The Wages Councils Bill
| Date | 01 March 1945 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1945.tb02889.x |
| Author | O. Kahn‐Freund |
| Published date | 01 March 1945 |
68
MODERN
LAW
REVIEW March,
1945
It
is not within the province of this article to discuss
to
what
extent Industrial Arbitration in Australia has been a success. The
principle has obtained acceptance by the people as a whole, and while
criticism may be levelled against it in many respects, it has helped
to
create a high standard of living. Australia lacks many of the
advantages enjoyed by older countries, e.g. an economic organization
which has stood the test of time, ample supplies of capital and labour,
and
a
plenitude of markets for the disposal
of
her products. It is
considered, however, that as a basis
oi
her industrial system, compulsory
industrial arbitration has proved a sure foundation.
LL.
JONES
STATUTES
The
Wages
Councils
Bill
The Wages Councils Bill which,
at
the time of writing, has passed its
Third Reading in the House of Commons,
is
the most important legislative
step in the field of industrial relations to be taken since the outbreak
of
the
war. The new Act will take the place
of
the Trade Boards Acts of
1909
and
1918,
but it will not affect the statutory wage regulation machinery
under such special enactments
as
the Agricultural Wages Act, the Road
Haulage Wages Act and the Catering Wages Act. The legislative principles
underlying these statutes have, on the other hand, profoundly influenced
the Bill one
of
whose professed objects it is “to bring the powers of Trade
Boards, which will
be
re-named ‘Wages Councils’ into line with those of
analogous bodies established under later legislation.”’ It is. therefore, not
only
a
reforming, but also
a
unifying, clarifying and simplifying measure.
Stripped
of
its technicalities (which are formidable) the Bill appears
as
a
piece of social reform designed to give effect to three new guiding
principles.
It
is, in the first place,
a
deliberate attempt to use the
statutory wage fixing machinery for the purpose of maintaining and
strengthening existing voluntary institutions established in
a
given
industry. In the second place, it charges the statutory wage fixing bodies
with the task of determining the “remuneration” to be paid to
a
given
type of workers by their employers, and thus remo\’ps
at
one stroke the
strait-jacket of the “trade”
as
the exclusive unit
of
operation
of
this type
of legislation and the tangled pattern
of
the various time and piece rates
into which the Trade Hoards had to fit their activities. Thirdly, it transfers
into peace-time legislation one
of
the ideas embodied in the Conditions
of Employment and National Arbitration Order
of
1940~:
it imposes-
for a limited period-upon employers the obligation to observe
’‘
recognised
terms and conditions” and gives to the Industrial Court the power to
make legally binding awards embodying the terms
of
collective agreements.
The following observations are confined to these three principal aspects
of
the Bill
I.
Undei the Trade Boards Act,
1918,
the Minister of Labour is em-
powered to establish,
by
special order,
a
trade board, “if he is
of
the
opinion that
710
adequate machinery exists
for the effective regulation
of
sages throughout the trade and that, accordingly, having regard to the
Explanatory
and
Financial
Memorandum,
No.
I
(i).
*
See
the
discussion
of
this
Order
in
the
article
M.L.R.
1-01.
6.
p.
1x2
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