1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Industrial Councils

INDUSTRIAL COUNCILS .—The formation of joint industrial councils (or, as they are commonly called, &ldquo;Whitley Councils&rdquo;) has been one of the most important sequels of wartime developments in the attempt to adjust the relations of employers and employees in the organization of British industry. These joint industrial councils are bodies representing, usually in equal numbers, the organized employers and employees in the particular industries concerned; and they are the outcome of the recommendation made for this purpose by a committee (which became a sub-committee of the Reconstruction Committee) appointed in 1916 by Mr. Asquith, as Prime Minister, and presided over by Mr. J. H. Whitley, M.P. (then Chairman of Committees in the House of Commons), the reference being:—

The Whitley Committee was composed of well-known representatives of trade unions and employers' associations experienced in collective negotiations, with certain public men and women not directly associated with the interests of employers or employed. One of the most important developments in the improvement of industrial relations before the World War had been the establishment of voluntary conciliation boards or machinery for the settlement of labour disputes, and, in the course of a considerable number of years, such bodies or machinery had been established in most of the well-organized trades in the United Kingdom. Along with the great body of collective regulations established over a long period of years, this machinery was practically for the time being set aside by war conditions, which at the same time produced a remarkable growth in trade-union organization, and necessitated much consultation between the Government and representative bodies of employers and trade-unionists, who were also often associated in official boards of control, such as the Cotton Control Board.

When the Whitley Committee was appointed it was widely recognized that a permanent solution of the &ldquo;Capital and Labour&rdquo; question was one of the most important of the social and industrial problems of the post-war reconstruction, with a view to which first the Reconstruction Committee and later the Ministry of Reconstruction were formed. The origins of a few of the councils may be carried back, however, to a time before the appointment of the Whitley Committee, or even, in idea at least,

to before the outbreak of war; and these origins are to be found in the desire of certain groups of individuals, with knowledge or experience of industrial disputes, to create some new form of joint organization which would unite the employers and employees in an industry in coöperation for common ends. Thus, the conception of a building-trades parliament may be traced back to 1914. Again, a national painters' and decorators' joint council was formed in the winter of 1916-7, before the publication of the first Whitley report. Before also the Whitley Committee reported, the activities initiated by certain private individuals interested in industrial matters, leading up to the formation of the Pottery Joint Industrial Council (the first of the officially recognized Whitley Councils), had been in progress for some time.

Here it may be noted that the name &ldquo;Industrial Council&rdquo; has been applied to other bodies which must not be confused with the joint industrial councils set up through the Whitley report, though they have certain connexions with these councils. Further reference to these bodies is made at the end of this article.

The Whitley Committee presented an interim report on joint standing industrial councils in March 1917 (Cd. 8606). In this report they recommended that, so far as the main industries of the country, in which there existed representative organizations of employers and employees, were concerned, the best way to deal with the first point in the terms of reference was to settle the second point, and for this latter they proposed the institution of joint standing industrial councils. The proposed councils were to be joint, so as to bring employers and workpeople together; standing, to ensure the regular discussion of matters of common interest; and industrial—that is, formed on an &ldquo;industrial&rdquo; rather than a trade or craft basis. In order to secure the realization of what may be considered the fundamental idea of &ldquo;continuous coöperation in the promotion of industry&rdquo; the committee recommended that, in addition to national joint industrial councils covering complete national industries, there should be formed also district councils and works committees. It was contemplated that the machinery should be decentralized, the district councils dealing with district matters within the limits laid down by a national council for the industry, and the works committees dealing in the same way with questions peculiar to the individual workshop or not of general concern. A fundamental condition affecting the formation of the councils was that the members should be chosen exclusively from the trade unions of the workpeople and the associations of the employers; this first report had reference only to well-organized industry, and the scheme outlined was not considered applicable where organization was weak or non-existent. Following its circulation to all the principal trade unions and employers' associations, the report was adopted by the Government in Oct. 1917 as part of its industrial policy. At the same time the Government decided to recognize the industrial councils as standing consultative committees for their industries.

The Minister of Labour was charged with the duty of providing the industries with assistance in the formation of councils, and the first joint industrial council to be officially recognized was that formed in the pottery industry in Jan. 1918. The following list includes all the councils which had been officially recognized up to the end of Jan. 1921, at which time, however, 11 of the councils listed had more or less definitely broken down (these being marked by an asterisk). The operations of several others were intermittent, a principal reason for the failures being lack of adequate organization.

