HC Deb 19 June 1924 vol 174 cc2476-84

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Parkingon.]

Major HORE-BELISHA

I desire to call attention to the attitude adopted by the Civil Lord of the Admiralty in reply to a question put by me yesterday and to the subject-matter involved in that question. The question was one of a precise and specific character and was capable of a precise and specific answer. There are employed in His Majesty's Dockyards a number of skilled men who belong to the trades which are ordinarily occupied in house building: bricklayers, carpenters, joiners, plumbers slaters, glaziers and smiths. The Minister of Health has made a stand, quite rightly, for the preservation of the integrity of the building trade and for the maintenance of the wages and conditions which they enjoy. I find that the builders and carpenters, for instance, in the dockyards receive a total wage of £2 18s. a week for a 47-hour week. On the other hand I understand builders and carpenters outside receive a wage of £3 7s. 10d. for work involving similar skill and similar qualifications. There is therefore, if the figures I have given are correct, a difference of 9s. I0d. a week to the disadvantage of those employed in the dockyards. That is not all. The dockyard men have to work 47 hours a week, and the corresponding number of hours recognised by the trade unions outside is 44. Therefore, if you take it upon a basis of hours, a builder or a carpenter in the dockyard is giving his labour for 1s. 3d. per hour, while the outside man is getting is. 6½d. per hour for exactly similar work. It is true, if the dockyard man happens to be established, he has to contribute 2s. a week for every week of his life towards a pension, but I have excluded those figures in the calculation that I have made. As the wages now stand, and as I have given them, the dockyard man is working at a disadvantage of 3½d. per hour, or 9s. a week, as compared with the workman outside, and I understand, moreover, that it is proposed to increase the wages of the outside men in the building trade by 1½d. per hour.

It will be seen at once that this operates to a considerable disadvantage to the man employed in His Majesty's dockyard, and the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who supported me yesterday, went into the very heart of the question when he pointed out that these men might be required to build houses in the dockyard town. What was the answer that my hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty gave him? He referred to an answer he had given me on the 20th February. That answer had nothing whatever to do with the subject matter of my question, which concerned those engaged in the building crafts in the dockyard. It was an answer he had given me in regard to the generating staff, and the generating staff in the dockyard ore working at a considerable disadvantage as compared with the electricians outside. The answer was: The various departments of the dockyards are deemed to be engaged in a common industry, and the wages of the various classes of employés are assessed on this basis."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1924; col. 1725, Vol. 169.] In other words, because these men happen to be employed in a national industry and are the employés of the State, they are to accept lower wages and longer hours of work than their comrades outside. These men have not the right to strike. They commit an act of insubordination if they do strike, and because they are deprived of that privilege and that right, they are expected to work for longer hours and receive worse conditions of pay. But there was an addendum to my hon. Friend's answer, namely, that it would not be to the advantage of the employés in general, nor suitable to the special circumstances of the dockyard, if they did receive the wages that were current outside, and did work the number of hours current outside. A great number of my hon. Friend's followers believe in nationalisation, and I fail to see how he is going to commend nationalisation to them if he informs them that, because they happen to be national employés, they are in a category apart, and are expected to receive lower wages, and work for longer hours, than their comrades, who have a right to strike, and thereby obtain better conditions. But on each of those occasions on which I have put such questions before him, pointing out the similar qualifications as between those employed in the national establishments and those employed in the private industries, I am happy to say that the followers of my hon. Friend have supported me. On the occasion referred to, 20th February, the hon. Member for St. Helens asked: "Does my hon. Friend think that his reply is consistent with the resolution moved in this Hose by the Labour party?" It is with the, desire of helping him, and those I have the honour to represent in this House, that I call on him to make a statement in the House as to what his real policy is in this matter. So far, he has entirely barked the issue.

There is one other specific case concerning the yard craftsmen, who are expected to be on duty, in some cases, 100 hours continuously, for a wage which no trade union would recognise outside, and which for many years—for a quarter of a century — has been considered to be a degradation to labour in this country. I realise well the difficulties of my hon. Friend, but he has an opportunity now. He has executive power now which can remove these grievances, which have been outstanding for many years. It is in a spirit of extreme conciliation that I put these questions before him, and I consider that before he delivers these abrupt replies he might invite me to lay the facts before him, and consider them without prejudice. He is apt to refer me to Whitley Councils. The whole question is, is this machinery functioning? Is it well oiled, and does it effect an expeditious settlement of the grievances? The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who desires to speak in this Debate, knows perfectly well, as does my hon. Friend Who sits on the Government Bench, that the Whitley Council machinery is not functioning.

