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If the T.U. C. would agree to such a provision it is possible that we could proceed by agreement. It might lead to a number of strikes but those we should have to fight through and win: we could not afford to give way.
12.
The precise manner in which to secure our objective requires careful consideration. Clearly we must without delay make an approach to the T. U. C. on the lines that for a period of not less than nine months the only factor that is to be taken into account in any negotiations or arbitrations for wage or salary advances is the question of whether the existing wage or salary provides the necessary minimum standard of living for the recipient and his family.
13.
1
As regards the method of adjudicating on claims for increased wages, there seem to us to be two possibilities. The first possibility would be to mark the wholly exceptional nature of the departures which it was intended to allow from the general standstill by arranging by agreement that any claims for increased wages in respect of these workers should be decided not by the ordinary negotiating machinery of industry but by some machinery specially charged with that duty. If this principle is agreed, the Minister of Labour would propose to consult, his National Joint Advisory Council on the details of the proposal, including the Tribunal which might be used for the purpose and the procedure to be followed in order to bring such claims before the Tribunal, and on the prociso terms of reference to secure that the Tribunal was not driven, as a con- dition of admission of claims for consideration, to laying down a general standard of adequate wages by which it would be guided
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The second possibility is that discussions on wages claims should continue to be carried on through the existing machinery. This method of giving effect to the policy has the disadvantage that, by leaving the determination of what consti- tutes an adequate wage to a large number of adjudicating or negotiating bodies, there is unlikely to be any real uniformity in the criteria they adopt and disparities of standard between different industries and different parts of the country may make the policy progressively more difficult to hold. But it has the advantage that it relies on existing machinery and that the disparities, if they are not such as to undermine the policy, are, in another way, a form of flexibility.
For these two reasons, this method has possibilities of longer survival than a more rigorous approach such as would be secured by charging a special tribunal with the duty of determining the claims now in question.
15.
We suggest that we should open negotiations with the T. U. C. with both these methods of approach in mind, with the objective of securing, either by one or the other, or in some other way, a method of procedure which will enable the general standstill on wages, subject only to exception for low-paid workers, to have the longest possible prospect of operation subject to its being effective for its purpose.
as we
16.
We feel, however, that if we are to insist must upon the absolute and critical necessity of this restraint by the workers at the present time, we must make some gesture of sympathy which will make them feel that they are not alone suffering while profit earners as a whole benefit as a result of the increased profits which there will undoubted- ly be, in some cases as a result of the change in the value of sterlinBage 508 a6661 whether it is practi Palole58 of 6 G Q t if y profits specifically within this category and indeed whether it would be wise to try, having regard to the need for maintaining the greatest possible inducements to secure dollar earnings.
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