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 XII. - The income of the industrial worker

Collection:: Economics Books

214 CHAPTER XII. matters such as the slow growth of the spirit of compliance with the indus- trial law among the smaller and less well organised employers, the igno- rance and illiteracy of the workers, the possibility of collusion and the large areas to be covered in the case of scattered industries—all of which tend to make a high annual percentage of inspection essential if enforce- ment is to be effective. It is likely that there are many trades in which a minimum wage may be desirable but not immediately practic- able. Here, as in other instances cited, the policy of gradualness should not be lost sight of, if the desired end is to be achieved without disaster. Industries Requiring Investigation. At the present moment, there is, so far as we are aware, no trade of the type to which the Convention refers in which sufficient preliminary work has already been done to justify our recommending the immediate establishment of minimum wage fixing machinery, with a view to raising the earning capacity of a group of workers whose standard of living is de- pressed below that of their fellows. We believe, however, both from per- sonal observation and from evidence submitted to us, that in certain industries there is a prima facie case for a preliminary investigation of the type we have outlined, such as is undertaken in Great Britain by the Ministry of Labour before setting up a trade board. In indicating the trades to which examination should be directed in the first instance, we are hampered by the fact that the home-working trades, to which the Convention particularly refers, except where also carried on in factories or workshops, as in the case of bidi making and mica cutting and splitting, have not come within our purview. We recommend, however, that, of the industries which came within our terms of reference, those referred to in the chapter dealing with unregulated factories be examined in the first instance with a view to the need and possibility of instituting minimum wage fixing machinery. We have reason to believe that bids making is in some places a “sweated” industry, employing purdah women and girls in their homes as well as young boys in numbers of small workshops. Work in tanneries is undertaken almost entirely by the depressed classes, and there are many small establishments paying very low wages which are competing with the better organised factories paying higher wages. In mica factories and other industries not using power, which employ large numbers of children, there appears a possibility of using the minimum wage to prevent the exploitation of juvenile labour and the consequent undercutting of adult wages. If the results of investi- gation show the need for minimum wage fixing machinery in industries of this kind, we recommend that the necessary legislation for setting up such machinery should be undertaken, and that Government should then ratify the Convention, if they ave in a position to do so. Standardisation of Wage Rates. Reference has already been made to the striking disparity in the wage rates operating in an industry situated in the same locality, as indicat- ed bv the Bombay Wage Census. In India in some indietries there are viv

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