CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT IN THE DISTRIBUTIVE TRADES. (Hansard, 22 December 1937)

§ Mr. Rhys Davies
I beg to move, That this House views with concern the long hours of labour, low wages, and bad conditions of employment prevalent in the distributive trades, and, whilst welcoming the efforts made by the best employers and the trades unions through collective agreements to establish better standards, is of opinion that further measures, including a more strict and uniform administration of the Shops Acts, are necessary to raise the social conditions of this very large section of the working community. When a Member of this House is successful in the Ballot it is natural that he should select a subject for his Motion which is dear to his heart and with which he is fairly familiar. Those are two of the several reasons why I am to-day introducing the Motion which is now before the House, calling attention to the conditions of employment in the distributive trades. This is not the first occasion, as hon Members will know, that this issue has been debated in this Assembly, but I think it is the first time that we have been free to discuss every aspect of this mighty problem. In the past we have been circumscribed by the scope of the Bills that have been before us, but on this occasion we can roam through every shop, office and warehouse in the land in order to find arguments to put before the House of Commons.
It is not commonly known that there are about 1,000,000 shops of all kinds in this country—approximately one to every 40 inhabitants. I need hardly tell the House, therefore, that I am taking upon myself an explanation of a very big issue. There are shops employing as many as 5,000 or 6,000 assistants in one building and there are, at the other end of the scale, family butchers, grocers, boot-dealers, fishmongers and pawnbrokers, as well as many others, who employ only one or two assistants. There are chain stores, multiple shops and co-operative society establishments employing scores or hundreds in each of them, and they are to be found at almost every street-corner in the land. It is not commonly known, too, that there are employed behind the counters of these 1,000,000 shops at least 1,000,000 assistants, and an additional 1,500,000 or so are engaged in and about the distributive trades. That is entirely apart from the scores of thousands of 2010 people who are employed in distribution in small shops on their own account. If you add together all those working for wages and in business on their own account in distribution, there are at least 3,000,000 earning their livelihood by distributing commodities and by shopkeeping. We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers. Another remarkable fact that has to be borne in mind is that the number of shop assistants has doubled in 20 years, from about 1,250,000 20 years ago to 2,500,000 working for wages to-day.
I come now to deal with their conditions of employment. In some towns the majority of shop assistants are women and girls. They are, therefore, the more easily exploited. Shop life has always been prone to absorb the younger section of the community. Indeed, I gather that in some towns and cities one of the beneficial employments under our present educational system is work in shops and offices for children about to leave school. It need hardly be said that the distributive trade is a colossal business. It employs as many persons as any three of the other largest industries in this country. No industry of any kind can show such an expansion in the rate of employment as distribution.
In our Motion we complain first of all about low wages, long hours and bad conditions of employment which still prevail. I hope no Members of the House will quarrel with the terms of the Motion. It was drafted deliberately in order to secure their support. I do not think I am far wrong in saying that Government Departments, the best employers, all social workers and men and women of good will in all walks of life, are as disturbed as many of us are at some of the bad conditions existing in the distributive trades. I am not going to criticise the best employers or even Government Departments, although incidentally I always like to have a tilt at them all on some occasions.
It is worth while to trace the history of the struggle of shop assitants for improvement in their conditions, to find out what they have achieved and what progress has been made towards their emancipation. A century of time in this country is not a long period. I have read of demonstrations of 20,000 assistants in London employed in shops a century ago and working regularly 2011 90 and 100 hours per week, exclusive of meal times. I have never been able to understand why the status of shop assistants in this country is probably the lowest, compared with any other industrial country in the world. That can be vouched for by facts that are easily obtainable. As late as 30 years ago it was quite common for shop assistants to be employed from 60 to 90 hours per week, exclusive of meal times here at home.
Parliament from time to time has taken a very personal and deep interest in the shop assistant, mainly because the young women employed there are, to use a term of the Americans, only transients; they all look forward to marriage. Parliament was so disturbed in the year 1886 that it laid down a limit to the number of hours to be worked, not by shop assistants in general but by young persons under 18, and the limit, strange to say, was 74 hours per week. If an employer did not employ a young person beyond 74 hours per week he was immune from any penalty under the law. Even that provision was never adequately enforced. It was not until 1934 that any improvement was made in hours of labour and even then it was confined to young persons. Nothing whatever was done for adult shop assistants, except to provide them with a weekly half-holiday. Some few years ago Parliament did the most remarkable thing in its history—it compelled employers to provide seats for female shop assistants without providing them with any right to sit upon them. Therefore, no provision of any kind as to hours of labour or wages has been made by Parliament at any time in respect of the adults among the 2,500,000 people working in shops.
