§ Clause 4, page 4, line 23, at end insert (" provided that wages shall not be recoverable under this subsection unless proceedings for such recovery shall have been commenced before the expiration of three months after the date when the wages became due or in respect of a period not exceeding six weeks ")
§ The Commons propose to amend this amendment as follows:
§ Line 5, after the second ("the") insert ("latest") and leave out ("or in respect of a period exceeding six weeks")
885§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERMy Lords, I beg to move that your Lordships disagree with the Commons in the Amendment to insert"latest." In place of that I move, in line 5, to leave out"wages became due"and insert"workman left the employment." I think I had better read the words as they will then run—
unless proceedings for such recovery shall have been commenced before the expiration of three months after the date when the workman left the employment.
§ Moved, That this House doth disagree with the first Amendment proposed by the Commons and in lieu thereof propose to leave out"wages became due"in order to insert"workman left the employment." —(The Earl of Ancaster.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe noble Earl has not dealt with the latter part.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERif this is agreed to I will deal with the second part.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYIt is only a question of order. If I might explain, there are two points raised. One is a question which the noble Earl has just dealt with, on the words"the latest wages became due"which is the Commons' form, and he proposed to amend it in a form to which we have no objection whatever. There is another question which arises as to the amount of arrears which shall be recoverable, and upon that there is likely to be a disagreement and some little discussion. If I may be allowed, I would suggest that the best plan would be to amend the Commons Amendment by striking out"latest wages"and putting in the words that the Government propose, and that will leave it open to us afterwards to deal with the other part of the Amendment.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERMy Lords, at the end of the Amendment the Commons have moved to leave out the words"or in respect of a period not exceeding six weeks." They have left out those words, and I now move that your Lordships do not insist upon your Amendment. I think I should make it clear that your Lordships object in inserting those words was that a man should not claim back wages for a very long period, but I think your Lordships will perceive that the effect of this Amend- 886 ment goes very far indeed. It was objected to in another place, and I think with a great deal of force. I know there are certain noble Lords who do not believe in collective bargaining, and would sooner that it should be done away with: altogether. But, after all, collective bargaining has been recognised in every trade, and I think is recognised to a great extent in agriculture as well, and we are attempting by this Bill to set up conciliation committees where collective bargaining between representatives of the employers and employed should take place.
On those conciliation committees the employers and employed have to come to a unanimous decision. By inserting words to the effect that, after a decision has been reached that. a certain wage should be paid, any employer who goes back upon that decision will practically only have to make good the difference in wages for six weeks, it appears to me you place almost a premium upon contracting out, and I think that point was raised in another place with very great force. We all know, I believe, that employers in agriculture are just. as generous as, if not more generous than, employers in any other industry, but there are mean men to be found everywhere among employers and others, and I think it is quite possible that, after agreement has been reached between employers and employed, some mean man may put undue pressure upon a man in the village, perhaps living in a cottage out of which he can be turned, and may say to that man:"I will employ you for two shillings or three shillings or five shillings a week below the wage which has been arrived at by mutual agreement." In that way the employer might try to put pressure upon the man to take this lower wage. Of course, it would be absolutely getting round the Act, and the decision of the conciliation committee, and would be practically contracting out in its worst form.
I can recall that many years ago your Lordships had a contest with another place on this question of contracting out, and you were victorious in that case, and had a good cause. It was on the Employers' Liability Bill, and you were standing up for the rights of the workman to contract out when he could get. better terms in that way from his employer than he would get. under the Act. Here the case is different. There may be a man who has had undue pressure placed upon him by the employer, to take 5s. a week lower 887 wage than the conciliation committee have agreed. The man may continue in that employment for six or eight months, and then leave it, and the only claim he would have upon the employer would be a claim for 30s. That in the case of an unscrupulous employer would be absolutely useless, and therefore I think that you should not insist upon the words which you put in the Bill"or in respect of a period not exceeding six weeks." I beg, therefore, to move that your Lordships do not insist upon your Amendment.
