WAGES PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 75, 22 December 1919, Page 3

WAGES PROBLEM

EVENTS IN BRITAIN HOW TO FIX CHANGES Has tho Government any definite plan for fixing tho future basis of wages;'asks Mr. Alexander M. Thompson, tiio 'Dally Mail's" spooial Labour correspondent. Hare tho employers? Have t'he trade unions? In the case of the railway workers 9 permanent minimum has been fixed, and an allowan:o for increased cost of liTing has been guaranteed for twelve months. But brandies of the union are already clamouring for a. further allowance because prices of food and clothing, which, according to the Government, were to havo fallen, still ( continuo to In other trades, no agreement has been reached as to the continuance or disposal of tho special war bonuses; but the workers, fearful of losing what they —in an enviable spirit of optimism—regard as an advance, demand that these spccial allowances shall be permanently added to the pre-war standard wage. Meantimo the Arbitration Court, which has been adjusting .war bonnses to current prices, is to end its functions next month. What machinery of adjustment is to fake its place? Manufacturers don't know. Trade unionists don t know. Unles3 the Government knows, there is going to be trouble. . The uncertainty is already producing industrial paralysis. A Northern ironmaster visited me on his return . from France and Belgium. .I' or nl )-' le " time sinco the Automobile Show was started in Paris, he had come back without a single contract. "Our Killant Allies," he, told me, "havo no present use for us. They are producing tjio stuff for themselves. But my chief difficulty was that it was impossible for me to quote a price six months ahead. How could, I guess what the labour might cost?" The ironfonnders, he pointed out, have gone 'on strike already, though the Court of Arbitration has yet a month to live. When tlieftr officials, last week, settled the strike, the men, by a big majority, decided to go on with it. Their secretary in 1 my informants town favoured the settlement; tho, secretary in tho noxt town denounced it. Trade under such conditions," my visitor declared, ":s impossible. It becomes a gamble which responsible men noili leave to unscrupulous ladventmtfcrs. If we cannot arrive at some reliable basis of agreement tho country must make-up ifc= inind to lose its export business. . In this emergency, my visitor asked me, to suggest to other manufacturers and to trade unionists, through the Daily Mail," that it would only malce confusion worse confounded to scrap the Arbitration Court/ That machine should, so long as conditions remain abrprmal, continuo periodically to adjust tho Allowance for the cost of living to the current prices of necessaries, Each Trade for Itself. "But," he insisted, "it is essential to commercial security that the basic, rate of wages should be treated as a separate entity. This can only be determined by tho one factOT ojv which it must necessarily depend, and that is the profitability of the,, industry from which tho ivagcß are derived. Thcro is no other way. It's utterly useless, under commercial conditions, to fix a wage which the trade cannot carry. The permanent standard rate'can only be through the old system of bargaining between trado union officials and manufacturers"

If manufacturers knew (hat wages would be based on profit, he declared, they would contract with something like conildpnco. They would not need to worry about the war bonuses, nor would tho workers. The special allowance would automatically rise or fall according to tho fluctuation of prices, which, as I ha-vo said, have by no means reached an assured limit. The workers would 6tand on much surer ground tf all increase in the cost of living were guaranteed, and if. the average rate of 1914 were fixed as tho minimum and real were subject to a real rise above that level through trade's'assured prosperity. At present they are dovoting all their energies to the consolidation of an ihcieaso which is not an increase at all. In their account with tho rest of the community they are getting themselves debited with a big advance in' wages ■which cannot begin to be ;iv advance till the cost of. living drops, and which rppresents an qctual reduction wliile prices conlinuo to rise. Tho only way to secure a real advance under the Present industrial system is to base it on productivity and profit? Year's Extension Urge.d. The 80 representatives of shipbuilding, engineering, and general trades who diuorssed the problem of the wara-basis with Sir Robert Home at the Ministry «f Labour contented t;hems»lves with urging the extension of tho Temporary Wages Act to November, 1320. Th-rjy also asked for the consolidation of the present war advances, but they were told that the Court of Arbitration lias no power to grant this request, and the trade unions have therefore to rely upon their own strength to enforce it. They further ask Ministers to expedite the award which the court is to make on October 30. Sir Robert Home promised to submit the trade union proposal to a conference cf employers this wec!c, and the War. Cabinet will tlusn havo to dec 'do' whether' t**e existing Act s.hall be extended.

This would not bs an ideal nor ;ven a logical settlement of the difficulty, I'm I i.. the circumstances it is probably the best possible makeshift. During the 12 months' breath'ng space tho morn permanent suggestion of my visitor should be discussed at full measure, and the workers who prefer the way-of evolution to thnt of revolution and who sec any' advantage in ruling industry as a preliminary to captur'ng it will probably recognise the good sense ol tho suggestion liero advanced. Mr. Tom Mann's Start. Mr. Tom Mann, who has started upon his duties as secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, may dis r «nt from 'this view. That stormy petrel uf every .ijnd of revolutionary "ism" has heralded his entrance into his new responsibility by writing an article fob ' Solidarity," which is an orgnji of Syndicalism and Direct Action. In this effusion Mr. Mann repeals his familiar contention that "tho 30 hours week is justified economically and ethically" in the engineering and shipbuilding trades, and that it will "carry us near to a full solution of the labour problem." He therefore "urges all shop stewards and workers' committees to get to work without delay in spreading tho news that the hours of labour must be reduced substantially,"

One would have thought Mint his experience with the chicken farm which his Labour friends recently bought him would have sobered Mr. Mann out of that sort of intoxication. For it is only fair to presume .that ho tried his 30 hours working week on his hens, and the result seems to suggest that it did not turn out very well.

At any rate, as an official of a union ■which only a few months apo asrrppd to vork a 47 hours week, h<? is in duty and loyalty bound to support its policy. In any case, though everybody likes Tom Mann's wild and whirling spirit (which is the secret of his election), nobody takes him seriously. s .