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

THE INCOME OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKER. 215 already varying degrees of organisation among the workers and this may be expected to increase. So far as the workers employed in some of the leading industries are concerned, the main need would appear to be the adoption of common standards of payment for similar classes of work. We are satisfied that a larger measure of uniformity can be achieved in certain industries without prejudice to their economic position and, at the same time, a higher wage level can be secured to some of the lowest paid classes. Position in Cotton Mills. This is a matter which has already received some examination in the cotton textile industry. The question was considered by the Bombay Industrial Disputes Committee in 1992 and again by the Textile Tariff Board in 1927. The Industrial Disputes Committee declared that “ employers’ associations have not evolved a standard scale of wages, and individual employers are usually ignorant of how their rates com- pare with the wages given by others ” and that “ the new uncorrelated raising of wages is almost invariably seized upon as a grievance in other factories of the same class.” Later the Textile Tariff Board recom- mended to the Millowners’ Association the adoption of a system of stan- dardised wages for the same classes of work as between mill and mill. The Association responded to this suggestion and in 1928 evolved a standardisation scheme which was subsequently examined in detail by the Bombay Strike Enquiry Committee of 1928-29. The Association proposed to introduce their scheme in the autumn of 1929, but no further developments along these lines have so far taken place. We are aware of the difficulties in the way of the inauguration of a system of standardised wages at the present time. Nevertheless we urge that every effort be made to put this policy into operation at the earliest possible moment Position in Jute Industry. i The jute industry has been more fortunate than the cotton industry as regards the prevalence of industrial unrest and the reper- cussion of political factors upon stability. As a result, it has escap- ed the series of investigations by statutory and other bodies to which its sister industry has been subjected in the last few years. This May in part account for the fact that, although the jute industry, on account of fewer variations in the classes of goods manufac- bured and the degree of comfort in the factory, is a far easier field for an attempt at standardisation than the cotton industry, no serious consideration has hitherto been given to the matter. The Indian Jute Mills Association declared the existing variations in wages to depend upon the differences in cost of living in different jute manufacturing areas. The evidence of the Bengal Government, however, states ““ Perhaps in no industry in the world, situated in such a circumscribed area, 1s the Wage position more inchoate. The mills, grouped under different manag- Ing agents, work under wage systems which have developed many local diosynerasies during the long or short vears of their existence. Even

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