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 XXI. - Wages on planatations

Collection:: Economics Books

0 CHAPTER XXI, to the workers’ welfare. The principle that « outsiders” may repre- sent the illiterate workman until he has reached a more advanced stage, when he can select those who shall represent him is generally accepted. It willbe necessary for Government to appoint disinterest- ed persons, who are neither officials nor employers, to represent the in- terests of the garden workers on the Board. If and when workers’ organisations come into being, these outsiders could be replaced by workers’ representativesinthe true senseof the term. We suggest that any Board or Boards should be large enough to ensure the representation of minority interests among the employers where these exist, but should be kept as small as is consistent with requirements, both in order to ensure expeditions working and to obviate difficulties in the way of finding sufficient persons to represent the workers’ interests. Further, it is not necessary, and will probably be found undesirable, to include any inde- pendent members other than the chairman, who should be a Government nominee and preferably an official of standing likely to command the confidence of both sides and hold the balance evenly between them. In the event of more than one Board being set up, it may be found pre- ferable, in the interests of uniformity and co-ordination, to have a common chairman for all Boards. This will be a matter for consideration by Government and the industry. The members should not receive any salary as such, but, as in Ceylon, should merely be compensated on a fixed scale determined by the local Government for out-of-pocket ex- penses, which should be confined to the period of the sittings. The only other point we would stress is that, in view of the large number of women and children employed on plantations, it is desirable to ensure that the Board or Boards should include at least one woman. Points for Consideration. . As regards the principles on which rates should be fixed, we think that it should prove neither necessary nor desirable to incorporate in the law any theoretical criterion to which such rates should conform, believing that the constitution of the machinery and the operation of the principle of common sense would, in this as in other systems of wage regulation, give due weight both to the human requirements of labour and to the capacity of the industry to meet those requirements. Ex- perience has shown that free discussion round a table by employers’ and workers’ representatives, under the guidance of an independent chairman, breaks down suspicion and distrust and thus helps to promote an attitude of reasonableness and compromise on both sides, which ulti- mately leads to an amicable agreement. We believe that the tea indus- try of Assam would be no exception to this rule. After the passing of the statute setting up the machinery, the following matters will have to be considered and determined :— (a) the age at which a worker, male or female, becomes an adult for the purpose of the basic rate ; (b) whether the workers paid by time and those paid by piece should be subject to the same or different basic rates ;

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