There is always a difficulty in making the public understand one thing. It is commonly supposed by those who are not conversant with distribution that because closing orders apply to shops and shops are compelled to close their doors at a given hour, the hours of labour also are regulated by those closing orders. That, of course, is not the case. There are tens and scores of thousands of shop assistants whose hours of labour have not the remotest relation to the point as to whether the shop is closed or open. Consequently, there are cases at the moment where 2012 the hours of labour are atrocious. When the closing orders were issued in the first instance, there was no mention of the hours of labour of the assistants.
In 1930 I was appointed, among others, by this House to sit on a Select Committee to inquire into the whole problem of the conditions of employment in shops. The Act of 1934 was passed as a result of its report, improving the environment of shop assistants and limiting still further the hours of labour of young persons employed in the distributive trade; that was a boon to the young people employed in distribution. I recently called for a number of reports from local authorities showing what they were doing to enforce the Shops Acts. Parliament in this country on occasions has taken a very strange attitude towards shop life. When it passes a law relating to employment in shops it always transfers its enforcement to local authorities, and there are cases where some local authorities apparently have never heard of shops legislation at all. The way in which they try to enforce the law is pitiful in the extreme. I have particulars of cases showing that something has to be done in the near future to see that local authorities do their work properly. I am not attacking all local authorities because the large ones are making the job a real one; they are appointing shops inspectors who report to their chiefs at the town hall regularly. But still, the difference between shops inspection by local authorities on the one hand, and coal mine and factory inspections on a national basis, on the other hand, is glaring in the extreme.
Before I pass from legislation that has been passed, let me refer to the last Act of Parliament, the Sunday Trading Restriction Act. That did not affect very much the conditions of employment of the assistants. I gather, however, that they have benefited from the passing of that Act. I am told, too, that the shopkeepers themselves have welcomed that legislation, although in London there is still some difficulty about putting it into operation. I have tried to make myself acquainted with literature relating to the several industries of the country. A large number of books, fiction and fact, have been written about agriculture, coal mining, textiles and engineering, but it is strange that the full story of distribution 2013 and the conditions of employment of shop assistants has hardly yet been told by any one—by comparison I mean.
I do not know how many Members of this present House were members of the Select Committee to which I have referred. Our terms of reference excluded entirely the question of wages; we had to deal with hours and conditions of work purely and simply. If any one cares to look for substantiation for the charges we shall make about the rotton conditions of employment in shops he has only to turn to the report of that Select Committee. He will find there that young girls from 14 to 18 and 20 years of age were being employed for 50, 60, 65 and 70 hours a week, excluding meal times. I have been astonished sometimes that Parliament has not done more for the young people in distribution. If any one wants the figures they are to be found statistically stated in this report. The committee divided "long" hours from "excessive" hours. If I wanted evidence to prove my case of bad conditions of employment in shops, it is therefore readily available.
I am glad to see one or two shopkeepers in the House this afternoon, and I am sure that they are among the best of employers; they would not be Members of Parliament if they were not, and if they were to become bad employers they would be thrown out of Parliament on the next occasion. If I wanted evidence in support of the contention that conditions are really bad in distribution I could quote from the evidence of Mr. W. W. Barlow, who spoke at a recent meeting of the Council of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade. Nothing that I or anybody else could say about these bad conditions would be stronger than this. He said: We have not yet set our house in order, and there are some in this trade that I am almost ashamed to shake hands with. There could be nothing stronger than that. Another employer in the distributive trade made the following statement: There were many businesses where souls did not exist; where the one question was £ s. d. Another went on to say: I know some of the hardships imposed upon juveniles in the retail trade. There is certainly room for some law to compel certain types of trades to pay fair wages for work done. 2014 I could give many other quotations proving, from the mouths of employers themselves, that all is not well in connection with the conditions of employment of these assistants. Their complaint is that, where a good employer is competing with a bad employer in the same line of business, selling the same commodities, the good employer is always at a disadvantage. I am not, however, moved by that argument, because I have always understood that, where the workpeople are properly treated and well paid, they will do work of better quality than those doing the same job under inferior conditions. That is proved by the experience of the co-operative movement, and in saying that I am supported by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander), who nods assent.
