Committee was reorganized, representatives of employers and workpeople being added, to sit with the independent chairman. The Committee ceased to exist at the termination of the war when its place was taken by the Interim Court of Arbitration established under the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act. During its period of existence, it issued over 3, 7 50 awards covering most of the important industries in the country and dealing with all kinds of questions of wages and working conditions. In particular, reference may be made to the agreements negotiated, first in the engineering and allied trades and later in a large number of other trades, whereby the associations of employers and workpeople agreed to suspend existing agreements for the determination of general wages questions and to refer to the Committee on Production every four months the determination of the question what general alteration of wages, if any, was warranted by the abnormal conditions then existing and due to the war, with further power to determine special district cases.
The next important development after the institution of the Committee on Production in Feb. 1915, was the "Treasury Agreement " on the subject of the acceleration of output on Government work, negotiated between the Government and the principal trade-unions in March 1915. The Government's main proposals embodied in the Agreement were on the one hand to limit profits and on the other to prevent stoppages of work owing to trade disputes, and to secure the suspension during the war of trade-union restrictions on output. Although this agree- ment marked a definite stage of advance, real progress was not made until the Government embodied their proposals in the Munitions of War Act, 1915. This act was subsequently strength- ened by two further Munitions of War Acts in 1916 and 1917.
Munitions Acts. Under the Munitions of War Acts, a stop- page of work arising out of a difference on or in connexion with munitions work (which expression was given a very wide inter- pretation as the result of decisions of the High Court) became illegal unless the difference had been reported to the Board of Trade (subsequently to the Ministry of Labour) and had not, within 21 days from the date of the report, been referred for settlement. The compulsory arbitration thus introduced by the Acts was necessarily accompanied by the statutory enforcement of awards issued thereunder. For this purpose the existing forms of arbitration tribunal were utilized, viz., (i) Committee on Production; (2) single arbitrator, selected by agreement between the parties or, failing agreement, appointed by the Board of Trade (subsequently by the Ministry of Labour) ; and (3) ad hoc boards of arbitration, consisting of an independent chairman, an employers' representative and a labour representative. This last form of tribunal had been introduced in 1908 for appointments under the Conciliation Act in order to meet any objection on the part of Labour that, however fair a single arbitrator might be, he could better determine the matters at issue if there were asso- ciated with him persons directly acquainted with the point of view of employers and workpeople respectively. The Act of 1915 left it to the option of the Board of Trade to refer any difference reported under the Act to arbitration; the Amending Act of 1916 required the Board of Trade to refer such a difference if satisfied that it was bona fide. Although the definition of " munitions work " under the Acts was very wide, it did not include some very important industries such as mining, transport and agri- culture, but a further provision of the 1915 Act enabled the parts of the Act relative to the prohibition of strikes and lockouts and compulsory arbitration to be applied to work of any description (in addition to munitions work) by His Majesty by proclamation, and this course was adopted in certain instances (notably, South Wales coal miners, Lancashire card and blowing room opera- tives, and dockers at London, Liverpool and Glasgow). It may further be noted that the Munitions of War Acts contained no prohibition of incitement to strike. Consideration was given to this aspect of the problem and in Nov. 1915 the Defence of the Realm Regulation No. 42 was amended by the addition of the words in italics as indicated below:
If any person attempts to cause mutiny, sedition or disaffection among any of His Majesty's forces or among the civilian population,
or to impede or restrict the production, repair or transport of war material or any other work necessary for the prosecution of the war, he shall be guilty of an offence against these Regulations.
The Acts also authorized the Minister of Munitions inter alia to issue orders determining the rates of wages of particular classes of workpeople and a considerable number of orders were issued with regard to the rates of remuneration of women and girls. Other orders which had widespread effects were the orders made in Oct. 1917, giving a bonus of I2j^%on earnings to skilled time workers in engineering establishments and in shipyards, with a view to attempting to meet difficulties which had arisen owing to the altered relation between the earnings of skilled time workers and the unskilled and semi-skilled men on piece work. Three special arbitration tribunals were established for the determination of matters arising out of the various orders made under the 1916 and 1917 Acts.
Under the procedure of the Munitions of War Acts, arbitration became the normal method for the settlement of labour disputes. From the point of view of the workpeople, it was more ex- peditious to claim arbitration under the Acts than to endeavour to secure a settlement by conciliation machinery or other negotiations and, moreover, an award under the Acts was statutorily enforceable. On the employers' side also, arbitration was often found to be the most satisfactory procedure; when so much work was being done for Government purposes, the em- ployers' financial interest in the result of negotiations was dimin- ished. A further development was that in many industries (e.g. the railways and coal mines) the conciliation boards fell into abeyance. During the war wages claims were necessarily deter- mined largely in reference to the cost of living and consequently unions made claims for national advances in place of district claims. The net result, therefore, was a very large increase in the number of arbitrations under Government auspices and a falling off in conciliation settlements. During the four years 1915-8, nearly 8,000 awards were issued by arbitration tribunals under the Munitions of War Acts and, to a small extent, under the Con- ciliation Act, 1896. The Munitions of War Acts also introduced certain other features which have a considerable bearing on the settlement of labour differences, such as the power given to the Minister of Munitions under the Munitions of War Act, 1917, to extend an award, applying to the greater part of an industry, to other firms not party to the award but engaged on the same class of work.
It may be recorded that the New Ministries and Secretaries Act, 1916, transferred the powers of the Board of Trade under the Conciliation Act and the Munitions of War Acts to the newly created Ministry of Labour.
Wages Regulation Act. Immediately after the Armistice, the Government, at a national conference of employers and work- people on Nov. 13 1918, intimated that their post-war policy in relation to labour disputes was to leave employers and workpeople to adjust so far as possible their own differences. Certain pro- posals were placed before the conference for the period of transi- tion while industry was changing over from war to peace condi- tions. These proposals, which were accepted by the employers and by the trade unions, were embodied in the Wages (Tempo- rary Regulation) Act. The broad principle of that Act was to maintain as minimum rates, for a period of six months, the stand- ard district rates existing at the date of the Armistice. Wages having been regulated during the war mainly in relation to the cost of living, they had at the date of the Armistice reached a level far above the pre-war rate. It was not anticipated that the cost of living would fall considerably immediately after the Armistice, while there was a fear that rapid demobilization might so disturb the labour market as to result in attempts at wage reduction of a kind which would lead to great industrial unrest. The Act repealed the prohibition of strikes and lockouts con- tained in the Munitions of War Acts, and limited compulsory arbitration to the wage standards dealt with in the new Act; it continued, in the Interim Court of Arbitration, the principle of a central arbitration tribunal which had been so successful in the form of the Committee on Production.
