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

916 CHAPTER XII. in mills under the same managing agents, there are differences which, to persons not acquainted with the position, seem incredible. For ex- ample, in two mills situated in the same area and separated from each other by little more than a boundary wall, under the same managing agents, there is practically not a single entry of wages which is the same. In three mills under the same managing agents, situated within a stone’s throw of each other, the rates in one mill have for many years been higher than those in the other two mills. In other groups of mills, situat- ed close to each other and under different managing agents, the wage rates in individual mills are kept, or are supposed to be kept, strictly secret. The total earnings are not necessarily kept secret, but each prides itself on having been able to declare piece-rates or bonus-rates which are better than the rates of the neighbouring mills.” Need of Standardisation in Jute Mills. The Kankinarrah Labour Union, on the other hand, urged that “the wages for time work should be reduced to arate per hour, and rates for piece work should be so revised in all the mills in the different dis- tricts that no weaver should ever grumble that he is paid so much less than a fellow worker in another mill for an identical piece of work.” In- directly, the absence of standardisation played no small part in the series of strikes which for some time threatened to paralyse a considerable section of the industry in 1929, as independent action taken by individual members of the Indian Jute Mills Association, without consulting other members, jeopardised the successful application of the terms of a strike settlement. With the growing consciousness of the workers, the degree of differentiation existing in wage rates for identical processesin this industry may cause trouble. The different costs of living in areas as closely related as are those in the jute manufacturing districts of the Hooghly area and of Calcutta should not preclude the possibility of standardisation. The same difficulty has been surmounted by zone agreements and by other meansin a number of countries and industries, and in India itself in the case of certain railway employees, and often under conditions more complicated than those existing to-day in the jute manufacturing districts of Bengal. We therefore recommend that the industry, which has all the advantages of a high degree of internal organisation on the employers’ side, take early steps to investigate the possibility of standardisation of wage rates, both for time and piece workers. associating with it representatives of bona fide trade unions. VIII, Deductions from Wages. Before leaving the discussion of factors affecting the worker's income, it is convenient to deal with the deductions made from his wages. In 1926 the Government raised the question of the desirability of legislation regulating the extent to which fines and other deductions from wages might be made by employers. As a result enquiries were instituted and a considerable mass of information on the subject was

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