INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION COUNCILS.
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Is the Scheme Feasible for the Motor Industry ?
IT IS EVIDENT that the Ministry of Reconstruction contemplates dealing with the great in dustries of the country almost, if not quite, entirely tiirongEt the medium of industrial reconstruction committees or councils. The basic idea is to form a. permanent Standing Industrial Council for each industry ; such council to consist of equal numbers of representatives of associations of employers and of trade unions.
In certain industries progress in the direction of the formation of such councils is slow, if it exists at all. in these cases the Ministry of P:econstruetion proposes, with the help of the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour, to promote the formation of interim industrial reconstruction corrunittees. Such committees if, formed, would decide what functions they should fulfil and what they should delegate or leave to existing organizations. Evidently such committees would have wide powers of self-determination since we are told that they are not expected to confine themselves to the subjects specially referred to them, but are to exercise a large initiative in devising means to assist the transition from war to peace ron
ditions.
In a memorandum by the Minister of Reconstruc tion, some of the main duties of the interim industrial reconstruction committees are outlined. It is clear that these are expected to include not merely demobilization problems directly connected with labour, but such questions as the priority of rationing of raw materials. and of machinery, the financial facilities to be given to industries, the creation of. new industries, the disposal of surplus Government stores (including returned motor vehicles), transport by road, rail or water, power and housing, technical training and research, the development, of oversea. markets and a number of other subjects. One cannot be in the least surprised that certain industries which have readily fallen in with the general sense of the Whitley Reports have experienced something of a shock when they realised what these industrial councils or committees were expected to undertake.
Inthe humble opinion of the writer, the Ministry of Reconstruction ls aiming at a beautiful ideal of a perfectly impracticable character, and in the pursuit of this ideal is very likely to -throw away means to hand of a less ideal but far more promising type. One can see at a glance that any man whose opinion is to be worth having on the subjects mentioned above must have undergone a lengthy and special education and training, familiariziñg. him with allthe problems of: some particular industry. His interests must be bound up with those of that industry in a thoroughly permanent manner. He must be broad-minded and long-sighted. Hisintellect must. not be focussed on any one partimilar probIern to the exclusion or distortion of others. in fine, he must not be a man who has been simply devoted to the fraining of agreements between capital and labour, and he niust be intimately and deeply affected by the future welfare or;failure of the industry he represents, and in no way subservient to any other industry with which it may be connected or of which it may form a part. Having now cleared; the ground and endeavoured ''.to show what, is • wanted, let us consider whether it can _possibly. be obtained for the :motor industry in the mariner suggested. Here we have an industry in which the manufacturers are well organised, but in which the skilled labour is simply .a part of the skilled labour employed in the engineering industry as a. whole. A .man w.ho is a motor. mechanic to day is not a motor mechanic by profession or for life. He 034
may have come in recently from another section of the engineering industry and may leave preSently to join yet another. He is skilled in a particular class of work, and it nia.tters little or nothing to him whether he applies his skill to the production of parts of a motorcar or to parts of a textile machine, a ship, or a railway wagon.
It the motor industry were to fall to pieces because it got terms less favourable than those given to another branch of 'engineering, he would simply shift across and join that other branch, which would then require more labour. Not only would he be incompetent to consider the problems mentioned above, but he would have no sufficient incentive, to makehimself competent. Were he a member of an interim industrial reconstruction committee of the motor industry, he would probably be reduced to refusing to support or oppose the adoption of any broad policy until he had consulted some great wide-reaching union, such as the A.S.E. The net result would be that the council for the motor industry would be governed from outside by these great. unions, possessing and desiring no ,special knowledge of the problems of the motor industry as distinct from those .of the engineering industry as a whole.
Meanwhile, if it were definitely determined that the Government should negotiate only with industrial reconstruction committees or councils, all the work done during recent years by manufacturers in consultation would fall to the ground. For 'example, any scheme that may have been framed for the disposal -of surplus vehicles would lave to be reconsidered de novo by a body far less competent to consider it than the one which had originally framed it. The question of financial facilities, which can only be understood by Meil educated and versed in financial matters, would-be re-opened to get the views of men with no such education.
Let us admit with perfect freedom that we ought to aim at the wider spread of education, and at giving all an opportunity of gutting to understand problems which are now beyond them. By all means, let us do this so far as it is possible and so far as it is not fatal. If, however, we hand over to a committee, which is not yet equipped with the necessary knowledge, the task of advising the. Government on all sorts of questions which must be satisfactorily solved new or never, then we shall have to wait for their soliition until the education of this new body is complete and it is capable of forming its own views.
By that time it will be too late to act, and the whole problem will b.e solved once and for all by the collapse of the industry to govern which .the council 'has been formed. It has already been pointed out that the circumstances would he different if the representatives of laboUr in our case had been bred up in the motor industry and. would remain in it for life, and, moreover, were impervious to influences exerted by other industries or their employees. In the case of the motor industry, this appears to be absolutely impossible, and I am . prepared to challenge any champion of the principle of interim reconstruction committees te indicate how, for the motor industry, such a committee could be formed which could hope to begin goad and intelligent work without a long delay, or to retain properly qualified members of the workers' side of its constitution if some other industry were in a position to offer to those workers a better wage for carrying on the same trade in connection with the production of machinery having nothing whatever to do with motor construct-ion, .
YEerts.