The Press WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1947. Labour Concessions To Crisis

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25249, 30 July 1947, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1947. Labour Concessions To Crisis

Under the growing threat of economic crisis in Great Britain industrial labour in recent months has ccmpromised significantly on several principles which it has traditionally upheld. These concessions, though clearly called for by the national need, are creditable to the unions’ sense of responsibility; they may be important contributions to recovery. The Trades Union Congress, by withdrawing its longstanding opposition to double daylight shift working, has made it possible to prevent next winter’s power shortage from cutting down production. Double-shift agreements, which are now being negotiated in many manufacturing industries, will relieve peak loading on the power systems by spreading the load over a longer period each day and minimise the industrial impact of power rationing. There should be long-term advantages, too. A committee set up by Mr Bevin in 1945 to report on the economic need for the double-shift system considered it was “undoubtedly capable “ of making an important contribu- “ tion to the economic well-being of “ the country The unions have objected to it on social rather than on economic grounds. In spite of this, they have accepted the principle, subject to satisfactory wages and conditions being negotiated. A still more important retreat from a traditional stand is indicated in the report published on Friday that the national joint advisory council of the British Employees’ Federation and the Trades Union Congress has recommended incentive payment systems in all industries. The unions have travelled a long way, even since the Labour Party Conference at Margate at the end of May. There the unions firmly repudiated the suggestion of Mr Aneurin Bevan that a system of payment by results would increase output in the building industry. Nevertheless, the first steps toward such a system had even then been taken, since it had been announced two days earlier that a committee in Newcastle, representing both sides of-the building industry, had found it both practicable and desirable. Incentive payments offered by some private builders had undoubtedly helped to head opinion in this direction. The craft unions have generall y disliked payinent by results because, in their opinion, high standards of workmanship are as important as high output, and should not be sacrificed to it. Again, they have argued that the worker loses by this system when, through no fault of his own, material shortages hold up jobs and output rates fall. Both objections, however, are of a kind that can be allowed for in wellplanned schemes.

Perhaps the most revolutionary trend in Labour thinking is to be seen in the suggestion, which has cropped up in unexpected places, that some form of manpower direction is reasonable and Not long after the Margate Conference, at which he had come down flatly against incentive payments and a Government wage-control policy to attract manpower to the

undermanned industries, Mr Arthur Deakin, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union (the largest in Britain), declared at a union conference at Hastings that labour “ must of necessity accept a limited measure of “ direction ”. Mr Will Lawther, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, declared bluntly: “ The “nation has resources which have “ not yet been fully organised. “There are millions who are engaged in n<yi-essential work. It “ must be ended. Hundreds of “ thousands of workers are em- “ ployed in occupations which have “no place in the present situation. “ Who can defend at this crisis in “our destiny the fact that betting, “pools, and distributive and luxury “trades take up so much of our

“ manpower ”? But these and similar suggestions are not likely to lead very far. The present Government has considered and rejected the direction of manpower on more than one occasion. Unwilling workers are usually inefficient and discontented workers, and there is enough discontent in industry, as persistent unofficial strikes show, without provoking it by direction orders. An intelligent wages policy, discriminating between essential and unessential industries, could do more to redistribute manpower smoothly and efficiently.