THE REVISION OF THE JUTE WAGES‐STRUCTURE1
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1957.tb00217.x |
| Published date | 01 February 1957 |
| Date | 01 February 1957 |
| Author | I. F. Gibson |
THE REVISION
OF
THE JUTE WAGES-STRUCTURE
THE
rapid pace of economic change over the last ten or fifteen years
has presented British industrialists with many new and complex
problems. Changes in the average level
of
employment, in productive
and marketing techniques, in industrial structures, and in the competi-
tive position of individual firms and industries have all called for far-
reaching changes in managerial policies and practices. One result
of
this complex
of
changes is that in a number
of
cases industrial wages-
structures, which were appropriate to the conditions of the
1920s
and
1930s,
have become weighed down by
a
growing mass of anomalies,
and
so
have come to act as
a
brake on the progress of the industries
burdened with them.
In
consequence, a number of industries are
at present engaged in the preparation and introduction of new wages-
structures designed to take account of contemporary economic realities,
to improve labour relations, and to eliminate the adverse effects which
an out-of-date wages-structure tends
to
exert
on
labour productivity.
I
THE
INDUSTRIAL
BACKGROUND
Up
to the present time only one British industry-jute-has made
extensive progress with the introduction, on an industry-wide basis,
of a new uniform wages-structure. Jute is a relatively small manufac-
turing trade, with a total employment of some
20,000,
which exhibits
a remarkably high degree of localisation. some
95
per cent. of the
total labour force being concentrated in the city of Dundee and an
area of some fifteen miles around it.
The spinning and weaving of jute was introduced into Dundee
in the second quarter
of
the nineteenth century as a substitute for
the flax, flax tow and hemp then used by Dundee manufacturers in
the production of
a
textile for bagging, packaging and other purposes
1
A
revised version
of
a paper read
to
the Economics Section
of
the British
Association at its Bristol meeting in September
1955.
2The
main industries
so
engaged are the boot and shoe, building. cotton,
coal, and railway industries. Except
in
the case
of
the first
of
these, however,
only limited progress has been made
so
far.
46
To continue reading
Request your trial