The National Insurance Act at work : what it is effecting and where it needs amending / by Sidney Webb.

  • Sidney Webb
Date:
[1913]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The National Insurance Act at work : what it is effecting and where it needs amending / by Sidney Webb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    India would think seriously before attempting anything like it. It is the “ consciousness of consent ” that alone makes it possible. Much more grave must be the judgment of the economist on the extent to which the new poll-tax is pressing on the hundreds of thousands—we fear, even the millions—at the bottom of the industrial pyramid. It is unfortunately already plain that, in the humblest grades of the wage- earners—just where the statesman has to be most assiduous to raise, instead of carelessly to lower, the Standard of Life—the contributions that are being exacted are causing serious hardships and patent injustice. THE CASUAL LABOURERS. The most glaring case is that of the “ glut- men,” the odd job men, or the extra hands or “casuals” in all sorts of trades, of whom, it must be remembered, there are in the United Kingdom, even apart from the building trades, somewhere between a quarter and a half a million of men, representing a population of something like a million souls, or more than the whole city of Glasgow. Here there is evidence, known to the Board of Trade, that in many different parts of the country the unfortunate men have often found themselves compelled to stamp their own cards, in order to get taken on at all ! It is easy to understand what is reported to be happening; though it is fair to say, not so much at the London docks and wharves, or among large employers constantly dependent on casual labour, as in the case of smaller employers, only occa- sionally taking on casual hands, and in the case of outworkers taking casual jobs. The foreman, to whom application is made for work, asks at once, “ Is your card stamped for this week?” If it is not stamped, he replies that there is no vacancy— and takes on the next applicant whose card is stamped ! Employers even telephone to the Labour Exchanges for “ a man with a stamped card!” The man, desperately eager not to lose a chance of a job, finds himself driven to buy seven pennyworth of Insurance stamps—his em- ployer’s contribution in addition to his own—in order to be able to exhibit, even on Monday, a stamped card. In many cases the unfortunate casual worker, living on a few odd days’ work a week, is now actually paying sevenpence a week for benefits for most of which he will seldom be eligible, out of a weekly income which does not exceed ten or fifteen shillings.* This is a * On the other hand, with regard to the casual dock labourers at Liverpool and Goole, it must be stated to the credit of the Insurance Act that, owing to the zeal of the local Board of Trade officials, it has there been the means (as described in the Supplement to The Crusade for January, 1913, and more fully in an article by Mr. F. Keeling appearing in the Economic Journal for March, 1913) of enabling the Labour Exchange to organise the taking on, and even the payment of wages, in such a way as to make hardship and an unintended injustice—aggra- vated, as we shall see, in the trades subject to Unemployment Insurance—which is causing a very bitter feeling, and calls imperatively for an immediate amendment of the law. Mr. Master- man repeatedly declares that the Government has the point under careful consideration. But time presses. MULCTING THE WEAK. In some Instances—notably among domestic servants—employers are voluntarily paying the whole contribution, and deducting nothing. In other classes of employment the employers have, here and there, contrary to the spirit of the Act, not only made the lawful deduction from wages, but also avowedly “ taken it out ” of the opera- tives. In a few cases the weekly working hours have been deliberately increased by 2 or 3 per cent, without addition to wages. In many others, the rate of payment has been reduced. In still more cases the employers have withdrawn privi- leges—sometimes holidays, sometimes the firm’s contribution to the sick fund; more frequently, the gratuitous supply of some factory requisite— avowedly because of the new impost put upon them (or, as already explained, really on their customers) by Mr. Lloyd George. Employers seem able to do in business, without self-reproach, “ ungentlemanly ” things that they would not dream of doing in their private capacity. One Is ashamed to think that, in almost every reported case, it is only against weak and unor- ganised women that these mean aggressions have been made. But in spite of the deplorably large number of these cases already reported—cases which demand the urgent attention of the Depart- ment of the Board of Trade which is considering the extension of the scope of the Trade Boards Act—^over the great bulk of industry (especially where there are Trade Unions), the wage-earners have not been asked directly to pay the employer’s share. To the extent that they are consumers, they are, of course, paying it, as already ex- plained, in the enhanced cost of the com- modities that they buy. And here the economist it possible—we cannot put it any higher—one day to effect a real measure of decasualisation. This important pre- liminary step might equally be taken at London and New- castle, Glasgow and Hull, if the employers would only respond to the invitations of the Board of Trade for such a reform. At one or two other ports the employers have, for their own convenience, taken some joint action. Thus, at Leith, where the first employer in each week stamps the card for the week, even if he employs the man only for a few hours, the associated employees have a monthly “ clearing,” when their several payments are mutually adjusted so as to correspond with their several wage totals. At Sunderland, the Labour Exchange issues tallies to the recognised wharf labourers, without which they are not taken on ; but there is no system of combined pays as at Liverpool and Goole. A very successful scheme is worked by the Labour Exchange for the Manchester cloth-porters.
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