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IMPROVING THE WORKERS' PROSPECTS.

21st June 1921, Page 9
21st June 1921
Page 9
Page 10
Page 9, 21st June 1921 — IMPROVING THE WORKERS' PROSPECTS.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A Suggestion for the Adoption of Bonuses for Long Service Amongst Road Transport Employees

THE CONSTANTLY recurring labour trouble which is steadily undermining the foundations of British trade, and to which the road transport industry is as subject as any, points to the necessity for careful inquiry into the causes of this form of economic unrest.

It will probably be admitted that an important factor is the constant agitation by parties whose interest it is to maintain a. condition of dissatisfaction among the working classes; at the same time, it would be idle to dismiss the subject by the easy assumption that professional agitation is the sole cause, and it would be wiser to consider the matter from the view-point of one of those few individual working men. who

are fortunate enough to • be employed in circumstances which free them from the irritating influence of the mischief-maker.

Such a man may be doing his best for his employer day after day and year after year, and, for a time, he may be guile content so to continue, granted, of course, that the wage he is earning is reasonably sufficient for his domestic requirements, and that the work is not by its nature such as will place upon• him any undue physical strain, but there must come a time when it will occur to him that, though his employer has an added interest in seeing his business grow and improve, he him self has nothing to look forward to but the monotonous continuation of the same work, at the same weekly earnings, until age or infirmity compels him to give up.

If he chance to be a member of one of the less skilled trades, he can look forward to an occasional improvement in his rate of pay as. his skill develops, but, in the majority of cases, the highest rate of remuneration is attained comparatively early in life.

It is hardly to be wondered at that in such circumstances, a man will fail to develop ambition, and will ultimately cease to take any interest in the work which he is doing.

Monotony is the chief cause of that form of unrest which is not the product of the fanatic or the self-seeking agitator. A certain amount of monotony is inevitable in all trades, and, though the average worker engaged in the road transport industry may be called upon to perform a duty which, by its nature, is more interesting than that of many others, even in this ease the element of monotony will soon be introduced if the worker has already reached the -top rate grade of pay and sees no prospect of further advancement.

The greatest antidote to the sentiment which is colloquially described as being "fed up " is ambition, and ambition is surely impossible to the worker who knows that he has already reached the limit of social and pecuniary advancement. It therefore comes to this: that a means will have to be provided bf giving to the worker something to aim at and to work towards. If this can be done, then 'there may be some prospect of the men themselves resisting the ever-present influences tending towards industrial unrest, and, therefore, quite apart from the moral aspect of the matter, it is worth an effort by the employer, in his own interest, in order to secure comparative immunity from frequent disturbances to his business.

The problem of providing something for the worker to look forward to, never an easy one, is surrounded by special difficulties in the case of the road transport industry. In some trades it is possible for the employee to secure progressive earnings practically through life—in fact, so long as his skill continues to increase—but, where the majority of men employed are drivers of motor vehicles, the element of skill can only be used as a basis for improvement of pay to an extremely limited extant. The practice of making advancement based upon age, as is frequently done in industries employing large numbers of youths and girls, is not, for fairly obvious reasons, generally acceptable in connection 'with road transport. It appears, therefore, that the only remaining basis upon which a scheme can be evolved for giving progressive advancement, even to those who are already drawing the higher rates of pay, is that of taking into consideration the length of service with an employer, and it is suggested that this practice might be more generally adopted by employers in the road transport world.

No reference has been made in the foregoing remarks to the many schemes of profit-sharing that have been evolved on paper, but which have only to a very limited extent been applied in road transport. The reason for this is not far to seek. The road transport industry does not enjoy such profits as would admit of a substantial distribution amongst the workers without at the same , time bringing about such a diminution of dividend as would render it impossible to obtain sufficient new capital to meet the continuous demand for further development.

This more or less fundamental objection to such schemes is particularly accentuated in the case of road transport by the large proportion of labour employed to turnover and profit, and it is only necessary hypothetically to take a simple, though typical, case to illustrate the truth of this assertion. 'We will imagine a firm engaged in road transport with a capital of £100,000 employing, say, 75 vehicles and 130 men, which is-about the correct proportion, and we will assume that this firm is able to distribute the satisfactory dividend of 10 per cent. If a profitsharing scheme were adopted, giving to the workers an annual distribution equal to half the amount taken out of the business by the owners 'in excess of, say, 6 per cent., the shareholders would get 8 per cent, on their money and the workers would receive the monetary equivalent of 2 per cent.

We have thus £2,000 to divide between 130 employees, which is but 115 per man. These figures, it should be noted, are based upon a business in which 75 vehicles employ 120 persons, but, if the calculation were to be based upon a passenger-carrying undertaking, the number of people employed in relation to capital and to profit would be much higher by reason of the introduction of conductors, and, consequently, the distribution per head per annum would be decidedly lower.

It is doubtful whether so small a distribution among the workers would be sufficient to promote the extra interest required in their work and in the welfare of the firm they serve, and, in any case, the elements of monotony and the absence of any promotion towards which to work, would again be introduced as the annual distribution of the profit-sharing bonus became customary and regular. The advocates of profit-sharing schemes frequently overlook the fa.ct that, while the profits of a particular industry when expressed as a percentage appear high, the actual bulk money distributed is a trifling GUM if viewed in comparison with the wages bill.

The principle of granting increments of pay or bonus based upon length of service is not uncommon in the transport industry, but it has not yet generally applied to that branch dealing with the conveyance of rnerchandize and passengers by road, and it is to be feared that in many undertakings the employee, particularly the driver, having once reached the level of normal skill, feels that he will secure no further advantage by remaining with his employer and continuing diligently to attend to his duties. No matter how long he may stay with a particular employer, he knows that, unless he should chance to be one of the few who are ultimately selected as foremen or for other senior posts, he will never receive hicreased remuneration, arid therein lies the cause of considerable genuine discontent and carelessness. It is suggested that, when dealing with any general adjustments in rates of pay, it would be in the interest of all concerned if a scheme of bonus for long service were to be adopted, thus creating a distinction between the old hand and the relatively untried newcomer. The advantages of the scheme would be largely lost if the employee were to rise to the top rate of long-service bonus too soon, and it is suggested that the bonuses should go up by gradations until the to scale is reached after 10 or 15 years'. service. It issabiaost unnecessary to point out that such a scheme would naturally embody an obligation to qualify by giving continuous satisfactory service.

S. E. GAILCKE.

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