§ Mr. TINKERasked the Minister of Labour how many employers have arranged with their employes… to share out the work so as not to put some of them out of employment; and can he give 375W the number of workers affected and the total who would be out of work but for the arrangement?
Mr. STANLEY,pursuant to his reply [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1935; col. 18, Vol. 298],supplied the following statement:
The sharing of work by means of short-time working has been for many years the ordinary practice in certain industries, notably the cotton textile industry and coal mining, as a means of avoiding or reducing discharges during a depression in trade. Of recent years it has been adopted, for similar reasons, in many other industries. In most cases of this kind there is not, so far as I am aware, any prior consultation with the workpeople, but sometimes there is discussion of the details of the arrangements to be made, and there are cases in which the arrangements were definitely agreed with representatives of the workpeople or adopted at their suggestion. In the tinplate industry in South Wales arrangements have been made between representatives of employers and workpeople for the substitution of a six-hour for an eight-hour shift in certain mills. In the shale oil industry in Scotland there are arrangements under which workpeople in employment have an idle spell every fourth week. This last-mentioned scheme
376W
Year. Coal cut by Machinery. Average Number of Persons employed. Quantity. Percentage of Total Output. Wage-earners. Clerks and Salaried Persons. South Yorkshire. Tons. 1934 … … … 10,325,436 36 96,769 2,246 1932 … … … 6,321,595 23 103,804 2,273 1925 … … … 3,514,626 11 121,083 2,211 1913 … … … 1,652,088 6 96,572 West Yorkshire. 1934 … … … 4,716,424 43 43,100 1,144 1932 … … … 3,744,816 35 48,127 1,226 1925 … … … 3,554,005 25 67,188 1,474 1913 … … … 2,840,734 18 63,826 was designed to re-absorb a number of workers previously unemployed, and not only to prevent discharges. This has also been the object of a number of similar schemes in the coal mining industry. There have also been cases in. the chemicals, paint and varnish, and glass industries in which particular establishments have adopted a shorter working week as their normal practice. Owing to the very wide field to be covered the Ministry's information on this subject is not exhaustive, and for this reason, and also because of the difficulty of drawing the line between the various classes of cases, it is not possible to state the number of workers affected, and still less to estimate the total who would be out of work but for the arrangement.