OUTPUT AND WAGES

Evening Star, Issue 19856, 3 May 1928, Page 5

OUTPUT AND WAGES

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS VALUE OF STATISTICS. Mr E. D. Simon spoke on wages and industrial peace at a. meeting of the Manchester Statistical Society (states the_ ‘Manchester Guardian’). The chairman was Sir Kenneth D. Stewart. At the outset Mr Simon welcomed the negotiations between the group of employers headed by Sir Alfred Mond and the Trade Union Congress as an encouraging attempt to see what might be done to put industrial relations on a better basis. He went on to show that immense progress has already been made in the building up of machinery for arbitration and conciliation, and in developing the habit of joint discussion between the two sides in industry with positive results, which ho summarised thus; 1. The habit of collective bargaining between two well-organised sides has been firmly established, and is today generally recognised as the best method (though even in 1911 the railway companies refused to recognise the trade union). _ 2 Elaborate machinery for conciliation and arbitration has become general. The value of the Standing Joint Committee of Employers and Employed is recognised, and the wide use' of such committees is doing much to improve industrial relations.

3. The trade boards, with their neutral members, and legal powers of compulsion, have had a substantial measure of success in ,- aising abnormally low wages without damaging industry. 4. In the words of Professor Clay, the State has developed a policy which has never been put into words, hnt which has been to encourage, assist, supplement, and, if necessary, compel collective bargaining, but always to avoid the responsibility of directly settling the value of any kind of labour by Act of Parliament or by departmental action.

Answering the question " What more oan be done?” Mr Simon said that the first and greatest need was clear. No real success could be hoped for unless the two sides in industry came together and made a serious and sustained effort in partnership. The trade unions had not hitherto realised that better wages could be obtained only to a very small extent by fighting for them, but on a much larger scale if they could succeed in helping to make industry more efficient. _ The evidence seemed to be _ overwhelming that trade union activity, with industry organised on present lines, could not obtain by r orce for labour more than a certain proportion of the product of industry. GREATER PRODUCTION: HIGHER WAGES. On the other hand, if production could bo increased, wages would automatically follow. The truth, of this principle, deduced from our own industrial history, was confirmed by conditions in America to-day. Research was going on at an immensely greater rate than ever before; there seemed every reason to suppose that production throughout industry could ho made steadily cheaper and more efficient, and no reason why the production ’ per worker should not bo vastly increased, perhaps even doubled, during the next generation. In that case wages would automatically bo doubled: in no other way was there a prospect of any increase beyond possibly a shilling or two. There was only one reform which really mattered—a change of spirit on both sides, said Mr Simon finally.; The main conclusion from which ho drew this moral were these:—

1. That wages cannot be settled by a process of law, because there are no generally accepted principles on whidi a court could im*’® Its decisions. 2. That there is on the whole a good system of negotiating machinery in industry, which does not work as well as it should because of suspicion and friction between, the two sides. 3. That high wages depend mi high production, which in its turn depends on goodwill and co-operation, and that the improvements in wages to be gained by increased production are at least ten times as important as any that can bo gained by fighting. 4. That the most important reform in industry would bo the development of full mutual confidence and co-opera-tion between employers and employed, and the division of the whole energy of both sides into the search for efficiency., 3. That with goodwill the negotiating macliincry in most industries could bo much improved, and would work much more smoothly and effectively; agreements could bo made to avoid many of the difficulties that now arise; all differences could bo submitted to arbitration, though the award need not be binding. But stoppages should become few and far between.