366 



uiscovi:hy 



will bo, an- not its concerns. Under these circumstances 

 it is hardly surprising that arbitration awards are 

 somctiines a greater source of trouble than the original 

 disagreements which were submitted to arbitration. 



3. A separate arbitration tribunal being constituted 

 to deal with every dispute, there is a serious danger 

 of a great divergence in the decisions reached by 

 arbitration. Thus one tribunal may fix women's wages 

 at one-half of the men's rates, another at two-thirds 

 of the men's rates, and still another at four-fifths of 

 the men's rates. In a similar manner, diversity may 

 occur in the solution of all the problems submitted to 

 arbitration, and the more this happens the more dis- 

 satisfaction there will tend to be. 



Obviously there can be no question of absolute 

 uniformity in the decisions of the various Trade Boards. 

 Had that been desired, it would have been necessary 

 to set up one Trade Board for all trades, instead of a 

 separate Trade Board for each trade. Each Trade 

 Board has its own problems to solve and must deal 

 with them on their merits. Nevertheless, the funda- 

 mental principles underlying the various decisions will 

 tend to be the same, and it should be possible to secure 

 some degree of unifomiitj'. As a matter of fact, this 

 is achieved in a considerable measure by the thirty 

 odd Trade Boards in Great Britain as a result of three 

 co-ordinating influences : 



(a) The same men and women commonly serve as 

 " appointed members " on several Boards, and thus 

 tend to keep the different Boards in touch with each 

 other. 



(b) One man is secretary of rJl the Boards, and he 

 or his deputy is always w^illing, if invited to do so, to 

 place his intimate knowledge of the working of all 

 Trade Boards at the disposal of any particular Board. 



(c) All rates fixed by Trade Boards have to be 

 confirmed by the Minister of Labour before they can 

 come into force. This does not mean that the Minister 

 seeks to dictate to Trade Boards what they shall do, 

 but that he is responsible to Parliament for seeing 

 that Trade Boards do nothing which is not expressly 

 authorised by the Trade Boards Acts. How the check 

 on Trade Boards works in practice depends very much 

 upon the broadmindedncss with which the permanent 

 officials at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labour 

 discharge their functions. These officials, unlike the 

 secretary and the " appointed members," are not in 

 close touch with the employers and workers on the 

 various Boards, and there is always a danger that, 

 instead of taking a common-sense point of view of any 

 particular problem, they will adopt a narrow-minded 

 and strictly legalistic attitude and strive to follow the 

 letter rather than the spirit of the law. In such a case 

 the Ministry would tend to devote much of its time 

 to soKing such riddles as " When is overtime not over- 



time ? " or " When is a week not a week ? " and in 

 inflicting its solutions of the riddles upon the various 

 Boards. 



In practice, the control of the Minister of Labour, 

 through his power to refuse to confirm the proposals 

 of Trade Boards, appears to act as a check in minor 

 rather than in major matters. 



Ill 



The problems which face Trade Boards, and more 

 especially the " appointed members," appear to be a 

 good deal more difficult to-day than they were a few 

 years ago. (a) Before the war the Boards were con- 

 cerned only with " sweated " industries ; now they are 

 frequently concerned with industries of a higher type, 

 and there is a tendency to invoke the machinery of a 

 Trade Board to help not merely the lower-wage, but 

 also the higher-wage, sections of the workers. WTicreas 

 an old Trade Board, such as the Hollow-ware Board, 

 has fixed only one rate for men and one rate for 

 women (apart from overtime), a new Trade Board, 

 such as the Button-making Board, has made special 

 pro\-ision for skilled workers and for piece-workers ; 

 thus there is one time-rate for unskilled men and a 

 higher time-rate for skilled men, and a further pro- 

 vision that where skilled men are paid piece-rates, the 

 rates must be so fixed as to enable men to earn at 

 least " time and a quarter." At the present moment 

 certain retail trades are being brought w ithin the scope 

 of the Trade Boards Acts, and the complexities with 

 which the " appointed members " are faced app)ear to 

 be greater than ever, (b) The great instability of 

 prices to-day, as compared with pre-war days, seriously 

 magnifies the work of the Trade Boards. 



If, after discussions and negotiations, the two sides 

 of a Board can agree about any particular matter, the 

 " appointed members " feel that they are reUeved of 

 any responsibility for the decision reached, and that 

 they ha\-e done their share of the work in helping for- 

 ward the negotiations which have led to the agreement. 



If, however, after discussion and negotiations, the 

 two sides of a Board do not agree about some essential 

 matter, such as the fixing of general minimum time 

 rates, then a very serious responsibility falls upon the 

 " appointed members," who can, apparently, adopt 

 one of three courses : (i) they can vote in favour of 

 the proposals of either one side or the other, and thus 

 enable the Board to reach a decision ; {2) they can 

 refrain from voting, or can vote against both sides, 

 if they feel that they cannot support the proposals 

 of either side, and instead they can put forward 

 tentative suggestions of their own, in the hop* of 

 being able to win one side, if not both sides, to voting 

 for them, or some modification of them which may 

 seem acceptable ; (3) in the last resort, they can report 



