Excerpt from Report on Collective Agreements Between Employers and Workpeople in the United Kingdom: Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty

It has usually been impracticable to set forth in this volume the complete text of the Agreements, but a list of all the Agreements is given in the Appendices, while the method adopted in the body of the Report has been to illustrate the general character of these arrangements by selecting as speci mens a certain number of typical Agreements, and printing these, or extracts adequate to convey an accurate idea of their nature, together With such historical introductions and explanations of technical terms as seem likely to facilitate the comprehension of their details.

The wide prevalence of these arrangements in our most important industries must have an important influence on industrial enterprise, for when the level of wages, the length of the working day, and other principal conditions of employment are regulated, for specified periods of greater or less duration, by clearly defined Agreements, the employers concerned must be enabled to calculate with precision that part of the cost of pro duction which will be represented by labour further, when these Agreements bind the whole or a very large proportion of the firms engaged in a given trade, the danger Of undercutting by rivals who find it possible to obtain labour at a lower price is materially reduced.

It will be noticed that although the number of industrial workpeople covered by Collective Agreements is very consider able, it is less than a fourth of the whole number employed in the United Kingdom. Such Agreements imply a highly developed state Of industry and the existence of some form of organisation among both employers and workpeople. Where such conditions do not exist, agreements of a general character between all ornearly all the employers and workpeople in each trade or district are, generally speaking, impossible, because there is no machinery for bringing them about or for enforcing their provisions.

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