Page 454 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Story of the C.W.S.
mere unit of business arithmetic. Indeed, this spiritual, as distinct
from material, demand may be felt to move, blindly and uncon-
sciously perhaps, within the visible works of labour unrest. However,
so far as they go, there is no doubting the four points. During the
last dozen years they have crystaUised in the demand for a minimum
standard of existence, meaning on the side of wages a minimum wage.
It is notable that one of the first, if not the first, proposal of the kind
made in this country came from a great co-operative leader, Lloyd
Jones. Writing in the Beehive in July, 1874, he urged upon the
Northumbrian miners that they should stand for a minimum wage
instead of a sUdhig scale. The Australian legislation of 1896 onwards
drew attention to the possibihty of a legal minimum; and the
formation of the Anti-Sweating League and the holding of sweated
industries exhibitions (to which the C.W.S. and other co-operative
societies subscribed) paved the way for the present Trade Boards.
Meanwhile the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative Employees had
named 24s. a week as their minimum for men. Unofficially one or
two C.W.S. factories early adopted this rule, and in August, 1907,
the C.W.S. Committee decided that this should be the minimum for
adult male labour in all C.W.S. factories, warehouses, and offices.
There remained the economically more difficult question of a
minimum for women. Following the sweated industries exhibitions,
the Women's Co-operative Guild, at its Ipswich Congress in June,
1906, passed a resolution in favour of a minimum wage for women
in the co-operative movement. The Central Committee of the
Guild then approached the Amalgamated Union of Co-operative
Employees, which at that time had named a minimum for men, but
had not fixed a minimum for women. In the next year, 1907, at the
Congress of the general co-operative movement, held in Preston,
the principle of the minimum was affirmed, and the executive of the
Co-operative Union was urged to prepare a scheme. The United
Board called to their assistance the guildswomen and the
employees' union, who already had collected evidence as to wages
paid by co-operative societies generally. Meeting at Leman Street on
February 8th, 1908, Messrs. Bisset, Mille'rchip, and Golightly (for the
United Board), ]\irs. Gasson and Miss Spooner (for the Guild),
and Messrs. Hewitt and R. J. Wilson (for the A.U.C.E.), drew up
the now well-known " Congress scale." For youths of 14 years the
wage was to start at 6s., and rise in seven years to 24s. Girls were to
begin at 5s., and by yearly increments attain 17s. at 20 years. The
legal minimum wages fixed by the Trade Boards are accompanied by
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