CHAPTER XVI TRADE UNIONS THE growth of Trade Unions in India is of recent date, and anything in the nature of a fully formulated Association has only been known for a few years. The name is still given to organizations that are merely temporary strike committees which arise in connection with isolated grievances and dwindle away when the workers meet with defeat or when the grievance is remedied.1 Strikes,2 however, occur naturally amongst Indian workers who readily combine together and cease work, or absent themselves from the mills on any occasion of strife. The causes that lead to strikes are very varied. The commonest demands are for a rise in wages, or for an increase of bonus. Very often, however, subsidiary demands are linked with the primary one, and may refer to supplies of clean water, dining-sheds and holidays. In other cases the grievance that caused or embittered the dispute has been the amount of size used, or in the case of women, the absence of coolies to carry bobbins from the roving to the spinning rooms. Sometimes a claim is made for an allowance when the machinery is in bad condition, or when the quality of the jute or cotton is so poor as to damage the output. Difficulties arise, and will probably arise to an increasing extent, in connection with overseers. These may take " See reference to a visit to India by Mr. Keir Hardie in 1907, and to his conclusion that his purpose to attempt to start Trade Unions there was premature, in an article on Industrial Conditions and Trade Unions in India," by Michael Prothero, Edinburgh Review for October 1922, p. 364. "A strike is in western countries the last, while in India it is the first weapon of redress."-" Labour Unrest in India," by Gulzari Lal Nanda, M.A., LL.B., Journal of Indian Economics, vol. iii, part iv, p. 464. the form of demands to get rid of an overbearing sirdar, or to have one who has been dismissed replaced, or of an effort to secure someone who is popular. A disturbance of this kind may be complicated by the fact that some sirdars are apt, when there is trouble in the departments, to send in the names of men whom they dislike for dismissal, and to get nominees of their own put into such men's places. It is interesting to notice in this connection that the western terms used are often misleading. When reference is made to the demand for "the management of discipline by the workers" it may be scorned as an altogether absurd proposal, in view of the general illiteracy. It appears, however, in a somewhat different light when the request spoken of as a "demand for the management of discipline by the workers" turns out to be little more than a protest against the appointment of a new sirdar who happens to be one of an oppressive clique already too powerful in the mill ! When such strikes, entirely independent of any Trade Union, happen, various methods are taken by the management to bring them to an end. A small deputation of workmen may be met in the manager's office. When the difficulty is connected with a sirdar, inquiry into the conditions, and dismissal or reinstatement, if such seems wise, may bring the embryo strike to an end. If these methods fail, the manager may arrange (or happen), to meet the strikers or their leaders in the bazar. Very probably an influential moneylender, or gambler, or wrestler, or all three combined in one person is put forward as their representative. In other cases the priest of the temple or the moulvi of the mosque may be their spokesman. Discussion is carried on in the open in an informal way. If this is not successful, there are cases in which a bribe from the manager, sometimes paid out of his own pocket, will be given to an overseer or to any other who will settle a strike. Attempts to organize permanent Trade Unions, on the other hand, still meet with very special difficulties. Various considerations that have already been mentioned tend ■ Muslim priest. to increase these. The fluctuation of labour makes it extremely difficult to keep regular records of members. As the latter move from one district to another, from one mill to another, or from town to country and back again, they lose touch with any union that they may have joined. For this reason it is difficult to recover payments. The position of the overseers in the mill further complicates the situation, as it would not suit their present outlook to be members of a Trade Union on an equal footing with the other workers, and they hold in their hands so much power that it is almost impossible for the workers to combine against them permanently. The prevalence of debt and the need to find the monthly interest for the moneylender, obviously makes it difficult for people to pay other weekly or monthly dues, and even in those cases where there is a surplus, the tendency to convert money into jewellery and to consider a wife's ornaments a safe bank, further operates against the stability of Trade Unions. Probably the greatest difficulty in the way of regular organization and progress is illiteracy. It was a woman who said, when she was asked why she was not working, that the Raj had forbidden people to work, but many of the men who are working in mills have little more grasp of the situation than she had, and are swayed one