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