WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION

Grey River Argus, 1 February 1946, Page 6

WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION

(BRITISH GOVERNMENT’S INDUSTRIAL INJURIES BILL. [From Herbert Tracey of the British Trades Union Congress]. LONDON', January 10. Two of the legislative measures to which British trade unionists attach great value are now before Parlia-ment—-the new Industrial Injuries Bill and the Bill to nationalise the mining industry. Two other important Bills will be introduced shortly after Parliament resumes towards the end of January—the. Bill enacting a scheme to nationalise insurance covering all contingencies of life, and the Bill to repeal the Trade Disputes and Trade’Unions Act of 1927. Far-reaching changes in the system of workmen’s compensation for accidents will follow the enactment of the Industrial Injuries Bill. It creates an Industrial Injuries Fund, fed by contributions from both employers .and workers, 6d from employers and 4d. from workpeople. A basic rate for injury benefit and for 100 per cent, disablement is established by the Bill, at 45s a week. Injured workmen will have the right to claim an addition of 25 per cent., to Medical Board assessments provided that the weekly allowance is not thereby raised above the 100 per cent, rate; this additional allowance being provided where a worker can show to the satisfaction of a local appeal-tribunal that he is no longer able by reason of his injury to follow his previous occupation and cannot be re-trained to follow an occupation of an equivalent standard. allowance for dependants. The Bill, moreover, provides for an allowance of IGs a week to be paid in respect of one adult dependant so Ion? as the injured workman is re-

ceiving benefit. There is to be an allowance of 7s 6d a week for the first child in the injured workman’s family; the other children being covered by the Family Allowances Act. In very severe cases extra benefits are provided. Thus if a man is made virtually unemployable by his injury he can claim an additional allowance of £1 a week; and if the injury is such as to require constant attendance, the man’s wife can also get £1 a week. Special provisions are made to cover young people under IS who are injured, including children under school leaving age who tffs employed part-time.

In providing for benefit in fatal cases, the Bill gets right away from the old system of lump-sum settlements. Pension is provided for a widow who does not have the care of a child at 20s a week; and if the widow is over 50 years of age or is incapable of work she will receive 30s. Parents of a fatally injured worker, if they are maintained by him but not living with him will receive pensions at the rate of 15s a week each, if they are living together, otherwise 20s a week each. RIGHT OF APPEAL.

The Bill sets up a State system of insurance which is to be administered by a public service. Claims will be decided' by officers appointed by the Minister of National Insurance,, and there is a right of appeal to independent local appeal tribunals consisting of one representative each of employers and workers under an independent chairman. These tribunals will decide upon appeals from the Insurance Officer’s decisions, with a right of final appeal to a Commissioner, a legal expert, appointed not by the Minister, but by the King.. In dealing with difficult quesfions°under appeal, this Commissioner, or DeputyCommissioner, is entitled to ask the assistance of persons with specialised knowledge of industry who may sit

with him as assessors. Assessments for pensions are to be made by Medical Boards consisting of at least two registered medical practitioners; and here again special medical appeal tribunals are to be set up to deal with cases in which the injured workman disputes the first medical assessment. Questions regarding children’s allowances in this connection will be dealt with under appeal machinery already provided in the Family Allowance Act. Administration of the new system of workmen’s compensation will be the responsibility of the Minister of National Insurance. The whole question of workmen’s compensation will be reviewed from the law courts and rid entirely of the commercial insurance influences that have permeated it since the first legislation dealing with employers’ liability back in the second half of the last century. Under this Bill the Minister will establish a small central headquarters’ staff in London, and an executive headquarters staff in the North of England at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Local offices will be opened in all important centres throughout Britain. They will be concerned with the day-to-day administration of the scheme. But before the stage at which the local offices can handle cases, and afterwards, too, the Minister will have the advice of industry, both of employers and workers, in working lout the details of the scheme and embodying them in regulations. EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS ON COUNCIL. For this purpose the Minister will appoint an Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. The representative organisations of employers and workers are to be invited to nominate members of this Council. They will be empowered to tender advice at every stage in the administration of this scheme. Their counsel and assistance will be that of men, drawn di-

rectly from industry, who have experience of industry and who have seen in their own lives how industry works. Imagination, sympathetic understanding, and an intimate knowledge of industry’s hazards have gone lo the making of this Bill. The responsible Minister is James Griffiths, himself a miner, who worked underground for many years in the South Wales coalfield before his eloquence ar.d knowledge brought him to the foiefrcnt It is the first time in the history of workmen’s compensation that the workers have been required to contribute to the benefits received for industrial injuries, but the Minister 1 believes, along with the whole of the trade union movement, that the scheme lays the foundation upon which a great constructive human service can be built—in the first place to restore the injured workman to his old job, secondly, to train him for a new job, and thirdly, if neither of these two courses are possible, to care for him and his dependants.