THE ECONOMICS OF STRUCTURING AN INDUSTRIAL LABOUR FORCE: SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMITMENT PROBLEM
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1966.tb00937.x |
| Author | Subbiah Kannappan |
| Date | 01 March 1966 |
| Published date | 01 March 1966 |
THE ECONOMICS
OF
STRUCTURING AN INDUSTRIAL
LABOUR FORCE: SOME REFLECTIONS
ON
THE
COMMITMENT PROBLEM
SUBBIAH KANNAPPAN*
THIS
paper is concerned mainly with the earliest stages in the development
of a structured wage-earning labour f0rce.l This consists of three main but
overlapping aspects
:
recruitment, stabilization, and the development of
a
disciplined industrial work force. These have been extensively commented
upon in recent years in discussions of labour commitment.2 However, these
discussions have focused mainly on the responses made by workers, with
particular emphasis on psycho-cultural aspects. Undoubtedly, these are
relevant issues, but
so
are many others, including the social and economic
characteristics of a country or region. An adequate analysis must also
consider the approaches taken by employers, the incentives they offer, and
the considerations underlying their ~hoice.~
Discussions of the earliest phases of industrialization in the less developed
economies accord
a
prominent place to difficulties encountered in develop-
ing an adequate labour su~ply.~ In the early days of colonial administration,
labour was recruited by
a
combination of coercion and economic induce-
ment; the techniques employed proceeded from slavery, until repudiated, to
others which tried to ‘impose new obligations and create new desires’.j
Special devices employed included the labour or cash taxes which had
to
be
paid in the form of labour service. There have also been instances
of
trickery or fraud in persuading workers to migrate to centres of employment,
*
International Institute
for
Labour Studies
1965-1966
and Associate Professor of Economics,
Michigan State University
1
Research assistance was given by Mr
V.
N. Krishnan, formerly
of
the School of Labor and
Industrial Relations and the Asian Studies Center
of
the University, and the All University
Fund. An earlier version benefited by comments made by Messrs Walter Galenson, Paul
Strassmann, Michael Borus, Einar Hardin, Abraham
J.
Siegel, Kenneth F. Walker, B. C.
Roberts and William Rowe.
See the several essays in Wilbert E. Moore and Arnold
S.
Feldman, eds.,
Labor
Commitment
and Social Change in Developing Areas,
New York,
1960
This
is
briefly recognized by Clark Kerr, John
T.
Dunlop, Frederick Harbison and Charles
Myers,
Industrialism and Industrial Man,
Cambridge, Mass.,
1960,
p.
173
See Elliot
J.
Berg, ‘The Development of a Labor Force in Sub-Saharan Africa’,
Economic
Development and Cultural Change,
July
1965,
pp.
394-412;
Wilbert
E.
Moore, ‘The Adaptation
of
African Labor Systems to Social Change’, in Melville
J.
Herskowitz and Mitchell Harwitz, ed.
Economic Transition in Africa,
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1964,
pp.
277-297;
Simon
Rottenberg, ‘The Immobility of Labor in Underdeveloped Areas’,
South African Journal
of
Economics,
1957,
pp.
404-408;
Report
of
the
Royal Commission on
Labour
in India,
London: HMSO,
1931,
Cmd
3883;
and
Report
of
the
Indian Factory
Labour
Commission,
Vol.
I,
London:
1908,
Cd
4292
6
I.
C. Greaves,
Modern Production Among Backward Peoples,
London: George Allen and Unwin,
1935
and
ff.
Also William
J.
Barber, ‘Economic Rationality and Behaviour Patterns in an Under-
developed Area: A Case Study
of
African Economic Behaviour in the Rhodesias’, in
Economic
Development and Cultural Change,
April
1960
3
79
380
BRITISH JOURNAL
OF
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
and of forcible efforts to prevent these workers from breaking the eniploy-
ment contract.6 Reports of labour ‘scarcity’ dominated, even for such
relatively populous areas as India. There were also accounts which stressed
peculiar, backward bending labour supply functions, reflecting limited
interest in the acquisition of wage incomes, and patterns of withdrawal from
the cash labour market due to the frustrations of city and factory life.
The concern with the sheer availability of labour thus overlaps interest
in the quality of its participation in industry, but in later years, the emphasis
shifted towards the latter. Even among those regularly dependent upon
wage incomes, ‘migrant’ characteristics were noted. The strength of village
and traditional ties for kinship as well as economic reasons were identified
as force3 shaping the nature of involvement in modern industry. Field
studies noted hopes of retiring to the village as well
as
patterns of periodic
return to the village while in employment. The stability of the work force,
including such statistics
as
turnover, absenteeism, and frequency dis-
tributions by age or length of service, has commanded attention. Last, but
not least, discussion has focused on the problems of developing
a
dis-
ciplined work force. The prevailing standards of discipline and protest
pointed to the possibility of anomic and disintegrated responses to the in-
dustrial environment. They also implied limited progress in the develop-
ment of management and its body of rules as an effective and acceptable
system of authority in the new environment.
Necessarily, this summary is too brief to permit
a
discussion of ex-
ceptions or controversies about the nature of the historical record
or
even of
current experience.8 We shall, however, skirt these issues as our main
interest is to develop
a
method of analysis which will identify and in-
corporate the forces which determine the extent to which
a
structured
(‘committed’, for those who prefer this term) labour force will develop.
References will be made
at
appropriate points to draw upon reported
experience in greater detail. A structured labour force will be viewed as an
economic good whose ‘production’ is determined by the interaction of the
forces underlying its supply and demand. In other words,
a
structured
labour force will develop only to the extent that the costs of this develop-
ment are matched by the resultant benefits.
We will concentrate initially on the problems pertaining to the supply
of labour from the traditional to the wage-earning sector. Traditional
leisure-income preferences and the role of wage and other incentives will be
discussed. An employer interested in developing
a
structured labour force
6
See Kingsley Davis,
The Population
of
India
and
Pakistan,
Chapters 13 and
14.
See also the
details provided in John Edward Jenkins,
The Coolie:
His
Rights
and
Wrongs,
London: Strahan
&
Co., 1871
7
Charles
A.
Myers,
Labor
Problem
in
the Industrialization
of
India,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University
Press,
1958,
Chapter
111
8
See, in particular, Morris David Morris, ‘The Labor Market in India’, in Moore and
Feldman,
op.
cit.,
pp. 173-200. In this, as in earlier articles, Morris argues that the recruitment
and stabilization
of
an ‘unskilled’ labor force presented
no
special problems in the Indian textile
and steel industries.
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