§ Moved, That the House doth not insist upon the said words.—(The Earl of Ancaster.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThere is no question here of your Lordships' House being opposed to collective bargaining. That is absolutely beside the point. Speaking for myself, I am entirely in favour of collective bargaining. Of course, the process of collective bargaining will work just as well under the form in which you sent the Bill to the Commons as under the form in which it has come back to us. There is an interval of six weeks allowed, and if, after that period, proper action is taken, then all the arrears can be recovered. That is what will happen in the case of collective bargaining. Every able-bodied labourer will be a member of a union, and he will have recourse to his union, and representations will be made within six weeks, and the mean employer will be compelled to pay the difference which he has tried to gain off the unfortunate labourer for that period.
Of course, everything will work according to the principle of collective bargaining but, if I may say so. it was not worthy of my noble friend that, in his remarks, he should leave absolutely out of sight the whole of the argument upon which this particular provision was put into the Bill by your Lordships. He knows as well as I do that it was not in order to save the mean employer, or with any hope of getting these few shillings into our own pockets, or anything of that kind, that we put in this Amendment. We did so in order to save from unemployment and possible starvation the labourer who is not able-bodied. Everybody knows that under the working of the present Act a very large number of these unfortunate men, who are no longer fully able-bodied, have been thrown out of employment. It has happened all 888 over the country, and for the obvious reason that employers, many of whom are not very big men themselves, are not going to run the risk of having a great bill run up against them for arrears, if they agree with the labourer for less than the standard wage. They cannot give him the standard wage because he is not worth it. They must either give him less than the standard wage or not employ him. I am speaking of the present law. If they come to an agreement with him at less than the standard wage then they run the risk that, at a later period, he will come down upon them and demand the full amount of the difference between the standard wage and the wage agreed to. The result is that they do not employ him; he is left upon the parish.
That is the matter which interests your Lordships. I know that the noble Earl will say that he can go to the tribunal and ask to have a lower wage agreed upon. That is perfectly true, but we know that in the countryside there is an enormous number of cases, and a farmer would not take the trouble. The result is that he says:"Bother this man. I am not going to run the enormous risk. I will not employ him." And your Lordships considered that. It was the argument addressed to the House, and the noble Earl now has absolutely ignored pit in asking your Lordships to reverse your decision. He treated it as if it were a mere question of the mean employer.
What we wish is to do our best—as we should always expect members of your Lordships' House to do—for the infirm labourer. He is a very common case. We have an enormous number of them in our own employment, and we hope that they will be employed up and down the country by the farmer—employed, that is, for wages which it is reasonable for the farmer to pay, seeing that these men cannot do a full day's work. So we decided to make the period over which the arrears could be recovered a very moderate period and thus not to frighten the farmer from employing these labourers; and, after very careful consideration, we thought six weeks was the right figure. Of course, opinions may differ about the period: I was in favour of a shorter period, but I am perfectly willing to fall in with your Lordships' views that six weeks was a reasonable figure. Now the Commons have struck the thing out altogether, so 889 that two years' arrears might be brought up against the farmer at the last moment. I am sure the Commons proposal is not a good or a merciful proposal, and I hope the House will insist upon its Amendment.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWETaking the two classes of infirm labourers—that is to say, those who are likely to suffer at the hands of unscrupulous employers, and those who are likely to suffer owing to the fears of quite fair and honest employers—if the Commons Amendment, is accepted, consider that the second class is by far the larger; that is to say that them are far more labourers who are likely to he prejudiced by the loss of employment owing to the fears of big arrears of wages being run up against the employer than there are labourers who will be maltreated by unscrupulous employers. For that reason I have no choice but to support the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in resisting the Amendment.
§ LORD CLINTONThe two noble Marquesses have put the position of the House quite clearly, as it appeared to us on a former stage of the Bill—namely, that there was a very serious danger of the infirm, or under-average, workman not receiving employment if so serious a penalty as might be incurred is placed in this measure. It, is clear that, as we stand at present, all employer may- be mulcted, at any period within three months of the date at which the man leaves employment, of the whole of the difference between the wage which he pays by agreement and the wage which has been fixed by the committee. That will be a serious deterrent in the case of some of these poor and unfortunate men. I should like to ask the noble Earl in charge of the Bill whether this is not eorrect— that, when a workman who breaks his agreement sues his employer in a Court for the difference, the Court has no choice whatever in the matter; it must give the whole difference between the agreed wage and the wage which the committee has laid down for the whole period of time.
