Slike strani
PDF
ePub

the general satisfaction of employers and employed." I have no information as to the satisfaction or otherwise felt by the employed with that system, but from the information I have received from employers out there I should be inclined to say their feeling was better described as one of general dissatisfaction, rather than satisfaction, with the system.

12. Whatever may be the explanation of the Recommendations made by my colleagues in the Majority Report, I have no hesitation in saying it will not be found in the evidence given before us. We called before us no less than 58 witnesses representing all the leading trades and industries, and their evidence was heard for 28 days; yet, to my surprise, my colleagues who have signed the Majority Report have thought it right to entirely ignore this evidence, except only so far as it relates to the maintenance of the Taff Vale decision, as to which we are unanimous (Majority Report, Articles 1-35, 39). My surprise that these Recommendations should be made will be shared not only by the witnesses who, at our request, gave evidence before us and whose evidence, though practically unanimous, has been absolutely ignored, but will be equally felt by any impartial person who will peruse the Volume of Evidence issued simultaneously with our Report. My recommendations which are entirely based upon the evidence, confirmed as it is by my own personal experience, may be summarized as follows:

(1) That no statute should be passed which would in effect repeal the decisions in the Taff Vale case, Lyons v. Wilkins, and Quinn v. Leathem, the beneficial effects of which to the community generally have been emphasized by all our wit

nesses.

(2) That Sub-section 3 (a) of Section 4 of the Trade Union Act, 1871, be repealed in order to give members of a Trade Union a right of action against the Trade Union to which they belong for improperly refusing to apply for their benefit the benefit funds to which they had contributed and that Sub-section 4 of Section 4 of the Trade Union Act, 1871, be also repealed in order to make agreements entered into between Trade Unions of workmen and Trade Unions of employers legally enforceable.

(3) That the proviso only of Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, be repealed in order to prevent watching and besetting under any circumstances. This Recommendation is also made by Sir Godfrey Lushington in his Report.

(4) That in view of the overwhelming evidence we have received as to the cruelty and oppression to which non-Unionists are subjected at present, the practicability of devising legislation to prohibit strikes against non-Unionists should be considered in order to prevent, if possible, the existing gross infringements of the liberty of the subject.

II.

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF BRITISH LEGISLA

TION AFFECTING THE STATUS OF TRADE
UNIONS, 1824-1906.

Prior to 1824 the law of England treated the workingman who endeavored to secure an amelioration of his condition with great severity. The combination laws, so-called, which were in operation from 1799 to the time of their repeal in 1825, were very stringent. The preamble of the act of 1799 (39 Geo. III, Chap. 8) recited that "great numbers of journeymen manufacturers and workmen in various parts of this Kingdom have by unlawful meetings and combinations endeavored to obtain advance of their wages and to effectuate other illegal purposes; and the laws at present in force against such unlawful conduct have been found to be inadequate to the suppression thereof.” It was therefore held necessary "that more effectual provision should be made against such unlawful combinations; and for preventing such unlawful practices in future and for bringing such offenders to more speedy and exemplary justice." This law declared null and void all agreements between journeymen manufacturers or workmen entered into for the purpose of obtaining an advance of wages or altering their hours of labor, and workmen entering into such agreements were, upon conviction, to be committed to jail.

1824. A law was passed (5 Geo. IV, Chap. 67) repealing the law prohibiting combinations of workingmen, many acts thus repealed dating back to Edward I. (This act was repealed by the act of 1825.)

[ocr errors]

! 1825. The act of 1824 having been found to be unsatisfactory, an investigation was had by a Parliamentary Committee which resulted in a new law (6 Geo. IV, Chap. 129) abrogating the act of 1824. This new law provided that it should not be held unlawful for persons to meet for the purpose of consulting upon and determining the rate of wages or prices which the persons present at such meeting should demand for their work." The right of collective bargaining, involving the power to hold labor from the market by concerted action, was

thus for the first time established. (This act was repealed by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871.)

1859. The dissatisfaction arising from the interpretation which the courts put upon the act of 1825, namely, that labor combinations were unlawful, under the common law, on the ground that they were in restraint of trade, — provoked an agitation extending over a long period of years and finally resulted, in 1859, in the passage of an act (22 Vict., Chap. 34) amending the law by providing that workingmen were not to be held guilty of "molestation" or "obstruction" under the act of 1825 simply for entering into agreements to fix the rate of wages, or the hours of labor, or to endeavor peaceably to persuade others to cease or abstain from work to produce the same results. (This law was also repealed by the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871.)

1871. The courts in their decision of cases arising out of the act of 1859 were scarcely more friendly than they had been in their interpretation of the original act of 1825, and a fresh agitation to more firmly secure for workingmen the right to organize arose. In 1867 a commission was therefore appointed to inquire into the subject, and its report resulted in the passage of two important acts:

1. The Trade Union Act (34 and 35 Vict., Chap. 31). This act provided that "the purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be deemed to be unlawful, so as to render any member of such trade union liable to criminal prosecution for conspiracy or otherwise. The purposes of any trade union shall not, by reason merely that they are in restraint of trade, be unlawful so as to render void or voidable any agreement or trust." (The text of the

act is given in full on pages 192-201 of this report.)

2. The Criminal Law Amendment Act (34 and 35 Vict., Chap. 32). This act, while making stringent provisions against coercion, violence, threats, following, molestation, and obstruction, contained no prohibition against doing or conspiring to do an act on the ground that it was in restraint of trade unless it came within the scope of the enumerated prohibitions. (The text of the act is given in full on pages 202–206 of this report. It was amended by the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875.)

1875. It was generally assumed, after the legislation of 1871, that strikes as ordinarily conducted were not illegal.

But in 1872 certain gas stokers being on strike were indicted for conspiracy, the defendants brought to trial and sentenced to a year's imprisonment, the court holding that "a threat of simultaneous breach of contract by the men was conduct which the jury ought to regard as a conspiracy to prevent the gas company carrying on its business." The sentence, however, was quite generally regarded as severe, and so vigorous was the agitation provoked by it that a remission of eight months of the penalty originally meted out was secured for the men. But a more important result was that once more dissatisfaction with a court ruling led to the appointment of a commission of inquiry, which in turn reported recommendations for still further alterations in the law. So, in 1875, the Home Secretary introduced a bill which received the royal assent on August 13 of that year, (38 and 39 Vict., Chap. 86), and is known as the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875. The new law did not repeal the provisions relating to picketing in the law of 1871 but it contained this important provision:

An agreement or combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime.

(In force, but amplified by the Trade Disputes Act, 1906. The text is given in full on pages 206-215 of this report.)

1876. The Trade Union Amendment Act, 1876 (39 and 40 Vict., Chap. 22) amended the act of 1871, but did not repeal it. It gave a new definition, however, of a trade union in its last section, as follows:

The term "trade union" means any combination, whether temporary or permanent, for regulating the relations between workmen and masters, or between workmen and workmen, or between masters and masters, or for imposing restrictive conditions on the conduct of any trade or business, whether such combination would or would not, if the principal Act had not been passed, have been deemed to have been an unlawful combination by reason of some one or more of its purposes being in restraint of trade.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »