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 III. - The employment of the factory worker

Collection:: Economics Books

26 . CHAPTER III. ‘ of the jobber with even more submissive material on which to exercise it. We recommend that, where women are engaged in substantial numbers, there should invariably be employed at least one educated woman in charge of their welfare and supervision throughout the factory. She should be responsible to the labour officer, where there is one, and to the manager where there is not, for the engagement and dismissal of all the female staff, whether permanent or temporary. If naskins are employed they should be under her immediate control. It is im- portant that she should be remunerated on a salary and not on a com- mission basis, and on a scale likely to attract the right type of woman for work of such responsibility. We found this system in force in one or two large Indian factories with excellent results. Turnover. There is another direction in which action can be taken to diminish the jobber’s power, and our recommendation here should lead to other important results. At present the figures of turnover in many Indian factories are remarkable. In a large number of factories the fresh employees engaged each month are at least 5%, of the establishment, so that, in a period of less than 2 years, the fresh engagements exceed in number the total labour force. It is this feature which leads so many employers to suppose that the average factory worker is an agriculturalist devoting a short period of his life to industry. Actually most of the workers who are taken on as “fresh hands ” have been previously em- ployed in the same centre and often in the same mill. In few factories is there a serious attempt to register workers and to maintain touch with those who leave for holidays or are otherwise absent. We met widespread complaints of “ absenteeism ”, but this is an omnibus term covering absence from many causes. There are few managers who can say precisely which workers are away because they are idling, which are kept away by sickness, and which have gone on holiday meaning to return. Even workers who have left, with no intention of returning, may be treated for a time as absentees. Holidays. Where the jobbers are in the habit of exacting a bribe on all fresh engagements, it is to their interest to secure that such engagements are numerous. As some employers pointed out to us, there is a close con- nection between bribery and turnover, and we believe that the jobbers are responsible for much of the apparent restlessness of the operative, and his movements from factory to factory. Further, as few mills are willing to recognise a worker on his return from sa holiday as an old employee, there is no reason why he should feel any loyalty to a particular mill. We consider that employers generally should recognise the need and the value of the holidays taken by so many workers. We recommend that workers should be encouraged to apply for definite periods of leave, and should go with a promise that on their return at the proper time they will be able to resume their old work. The mere grant of regular leave, even when no allowance is attached to it. would mark a great advance on the

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