I am not particularly concerned as to the actual limit of time which is fixed, but I am quite confident that there must be a limit, and I think the noble Earl might revise some portion of his previous speech and recognise that a limit is necessary. It is quite possible that the limit of six weeks is too small, because it might 890 encourage contracting out. And, apart from the danger to the workman of not being employed there is, I recognise, particularly in an industry like agriculture, where the workman is very isolated, a danger that there may be some mean employers who will cut down the wages to almost starvation level. That is. perhaps, likely enough to take place in isolated instances during the period of unemployment and under-employment which is likely to occur. I see no reason why the Court should not be given power to discriminate between these cases. In the ordinary case, where a reasonable agreement, with which both sides were originally satisfied, had been come to between master and man, the amount of arrears which might be recovered might be a small one; while in the other case, where there has been obviously an unfair agreement between the two, a larger limit might be imposed.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTER; My Lords, there is evidently a very strong desire among your Lordships that there should be some limit to the amount of wages recoverable. I am afraid I cannot retract what I said originally. Undoubtedly, if the clause is left as your Lordships left it, with only six weeks' arrears recoverable, large numbers of men would not attempt to recover, if they were being paid 2s.; or 3s., or even 5s., below the wage voluntarily agreed to between employer and employed. Even if it were 5s. a week reduction, the amount that a man could recover in six weeks is only 30.s. And, personally, I think it would lead to many perfectly able-bodied men being employed at lower wages. Because, after all, this refers not only to the weaklings, but to the able-bodied men as well, and in the Government's opinion that would lead to the employment of many able-bodied men below the standard wage, and practically to contracting-out. If your Lordships think there should be some limit on the amount to he recovered I would move the following Amendment—
Line 6, leave out (" or in respect of a period not exceeding six weeks") and insert (" and a person shall not be entitled to recover under the subsection wages for more than three months, or for such longer period not exceeding one year as the Court in which proceedings are taken for the recovery of the wages shall consider just ")I think that meets the case of the noble Lord, Lord Clinton. He said that he thought it ought to be left to the discretion 891 of the Court to decide whether there was a case of a deliberate wish to break through the voluntary agreement and that in those cases the Court should have a certain amount of jurisdiction. I think it would be a good compromise.In the cases referred to by the noble Marquess, of delicate men and practically half-incapacitated men, whose employers know they have to get an exemption, I believe that they will still get an exemption for them. But in cases where a man has been employed for, perhaps, a year or two years at a lower wage than he ought to have been paid and his employer has never taken the trouble to get exemption, and it can be proved to the Court that the employer has practically tried to get round the Act, I think, if the Court is convinced that an attempt has been made to defeat the arrangement arrived at between employer and employed, that to pay a year's difference in wages would not be too much.
§ LORD BLEDISLOEMy Lords, I cannot help thinking that the proposal that the noble Earl is now making is quite unnecessarily cumbrous and is rather calculated to result in discord between master and man. I would also suggest that it is a little unfair to the ordinary labourer, who may be paid a good deal less in days to come than he now receives and whose Union, with the decreasing remuneration, would be less able to assist him, that litigation should be resorted to for this purpose. I agree with the noble Marquess on this side of the House that if we are not careful there will be a very serious deterrent latent in this clause so far as prospective employers are concerned when they have to deal with disabled men and partially disabled men or with men who are not worth a full day's or week's wages but are perfectly prepared to come into the employment of the farmer according to the limit of their strength and ability and to enter into a bargain which it is presumed they mean to carry out. I think we ought to discourage the entering into such bargains on the part of anyone with the intention at the outset to break that bargain if he has the chance.
I venture to hope that we shall not quarrel with the House of Commons over the limitation of the period during which wages can be claimed, especially as I have reason to know that the Labour Party in another 892 place hold rather strong views on this matter. I would venture to suggest that we might very usefully come to a compromise and, instead of insisting upon the term "six weeks," that we extend it to a term of thirteen weeks, which is, in effect, three months, without bringing in the Court at all and rendering the procedure unnecessarily cumbersome.