way or another by the advice of the last person to whom they have spoken. One result of this is that in almost every case the beginnings of Trade Union organization have taken place outside of the mills and workshops. A further complication enters here, owing to the fact that so much of the work of these Unions has been purely political. Outsiders who have been the organizers of the present Trade Unions may be divided into four groups: real sympathizers; political agitators; unscrupulous individuals; and those who are to a certain extent real sympathizers with Labour, but whose primary interest is political. The unscrupulous individuals who have often engineered strikes, and temporary Trade Unions, may be dismissed in a few words. They frequently belong to the lawyer class, and may 1 Government. See p. III. either take their opportunity when trouble is known to be in mills, or may directly stir up grievances in the hope of making money out of the disturbance. Those who are moved by the desire for social justice and by sympathy with the workers alone, and those who are political agitators pure and simple, are difficult to distinguish individually from the larger body of those who, to a greater or less extent, combine the two characteristics. Mr. Hurst in writing of the earlier Trade Unions, deplores that "social workers did not take the initiative," but "allowed the lawyer-politician class to capture and control these bodies." He goes on to note the absence of printed and published rules, and the fact that the organization and control of many Unions relating to different trades is in the hands of the same group of persons, who desire to control Labour for political ends. The question of motive on the part of the organizers will come up again in connection with the more prominent Trade Unions which are now in operation. Meanwhile, it is interesting to note an extreme instance of the way in which purely political propaganda may be carried out. The case in question is one in which it would be impossible to feel that the general interests of the poorer workers of the industry were the special motive. It occurred in a mill in South India. The instigators persuaded a small, essential group of workers (roller-coverers) to strike. In this particular mill there were four men only in the group. No other workers understood how to cover rollers. The absence of the four men threatened the paralysis of the work of the entire mill. A stoppage was prevented because there happened to be in the mill a skilful workmen who quickly learnt from the manager how to cover the rollers. For fear lest he might be molested he was not allowed to work on the mill premises. The rollers were carried to a shed close to the manager's house, and through the emergency this one man was able to keep the mill supplied. Further efforts by the propagandists were made to get hold of the engineers of the mill, but in this they failed. In "Suggestions for Labour Legislation," by A. R. Burnett-Hurst, B.Sc., F.S.S., Indian Journal of Economics, vol. iii, part iv, p. 504. circumstances where methods such as these are used to inaugurate strikes it is natural that many employers would welcome the organization of Trade Unions, and would be grateful to have a united body of workers with which to bargain. While this is true of some, there is no doubt that other employers would resent further developments. One reason for this is the prevalent belief that willingness to meet organized Labour would be mistaken for weakness by the workers, and would embolden the leaders to encourage strikes, and thus keep workers restless. The attitude of a considerable number of employers is exemplified by a manager who said that the Unions in Ahmedabad had caused him to lose all control over the men, and added that if he told a man to go back to his work, when many were loitering about in the open smoking at 9.45 a.m., there would be a strike. Trade Unions amongst clerks, railway workers, and seamen have been in operation for some considerable time. The Employees' Association in Calcutta has a membership of accountants, stenographers, and insurance canvassers, but in 1921 it included no manual workers amongst its members. Beginnings of interest were shown by the fact that many labourers and overseers came to ask advice from the office, and the fact that dock labourers and iron workers were represented at a Trade Union Congress held in Calcutta, in April 1922, suggests that the movement must be gaining ground. There is also a Bengal Labour Federation, which takes part in efforts to bring about better understanding between Employers and Labour, but there seem to be no organized Trade Unions amongst mill-workers on the Hooghly. One of the first Trade Unions amongst the actual workers in mills was formed in Madras,1 in 1918, but after a stormy career, had not, in 1922, achieved stability. Within the last two or three years there have been developments which differ from any of those already " It was organized by Mr. B. P. Wadia, author of Labour in Madras. See Industrial Conditions and Trade Unions in India," by Michael Prothero, Edinburgh Review, October 1922, P. 375; Indian Journal of Economics, vol. iii, part iv, p. 513, and the Round Table, March 1921, P. 373. |