DISCOVERY 



3G5 



Act, and it is estimated that by the end of this year 

 some three million workers will be covered by Trade 

 Boards. Included amongst these workers are those 

 employed in grocers' shops, in laundries, in tobacco 

 factories, in aerated water works, in jute, flax and 

 hemp mills, in boot and shoe repairing, and in the 

 distribution of milk. 



Before dealing more fully with the constitution and 

 functions of Trade Boards, reference must be made to 

 two other ways in which the State of recent years has 

 participated in the regulation of wages, (i) Under 

 the Munitions of War Acts, 1915 to 1917, arbitration 

 tribunals with compulsory powers were established. 

 The Committee on Production was probably the best 

 known of these tribunals. These arbitration tribunals 

 fixed standard rates ; failure to comply with the 

 decisions was punishable by penalties through a 

 Munitions Tribunal. This system of compulsory arbi- 

 tration was largely done away with after the Aniiistice, 

 though it was not finally abolished until Sept. 30, 1920. 

 (2) From time to time the Government arranges for 

 i the holding of an impartial investigation with regard 

 I to the proper rates of remuneration in some particu- 

 ] lar occupation. Any recommendation made by such 

 i committee or Court has no binding force, but it is 

 I hoped that the parties concerned will accept it of their 

 own accord or as a result of the pressure of pubUc 

 i opinion. The Burnham Committees on teachers' 

 I salaries and the Court of Inquiry on dockers' wages 

 may be mentioned as illustrations of this type of 

 procedure. 



II 



The first step to be taken in order to fix legal mini- 

 mum wages in a trade is to establish a Trade Board 

 for that trade. A Trade Board consists of members 

 representing employers and of members representing 

 workers in equal numbers, and of three (occasionally 

 five) independent persons — generally professional men 

 or women — known as the " appointed members." The 

 Chairman and Deputy Chairman are always selected 

 by the Ministry of Labour from amongst the " ap- 

 pointed members." The size of the Boards varies : 

 on the Button-making Trade Board, for example, there 

 are i6 on the employers' side and 16 on the workers' 

 side, together with 3 " appointed members " ; whilst on 

 the Grocery and Provision Trade Board there are 39 

 on the employers' side and 39 on the workers' side, 

 together with 5 " appointed members." 



A Trade Board's method of reaching a wages settle- 

 ment lies in between the methods of conciliation and 

 arbitration. Arbitration may be defined as an autho- 

 ritative decision of an issue, as to which the parties 

 have faOed to agree, by some perion or persons other 

 than the parties. Concihation, on the other hand, is 



the discussion and settlement of a question between 

 the parties themselves, or their representatives, who 

 are actually interested. 



A Trade Board seeks to reach its decisions by agree- 

 ment between the two sides, with or without the 

 assistance of the " appointed members " as intermedi- 

 aries. If successful, it acts like a Concihation Board 

 with an independent Chairman. On the other hand, 

 it differs from a Concihation Board in that, if the two 

 sides do not agree, instead of a deadlock resulting, a 

 decision can usually be obtained by voting ; each 

 member of a Trade Board has a vote, and if there is 

 no cross-voting between the two sides, the votes of the 

 " appointed members " should give a majority in 

 favour of the proposals or of the counter-proposals 

 before the Board. 



The fact that the " appointed members," as well as 

 the representative members, have votes does not make 

 the " appointed members" into arbitrators — they have 

 no power to give an authoritative decision. If the two 

 sides are evenly divided on some question the " ap>- 

 pointed members " can turn the balance in favour of 

 one side or the other, but they cannot impose upon 

 the trade some settlement which has the support of 

 neither side on the Board. 



The Trade Board method of reaching wages settle- 

 ments appears to have certain advantages over the 

 arbitration method : 



1. A Trade Board caimot give a decision which is 

 disapproved of by both employers and workers, which 

 may quite well be the case with the decision of an 

 arbitration tribunal. 



2. A Trade Board, v.hen once estabUshed, is a 

 permanent body wliich meets periodically. The results 

 of this, apart from enabling the two sides to get to 

 know each other, which is likely to facilitate the 

 securing of decisions by agreement, are as follows : 

 (a) The " appointed members " have an opportunity 

 of acquiring some knowledge of the trade for which 

 they legislate, whereas the independent members of 

 an arbitration tribunal are almost necessarily ignorant 

 of the industry under consideration, (b) A Trade 

 Board deals with any particular wages question from 

 its earliest inception, whereas an arbitration tribunal 

 does not handle a wages question until it has reached 

 an exceedingly acute stage — which makes it far more 

 difficult to find a satisfactory solution, (c) A Trade 

 Board is responsible for the carrying out of its own 

 decisions. If it makes mistakes it has sooner or later 

 to rectify them. It consequently tends to be cautious 

 in its decisions and to feel its way carefully. An 

 arbitration tribunal, on the other hand, is set up for 

 a particular purpose ; once its decision is given, it 

 has no further interest in the particular problem ; how 

 its decision will work, and what its effects on the trade 



