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 XVIII. - Industrial disputes

Collection:: Economics Books

341 bhe sea. The control of the leading establishments is largely British while the bulk of the industrial labour is Indian. INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES. Language Difficulty. The employer or manager who is faced with the problem of establishing contact with his men starts, in most cases, with a heavy handicap. Brought up in a different tradition, with a different descent, in a different part of the country, indeed often in another continent, he is usually confronted also by difficulties of language. The imperfect knowledge of the language of their workers possessed by many who are responsible for management and supervision lowers efficiency and impairs understanding. It is not uncommon to find that the manager of an important establishment is far from proficient in the principal language spoken by his men. We would smphasise our conviction that no one can be regarded as fully qualified for a post of management or supervision who does not find it easy both to understand his employees and to make himself understood by them. The illiteracy of the workers, which prevents the management from uti- lising the written word to convey orders and rules directly to the rank and file, is an additional reason for laying stress upon language quali- fications. In many cases it may be hard for 2 man chosen, possibly when he is no longer young, largely on account of his technical train- ing, to acquire fluency in a foreign tongue, but we repeat that this Juency is mn itself a technical qualification which is indispensable for the competent discharge of managerial functions, Some employers offer special inducements to junior officers to acquire language qualifica- tions, but it is rare for an employer to insist on their acquisition by managers and others in the more responsible positions. Difficulties Arising from Industrial Organisation. : Further difficulties are created by industrial organisation. In all countries the growth of large-scale industry renders impossible the close personal relations between employer and employed which sub- sist when employees are few, and in consequence contact is generally difficult to establish. In India the method of organisation tends to enhance the difficulty. At the top, between the shareholders, who own the concern, and the manager, there is generally another company or firm known as the managing agents ; and private shareholders, even if they wished to take an interest in their labour, would ordinarily find it impossible to influence policy in such a matter. Much more serious, from the point of view of labour, is the tendency for managers to delegate some of their functions to subordinates and to interpose unreliable links between themselves and their men. We have already dealt with the power possessed by sardars, mukaddams and other chargemen or fore- men, who are too often able even to dismiss and engage workers. As a rule, the management depends on such-men. both for its knowledge of the minds and desires of the employees and for the interpretation to them of its own orders. Where thisis the practice, it is almost impossible for the Management to reach any stable understanding with the workers. There

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