With regard to wages, I do not know whether it will astonish the House to hear, but I have it on the best authority, that it is not uncommon for adult men to be employed to-day in distribution for 52, 54 and 60 hours a week at a weekly wage of 30s. or 35s. I myself made an inquiry recently in a large city in the North, which showed that it is not uncommon for adult women to be employed at a wage of 15s. a week, before deductions are made for the meals they are expected to take in the establishment or deductions towards the several social services. I was not astonished, therefore, when I was told that there is so much larceny and petty thieving in distribution, in view of the fact that the wages paid art; not sufficient to enable the assistants to maintain themselves decently. Apart from wages agreements entered into by the trade unions with some of the best employers, I am assured, again on the best authority, that conditions of employment as regards wages and hours have recently deteriorated markedly in the distributive trade as a whole. There are exceptions. The remarkable thing to my mind is that this trade—if it can be called a trade—of distribution can afford to pay better wages than any other industry in the land. Its profits on occasion are simply colossal. One firm has paid dividends of 25, 30, 35 and 50 per cent., and I do not know of any reputable distributive firm in this country that does not make a handsome profit, even when depression falls upon other industries. Therefore, the argument that they cannot afford to pay good wages will not avail in the least. I notice that 2015 the two hon. Gentlemen present who are as interested as I am in this problem have a sort of joyful smile on their faces when I talk about big profits—

§ Mr. Mabane
The International Tea Company makes no profit.

§ Mr. Davies
If they do not make profits, they get hold of the money somehow or other. I now turn to another point in connection with the distributive trade, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman who is to reply to the Debate will be good enough to answer this question. The House of Commons the other day, at the instance, I think, of the hon. Member for the Rusholme Division of Manchester (Mr. Radford), was moved beyond words that school children were compelled to do homework out of school hours; but it was not moved at all to learn, and it will not be moved to-day, I am sure, when I tell it, that there are about 50,000 children employed in distribution for a shilling or two per week out of school hours. The House of Commons, although it condemned homework, will have little or nothing to say, I am sure, in condemnation of working children for a shilling or two a week after school hours. We are a strange and an inconsistent people.
I should like to meet one argument in advance, because I can see one or two hon. Gentlemen ready for the fray. I shall be told, I suppose, that the cooperative movement, to which I have the honour to belong, has a lot of leeway to make up if it is to come up to this Resolution; but this may be said about it, that, although the co-operative movement may have its faults, like all other institutions, the conditions of employment in the co-operative movement as a whole are by far superior to those prevailing in private trades doing the same sort of business. I think that that ought to be said about the co-operative movement. If co-operative societies can carry on their business without calling upon their assistants to work for more than 48 hours a week—in some cases the hours are 44—exclusive of meal times, and can give them a fairly decent standard of livelihood and still increase its trade, I see no reason why the whole distributive trade should not be called upon to follow suit. That, I think, is an 2016 argument of which private employers in distribution will have to take heed. The conditions to which I have alluded in the co-operative movement have been brought about by collective agreement between the trade unions and the societies, and we naturally welcome all the collective agreements that have been made recently by private enterprise with the trade unions. We wish them God-speed. But do not let us exaggerate the position. Even now, these collective agreements do not cover any very large proportion of the 2,500,000 shop assistants to whom I have referred.
The most remarkable thing of all, perhaps, in this connection, is that, so far as I understand the position, the status of shop assistants in the heart of the British Empire is lower than in any of the Empire's component parts. Shop assistants hold a better position in society, and are treated better by their employers, in almost every part of the British Empire than they are here at home. We were told only last week, for instance, from the Front Government Bench that a decree had been issued by the Governor of Malta laying down a minimum standard of wages for shop assistants in that territory, while in the Irish Free State the Government itself, within the last few days, has tabled a Bill laying down conditions of employment in relation to hours, wages, and environment in shops; so that our own Government really ought to feel a little bit ashamed of itself. It never does, of course, whatever happens in this country.
I am glad to see that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is here. Let me deal with his Department for a few minutes. As I have said, the Shops Acts are enforced in the main by local authorities, but local authorities do not carry out their duties in all cases. I shall be able to prove to the hon. Gentleman that the time has arrived when the Home Office ought to take a hand to see that the provisions of those Acts are enforced. We find that some of the larger authorities are performing their duties in real earnest, but reports for which I called from some 10 or a dozen local authorities show that there is no uniformity.