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

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XVIII. - Industrial disputes

Collection:: Economics Books

INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES, 843 or used as rivals to its influence. It isidle to expect that a committee, intended to forestall and prevent effective organisation on the part of workers, will secure their confidence to any large extent. We are anxious that prejudice shall not prevent trade unions from securing the faci- lities necessary for their development, but it will be generally recognised that the employer has the right of exercising his own judgment as to the bona fides of a particular trade union. The workers’ representatives should have facilities for separate as well as for joint meetings; such meetings should ordinarily count as working time. The range of subjects should be as wide as possible, Finally, and most important of all, the principal representative of the management must be in sym- pathy with the idea and determined to do his best to make the committee a success. A manager (or other officer) with the will and the ability to appreciate the workers’ point of view is the biggest asset a committee san have.. Where a suitable labour officer has been secured, he will naturally play a large part in the working of the committee. His posi- tion should enable him to see that the workers’ case is adequately pre- sented, and he can act as their advocate when he is convinced that reme- dial measures are required. It is preferable that he should not act as the spokesman of the employers on the committee; this duty is best discharged by the manager or some other officer. Value of Internal Settlement. We come now to the question of the settlement of disputes. Here we would emphasise the primary importance of maintaining ma- shinery for settlement within an industry. Public attention in India has naturally been concentrated on securing external machinery for settling disputes, 7.e., some authority either entirely or partly - independ- ent of the industry concerned. Such authorities can be of great value at times, but they cannot take the place of machinery established within an industry to deal with disputes as they arise. The external tribunal can seldom be invoked except at a comparatively late stage of a dispute, 7.e., when a strike has broken out or is imminent. By this time the dispute has generally attained its greatest dimensions, the parties have taken up positions from which it is difficult to recede, the spirit of compromise has disappeared, and an element of bitterness and exasperation has arisen which makes settlement difficult. Further, she external tribunal has to acquire its knowledge of conditions and at best this must be partial ; those within the industry start with a better appreciation of the basic facts than any external authority can acquire. Finally, the task of conciliation, to be fully effective, must continue after 2, dispute has ended, and the work of an external authority cannot cover this stage. In this connection we are constrained to observe that unrest has been aggravated in more than one centre by the tendency to patch up % truce and secure a return to work without a permanent settlement of he bigger differences which have separated the parties. Organisation of Joint Machinery. The establishment of joint machinery for the settlement of dis- putes demands some degree of organisation in the industrv. In the larger

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