed. But this advantage will not be gained without effort on the part of the employer, for, unless conditions of life on the collieries are improved, miners will not bring their women to the mining areas when their power to earn is gone, and these areas will not escape the evils result- ing from a marked disparity in the sex ratio. In our opinion the intro- duction of improvements is not only a moral obligation but is also dictated by the interest of the employer. The Ten Year Period. We have given consideration to the suggestion made before us that there should be a shortening of the ten year period which has to elapse before women are completely excluded. It was suggested to us that the period would be shortened in practice, and that by 1934 there would be few women working underground. The employment figures for 1929 support this view. We trust the forecast will materialise, but in any case no recommendation of ours could take effect until a large part of the period had already expired. It is unwise to disturb an arrangement which was the outcome of so much discussion and, we therefore, make no recommendation for the statutory reduction of the period. Open Workings, The regulations for the exclusion of women do not apply to quarries and open workings, and some witnesses suggested that they should be extended to them. In their opinion the limitation to under- ground workings gives an unfair advantage in the market to coal raised from quarries. In particular, concerns working second class coal feel themselves handicapped in competing for the railwav market with coal

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation