INSURANCE AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT.
IT has gradually been becoming clear that more hope lies in some satisfactory scheme of insurance against unemployment—preferably without any intervention from the State—than in any other industrial reform. The hope is strong because so far as can be judged such insurance is quite practical. We do not say that it is easy, but the way seems clearer than for any other proposal. Insurance against unemployment would cure a multitude of ills and it is the scheme above all others for which both Capital and Labour show signs of being ready to co-operate.
It is desirable from the point of view of the manual workers because every workman, particularly if he is engaged in one of those trades which are subject to violent fluctuations, is haunted throughout his active life by the fear of being thrown out of work. This is a dread which visits even the best and most honest workers. It is a dread which certainly ought to be removed if forethought and care can possibly remove it. We have little sympathy with the doctrine that a certain amount of unemployment is inevitable and that so far from being harmful it is rather useful because it provides a reservoir of labour which can be drawn upon when there is a sudden flaring-up of trade. The manual worker has a right to demand that if he works honestly he shall have some security in his employment. At present he sees no organized provision being made during the good times in trade for the bad times, or at all events com- paratively bad times, which generally follow.
From the point of view of the employer unemployment insurance is not less important. The reason is simple. In the absence of any such insurance the manual worker sets up a kind of insurance of his ewn invention. He says, " If I work too hard this job will be quickly finished and I may find that no other job is coming along. Then I shall be out of work. The only way in which I can protect myself is to spread the work over as long a time as possible." Some such rough-and-ready argument as this is one of the essential motives underlying the practice of ca' canny. Can it be wondered at ? The employer is now suffering, indeed, from a double disadvantage. Not only is ea' canny encouraged by the present con- ditions, but an appreciable proportion of the manual workers are demoralized by the Government doles that have been intruded to save the situation.
Of course, we know perfectly well that nearly all industries are working with such a narrow margin of profit that these are unfavourable days for starting any new scheme requiring contributions. Even if the charges could really be quite well borne by every industry both employers and manual workers might regard the neces- sary contributions as a very inopportune exaction. Trade, however, is at last improving, and though we are a very long way from prosperity there is no time to be lost if the machinery for insurance is to be ready in time. Not many weeks ago Mr. Bonar Law definitely said that he hoped it would be possible " to make further progress in the direction of making unemployment insurance a part of the trade burden of industry." We have no doubt that Mr. Bonar Law meant what he said. The ground had already been prepared to some extent by Dr. Macnamara when he was Minister of Labour. He issued a circular asking for opinions, and before the late Government fell several replies had been received from both employers and Labour organizations. Although in the replies there was great diversity of views, there seems to have been something like a general agreement that in times of good trade provision could and should be made for the employees who would be temporarily idle when the tide of work receded.
As is well known, certain firms whose industry is not liable to serious vicissitudes already have unemployment insurance schemes. There are, moreover, two or three industries which are so compact and self-contained that unemployment insurance would probably be possible for them immediately. In his admirable work, Labour Policy—False and True, Sir Lynden Macassey comes, however, to the conclusion that unemployment insurance, if it is to cover the whole country, cannot be worked by individual trades, but must be a scheme for industry as a whole. Ile points out that there are industries which have no organization whatever. Only highly organized industries could undertake to provide for their own unemployed ; and among the highly organized industries probably only a selected few could as a matter of fact do it. The reason is that most industries arc interlocked with others. Hardly anywhere can you draw a frontier line. Sir Lynden Macassey cites the cases of the engineering and iron and steel trades. These names comprise a vast number of different yet cognate trades among which there is a great interchange of labour, and for the purposes of insurance it would be impossible to distinguish the trades. The usual objection to unemployment insurance for industry as a whole is that the good trades—those with little unemployment—would be paying for the bad trades. But surely the principle of that objection is swallowed, and not only swallowed but digested, in innumerable existing schemes of insurance. Nor can it be supposed that Labour would raise such an objection, as modern trade union practices are largely based on the doctrine that the good workers must carry the bad along with them.
We have before us a suggested scheme for unemploy- ment insurance in the boot and shoe trade drawn up by Mr. C. A. McCurdy. He remarks that before the War even in bad times the average of unemployed was not more than 4 per cent., and he very reasonably submits that that is not a large percentage to be provided for by the remaining 96. If only unemployment could be insured against, insurance against other evils would be automatically effected. Since the Armistice, it is said, no fewer than 170,000,000 working days have been lost owing to strikes and lock-outs, and that figure includes only the days lost in the trades directly con- cerned. An incalculable amount of time was, of course, also lost in the trades indirectly affected. The loss in wages and profit, the loss of foreign markets which have not yet been recovered, and the unnecessary depreciation of capital are estimated by Mr. McCurdy to have amounted, since the Armistice, to £200,000,000.
But we must quote his brief summary of his scheme :- " A simple system of weekly contributions from the workers and employers in one trade—and I take that of my own con- stituency, the boot and shoe trade, as an example—would yield the following benefits :
is. Bd. per week from 20,000 women operatives equals .. 265,000 2s. per week from 100,000 men operatives equals • ' • • .. £520,000 An average of 3d. per pair on 100 million pairs of boots equals .. • • £1,250,000
Add to this the existing State contributions for unemployment, health, old-age pensions, etc., and you get a total of /2,085,000. Now /2,085,000 is ample to pay pensions of 40s. per week in the case of men, and 25s. per week for women, for sickness, accident, permanent disablement, old-age pensions (beginning at 65), in addi- tion to the existing medical benefits. It would also provide unem- ployment pay at the rate of 85s. per week for men and 20s. per week for women.
Nom— Me suggested contributions from the workers are NOT in addition to present contributions, but in substitution for them."
Mr. McCurdy foresees that the 3d. tax might be resented and repelled just because it was a tax. But he replies that it would be a far lighter burden-than the co_ t of industrial unrest as we have known it in the last few years.
We do not profess to have enough knowledge of the boot trade to be able to criticize Mr. McCurdy's proposal. We understand that it has received severe criticism as well as praise. At all events, we can sincerely say Thank You to everybody who provides material for discussion, and that Mr. McCurdy has certainly done. All we have tried to do in this article is to insist that unemployment insurance is the obvious problem in the solution of which employers and employed can combine their forces immediately and with every hope of success.
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