§ Sir W. Smithersasked the Minister of Labour how many of the 818 industrial disputes during 1936, involving 322,400 workpeople, and resulting in the loss of 1,829,000 working days, were unofficial, and were called without the consent and support of the executive of the union or unions concerned; how many workpeople were involved and how many working days lost in these unofficial stoppages; and will be state the number of strikes that took place in the engineering industry on the same basis of calculation?
§ Mr. E. BrownStatistics are not available showing the total number of trade disputes in which action by the workers was taken without the consent and support of the executive of the union concerned, since specific inquiries on this point are not made by my Department. From an examination of such information as is in its possession, however, it would appear that the total of 818 disputes recorded in 1936 included 435 in which the dispute was not recognised officially by the trade unions concerned, 189 m which the dispute was thus recognised, 115 in which information as to recognition by a trade union is not available, and 79 in which no trade union was concerned. The number of workpeople involved in the 435 disputes was about 210,000, and the aggregate duration of the disputes was about 900,000 working days. In the engineering industry, out of 45 disputes which began in 1936, at least 25 were not recognised by the trade unions concerned.