In the formation of nearly all these 65 councils a main part taken by the Ministry of Labour, which arranged conferences and carried through the often difficult and prolonged work of negotiation between the various associations of employers or workpeople concerned. Of the 65, 20 were formed in 1918, 30 in 1919, and the remainder during the next 13 months.

On Oct. 18 1918 the Whitley Committee presented a second report on joint industrial councils (Cd. 9002). This recommended, for trades where organization was very weak or non-existent, an adaptation and expansion of the system of trade boards, working under an amended Trade Boards Act, and, in trades in which organization was considerable but not yet general, a system of joint councils with some Government assistance which might be dispensed with as the industries advanced to the stage of organization contemplated in the first report for joint standing industrial councils. The second, unlike the first report, was not completely adopted by the Government. In June 1918 a joint memorandum on the proposals contained in the second report was issued by the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Reconstruction. This memorandum emphasized the desirability of separating as completely as possible the trade board and the joint industrial council forms of organization, so as to develop the voluntary bodies only where the degree of organization warranted them, and the trade boards only where lack of organization made the statutory regulation of wages necessary.

In the meantime, for the purpose of consultation on questions of industrial reconstruction, it had been agreed by the Minister of Reconstruction, the Minister of Labour and the President of

the Board of Trade that representative joint bodies should be formed on a less restricted basis than was contemplated in the first Whitley report. These interim industrial reconstruction committees, as the joint bodies were called, were begun to be established by the Ministry of Reconstruction in the beginning of 1918. They differed from joint industrial councils in that they were not intended to be permanent, and in that they were often formed in industries which had insufficient organization for joint industrial councils. They resembled joint industrial councils in being purely voluntary bodies and in the fact that their members were representatives of organizations of employers and workpeople. The formation of these interim committees did not violate the agreement as to policy contained in the joint memorandum referred to above, since the committees were formed primarily for special and temporary purposes, and were not meant to be permanent. It was contemplated that in some industries joint industrial councils would develop out of the interim committees as organization improved and, where organization remained weak, the existence of such a committee or any other voluntary body could not prejudice the power of the Minister of Labour to establish a trade board. A considerable number of such interim committees were formed. Several of these became joint industrial councils, some continued to operate as interim committees, while others had by 1921 ceased to exist, and in a number of the industries affected trade boards have since been formed.

Other Bodies.—The name &ldquo;Industrial Council&rdquo; has been applied in two important instances to bodies other than Whitley councils. In Oct. 1911, following upon the transport and other strikes of that year, an addition was made by the Government to

the official machinery applicable by the Board of Trade to the working of the Conciliation Act of 1896. This took the form of an Industrial Council which consisted of 13 representatives of employers and the same number of representatives of workers, invited by the President of the Board of Trade to serve on the council with, as chairman, Sir George (afterwards Lord) Askwith who, at the same time, was appointed Chief Industrial Commissioner. This Industrial Council of 1911 was formed as a permanent body for inquiring into trade disputes and for taking action, without compulsory powers, by way of conciliation; that is, it was to be a national conciliation board. In this capacity the council came to very little, and subsequent action has proceeded along different lines. The council's principal achievement was an inquiry into the subject of industrial agreements made at the request of the Government, the report on which was issued in 1913 (Cd. 6952). This contained a recommendation that, in certain conditions, the operation of a collective industrial agreement should be capable of extension by law so as to apply compulsorily not only to the signatories but also to a minority in the industry which had not been a party to the agreement. This recommendation, to which considerable objection has been taken, anticipated one of a similar nature contained in paragraph 21 of the first Whitley report.

The second important instance of the use of the name &ldquo;Industrial Council,&rdquo; otherwise than in connexion with Whitley councils, is more recent. As a result of a great industrial conference convened by the Government in Feb. 1919 a report (Cmd. 501, 1920), dealing with a variety of industrial problems, was prepared. This included a proposal for the formation of a National Industrial Council, or what may be described as an advisory &ldquo;Parliament&rdquo; of industry. The proposals as to the membership and objects of the council followed the lines adopted in the Whitley councils; but the National Industrial Council, consisting of 400 members fully representative of and duly accredited by the employers' associations and the trade unions, was to speak for industry as a whole and on matters of general interest to all industry. It was pointed out that the council was to supplement and not to supersede any of the existing machinery; the general definition of its objects reads: &ldquo;to secure the largest possible measure of joint action between the representative organizations of employers and workpeople and to be the normal channel through which the opinions and experience of industry will be sought by the Government on all questions affecting industry as a whole.&rdquo; At the beginning of Jan. 1922 the council had not yet been formed.

(Author:Robert Wilson (fl. 1922))