In the case of yard craftsmen, these men are on duty 100 hours consecutively for about 50s. a week. With his executive power, why should he hide behind the Whitley Councils, when he is perfectly well acquainted with the situation? Why should he not endeavour to put this question right? My hon. Friend came into this House with a great reputation. He fought for the miners, and I respect him for it. He won the approbation of the miners, and justly won it. Wherever he found the miners suffering from a wrong, very rightly he endeavoured to put it right. It is one of the unfortunate duties, maybe, of a Member of the House, to represent his constituents, and in speaking out on behalf of my constituents to-night, I can claim that I have the right to the consideration of my hon. Friend who represents the Admiralty. Time after time, when I have put forward these grievances, I have been met by his lack of sympathy, or by his reference to the Whitley Council. I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend's career, and I hope he will go very far, but he must realise that he has the same obligation now to the dockyard men as he had once to the miners. I can point out to him instances in which particular crafts or trades in the dockyards are working very long hours, and at very bad wages, and I am sure I am entitled to ask him to give these particular men his favourable consideration. I do not propose to occupy the time of the House any longer, particularly because my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals wishes to speak, and I am anxious that my hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty shall have as long an opportunity to reply as may be given by the conventions of this House. I wish him to understand that so long as I represent my constituency I claim the complete right to do all I can and to fight my hardest to put right the grievances from which my constituents suffer.

Mr. BUCHANAN

With all due deference to the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport, I suggest that he ought to try to put his case properly. It does not do good to any hon. Member if he fails to put his case properly. He has erred in regard to two things. Ha talked about men working 100 hours continuously, without any break, I suppose, or any sleep. It would take a great deal to make one believe that.

Major HORE-BELISHA

It is absolutely the fact.

Mr. BUCHANAN

The hon. Member, when he is arguing his case, must bear in mind exactly the position of these men. It is true that these carpenters, jointers and others are paid nearly 10s. a week less than the same men in the building trades, but we have to remember that similar craftsmen employed in similar work in Glasgow would get 10s. less than the men get in the dockyards. In other words, the joiner in the dockyard in the hon. Member's constituency gets 10s. more per week as a Government servant than he would get if he were in the service of a private employer in Glasgow. The Government, service may not be the best, but it is considerably better than private employment in any other part of the country. The case of my hon. Friend is that you are here dealing not with shipbuilding workers so much as with men engaged in the building industry, and whose services are regulated through that industry. It would be very difficult to make a claim to-night for joiners engaged as shipbuilders that they should get building trade wages, but there is an unanswerable case for these men when under the dockyard, either as carpenters, joiners, plumbers or electricians, they are engaged on building trade work. In that case they should be treated as building trade workers.

May I illustrate my point In Glasgow the joiner's wage is £2 8s. a week. Assuming that man was shifted from inside the shipbuilding yard to the repairing or building of a place, he would get £3 10s. instead of £2 8s., because he would be engaged under building trade conditions instead of shipbuilding conditions. There is an unanswerable case for the man who is engaged inside the Admiralty establishments, not on shipbuilding work but on building trade work. There is no reason why he should not be paid the building trade wages and be subject to building trade conditions. I ask not only for the sympathy of my hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, which we always have, but his actual cooperation and interest in giving these men the building trade wages and conditions which they desire. It is true that they are better paid than similar workers under private enterprise, but I am not satisfied, even with the conditions at Devonport. It is time the Government in this respect took a step forward in advance of the private employer by raising the conditions even higher than they are at the moment.

The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Hodges)

I hope the hon. Member for Devonport will not take a short answer as being necessarily an abrupt answer. There was something in the hon. Member's question which gave rise to some natural feelings of indignation, describing the workmen in the dockyards as "nationalised workers." The connotation of that phrase is rather unsavoury. It had nothing to do with the question. The question in itself raises a matter of principle, and could, in my judgment, be couched in language without having recourse to those words. Those men are no more nationalised men than the Members who serve their country in this House, who work here and receive pay from the Exchequer. I should have been pleased to deal with the question of principle except for the fact that the question of principle had already been dealt with. I have no right to object to an hon. Member putting as many questions as he thinks desirable, but when an hon. Member puts questions which are merely a repetition it is extremely difficult for the Admiralty to find the time to be consider- ing replies to questions the answers to which have already been given.