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHMy Lords, I hope the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Bledisloe will be accepted. I am rather sorry that the Government made any compromise at all in this matter, because it would have been better, in my judgment, if the law as it stands in the Corn Production Act had remained in operation. There is no limit to the period during which proceedings might be taken now. Three months might be a fair compromise, though I would infinitely prefer that there should be no limitation at all. The present provision has worked very well with the wages boards. Terms can easily be obtained all over the country, and where they have not been obtained it has been simply because the farmer has deliberately chosen to break the law. If the Government accepted Lord Bledisloe's suggestion I should support them; otherwise I am bound to confess that I hope the Government will stand by their original proposal.
§ THE EARL OF ANCASTERAs your Lordships think that there should be a time limit, I ask leave to withdraw my original Motion and will move in its place the Amendment which I have already foreshadowed.
§ Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said words, but proposes in lieu thereof and a person shall not be entitled to recover under the subsection wages for more than three months or for such longer period not exceeding one year as the court in which proceedings are taken for the recovery of the wages shall consider just."—(The Earl of Ancaster.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI think the proposal of the Government—rather irregularly made, may I say, as the noble Earl has made another Motion—is very cumbersome and difficult to estimate on the spur of the moment. I do not 893 think your Lordships ought to be asked to assent to it in this fashion. There is a very simple question as to whether the word"six"is the right. one. Upon that I think there is the possibility of compromise. Any reasonable man would say that and I suggest that six is the best word. But I see there is a difference of opinion in your Lordships' House on that. point, and if the Government wished to move to leave out"six"and put it some some other figure I think we could consider it. I am afraid that we cannot accept the amendment which the noble Earl has moved, and if it is put from the Woolsack I shall vote against it as it stands.
| CONTENTS. | ||
| Birkenhead, V. (L. Chancellor.) | Portsmouth, E. | Colwyn, L. |
| Strafford, E. | Cottesloe, L. | |
| Sutherland, D. | Goschen, V. | Faringdon, L. |
| Bath, M. | Hood, V. | Gisborough, L. |
| Lincolnshire, M. (L. Great Chamberlain.) | Peel, V. | Gorell, L. |
| Harris, L. | ||
| Abinger, L. | Hylton, L. | |
| Ancaster, E. | Annosley, L. (V. Valentia.) | Killanin, L. |
| Bradford, E. | Anslow, L. | Ludlow, L. |
| Chesterfield, E. | Armaghdale, L. | Merthyr, L. |
| Clarendon, E. | Ashfield, L. | Nunburnholme, L. |
| Eldon, E. | Balinhard, L. (E. Southesk.) | Somerleyton, L. [Teller.] |
| Fortescue, E. | Cawley, L. | Southwark, L. |
| Lucan, E. | Channing of Wellingborough, L. | Stanmore, L. [Teller.] |
| Lytton, K. | Clinton, L. | Stuart of Wortley, L. |
| Onslow, E. | Clwyd, L. | Treowen, L. |
| Plymouth, E. | Colebrooke, L. | Wigan, L. (E. Crawford.) |
| NOT-CONTENTS. | ||
| Bedford, D. | Churchill, V. | Gainford, L. |
| Gladstone, V. | Glenarthur, L. | |
| Ailsa, M. | Grey of Fallodon, V. | Lawrence, L. |
| Crewe, M. | Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.) | MacDonnell, L. |
| Lansdowne, M. | Meston, L. | |
| Linlithgow, M. | Ampthill, L. | Redesdale, L. |
| Salisbury, M. | Avebury, L. | Roundway, L. |
| Bledlisloe, L. | Sandys, L. | |
| Beauchamp, E. | Clifford of Chudleigh, L. | Saye and Sele, L. |
| Chichester, E. | Decies, L. | Shandon, L. |
| Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) | Denman, L. | Stanley of Alderley, L. (L. Sheffield.) |
| Desborough, L. | ||
| Grey, E. [Teller.] | Desart, L. (E. Desart.) | Strachie, L. [Teller.] |
| Mayo, E. | Ebury, L. | Sumner, L. |
| Midleton, E. | Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.) | Weir, L. |
| Selborne, E. |
§ Resolved in the affirmative and Motion agreed to accordingly.