WELFARE WORK

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 150, 22 December 1922, Page 18

WELFARE WORK

NEW SPIRIT IN INDUSTRY.

A lecture dealing with industrial welfare was recently delivered by Mr. Robert E. Hyde, director of.the British Industrial Welfare Society, in the University of Manchester, states the London "Daily Telegraph." Mr. Hyde first traced the histoi-y of this growing movement from, an incident which occurred during the late part of 1915, when Mr. Lloyd George, then Minister of Munitions, visiting a French factory, was struck by the painful collapse of a girl worker. Mr. Lloyd George asked why the girl had not been excused from work beforehand. On his return to London, the then Minister of Munitions called in Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree to establish the welfare department/of the Ministry of Munitions, where he: was immediately joined by Mr. Hyde. In 1918 Mr. Hyde, convinced that the well-being of the workers was a matter for industry itself and not tho State, resigned his official appointment, and with .the helpof several fox-seeing employers founded tho Industrial Welfare Society,, which now includes among its members the ..largest firms W the country. It was difficult to compute the number of firms where welfare was in " operation. In many firms, sa.id Mr. Hyde, the welfare department had. no .separate entity, but employment, medical, social, and educational departments all .came- within 'the scope of "welfare, 1" andi scores of fiTms . had, organised works magazines,.benefit funds, pensions, and many, similar activities. „ Welfare duties were undertaken in various circumstances by welfare- supervisors, managers, foremen, and forewomen. The lecturer referred to the latest, development in industrial management —the "threefold administration—where large businesses had been' organised under throe main headings : • Commercial, Production, and Human, i Lever' Brothers was a case in point, where a special director has been appointed to deal with the human'element in the business. His duties included the' supervision ■of recruitment of labour, dismissals, transfers, labour questions and negotiations, health, education, and training, social activities, transport of workers, works committees (safety, etc.).' Welfare by industries was: progressing in the Potteries and in''the mining industry. In the former case, the Joint : Industrial Council was now engaged in co-ordinat-ing activities on the grouping principle, and in the mining industry many community schemes were springing into existence. The Actors' Association, was also about to.employ welfare methods to improve the present unsatisfactory features of life in touring companies. Summing up, the lecturer said (hat the industrial welfare movement aims at eliminating the fundamental j causes of unrest and misery which by many were considered necessary evils of the industrial system. The old relationships between master lind man had broken <lown, but this movement was attempting to rescue them under modern conditions. Monotony in'work v:as perhaps an inevitable counterpart to an ago of machinery, but it did not follow that men/and women should become machines themselves.' It was the purpose of tho movement to provide olhoi' interests.