Major HORE-BELISHA

This question has never been asked before.

Mr. HODGES

The principle raised in this question has been raised over and over again by the hon. Member, and I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to give him the right reply. I have always contended ever since I have been in this position that the correct method of dealing with the workers in the dockyard was to treat the whole of the dockyard as one industrial unit. I find that the history of the dockyards lends itself to that idea. The whole of the trade union representation connected with the dockyard is built upon that basis. Here is a group of trade unions—I believe about 10 in number—all of whom have their members in the dockyards. They, in their wisdom for a period of years, have come to the conclusion that the interests of the men in the dockyards can be best represented by dealing collectively with those interests and directly with the Board of Admiralty; and undoubtedly the history of the negotiations between the Admiralty and the Whitley Council indicates that that is the best system. In his division my hon. Friend is not quite acquainted with what is going on. I want to encourage the trade union representation of these men in the dockyards. I want to see it developed so that every legitimate grievance that can arise in the dockyards can be submitted to the Admiralty through trade union representatives.

Major HOREBELISHA

The small classes

Mr. HODGES

Each member of the small classes has a union representative, if he wishes to avail himself of his services, but they have come to the conclusion that there is nothing better than this. To-day we have the whole group of trade union representatives coming to the Shipbuilding Council of the Admiralty and putting up a proposal for an advance in wages collectively, not merely for one class of workers, but for all the classes of workers in the dockyards, and, putting it up collectively for a uniform advance in wages, still maintaining the same relationship as exists now as between the skilled and the unskilled workers, but asking for all to have an advance in wages of a uniform category, and if this advance were conceded the men engaged in building construction would get a much higher wage than is now being paid in the outside world of building construction. These trade union representatives have agreed to submit this claim to arbitration. It is impossible to foresee what the result will be, but is it not infinitely better in the interests of the unity of the men and the cohesion of the work in the yards that they should all move together rather than that some should move upwards because of outside movements in other trades, and some downwards because of downward movements outside the dockyards, and thus create a greater disparity than otherwise would be the case? The esential thing is to see that the cases are collectively presented, that they are adequately considered, and that, so far as is humanly possible, the wages of men in Govern meat employment shall not lag behind the wages of men outside, but rather that they shall be in advance of the wages of the men outside.

That represents the Admiralty attitude, and my attitude and desire to encourage collective treatment of all wage disputes arising in the dockyards, and I have found no better way yet than to carry on the practice of treating the dockyards as an industrial unit, and seeing that the wages that are paid are good wages, that they do not move necessarily with the violent fluctuations outside. It is the business of the Government to see that decent minimum rates of wages are paid and it is the duty of the Admiralty to see that reasonable hours are worked, and, above all, for the sake of cohesion within the industry and to prevent disunity and chaos as between the men within the industry, that they should he encouraged to utilise their trade union for the purpose of expressing their views and setting forth their representations.

If my hon. Friend from time to time points out, as he has been able to do here, a few individual cases of men who at this moment of time have got wages less than their craft outside, and in some cases longer hours, I would only refer him to this fact that perhaps it is better that this very small fraction of men, which are probably 5 per cent. of the total, should still throw in their lot with the rest of the men in the yard and join in the general movement for the improvement of wages and conditions in the yard rather than, so to speak, hazard their lot upon a few wages outside, because it is the right thing to get stability within Government employment regardless of what is going on outside, so that you may come to a point where, despite fluctuations up and down outside, there will always he stability round about reasonable wages for our men inside. With regard to the special point which was raised by the hon. and gallant Member, I think the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) put him right on the question of men working for 100 hours continuously.

Major HORE-BELISHA

On duty.

Mr. HODGES

Every sailor who goes to sea on a long voyage is on duty whilst on the ship, but he is not at work all the time. He takes his periods of rest and what opportunities are available for recreation. The mere fact that he is on the ship is not sufficient reason to conclude that he is actually engaged in manual operations all the time.

Major HORE-BELISHA

I did not suggest it.

Mr. HODGES

The hon. and gallant Member will agree that such an implication might attach to his words. Since the point was raised by him, the matter of the hours and payment of the men employed in the Dockyard Electric Power Stations has been brought by the Trade Union representatives before the Whitley Council, and I am happy to inform him that a change has been made by which an improvement is effected in the conditions for the men.

Question put, anal agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly Twenty-nine minutes after Eleven o'Clock