In his last address to the shareholders as Chairman of the Company, Sir William Mather expressed, the hope that “our Company will maintain a high place among the pioneer employers, who feel it to be their paramount duty to provide for the training and education of their young workers and the general welfare of their adult employees.”(1) By that time the welfare policy of the firm was securely established, but just as production techniques had changed between 1851 and 1917, so too had ideas of welfare. Sir William himself saw clearly that welfare had to be related to the problems of a large concern working in a democratic age. The task sixty years before had been that of taking paternalist responsibility for workers in a small one-man business, operating in an age when many employers were content to believe in laissez-faire. Between 1851 and 1917 the three elements in the determination of working class welfare - the employers, the trade unions and the state - had all changed the character of their organisation, their functions and the objectives they set themselves. The very word “welfare” itself was beginning
to take on a new meaning. The story of Mather & Platt
Ltd. fits into a wider national setting, which has still
been incompletely sketched, by historians, and which
indeed can only be sketched adequately when the histories
of many different firms have been written. William
Mather's early days as an apprentice had taught him the
dignity of work. They also made him seek the sympathy and
friendship of working men. Before that Colin Mather had
taken a rougher responsibility for his men and must have
known most of them by their Christian names, but William
went further. He tried to identify more closely the
workers at Salford with the firm itself and the families
that managed it. In 1877, for instance, the employees
were taken to Belle Vue to celebrate the birth of his
first son, Ernest. They and their wives were taken direct
from the shop to the gardens and were given the
responsibility of decorating the large tearoom. In
January 1880, each employee received a card wishing him a
happy New Year and enclosing a double week's wages as a
reward for getting out machinery for a large order for
Russia before the Russian tariff came into operation.
“There never was such a ringing of the Old Year out
as we had that year", reminisced one of the old
employees. We had steel bars hung all over the
shop, and the anvils had wood put under them to sound
better, and boiler plates were sent down from the Boiler
yard. Mr. Mather and his wife, Mr. J. Platt and his wife
and their friends all came to hear the Old Year out and
New Year in. We banged away with a will and they all
enjoyed it.”(2)
That
scene so well described by these who took part in the
rejoicing enables us to recapture the intimate atmosphere
of the old Salford Iron Works. It had not been long since
Colin Mather had driven down to the works each morning in
his brougham. It is said that if on his way he passed his
two sons he did not so much as look at them. They were
apprentices and had to be treated, on the way to work and
at work, as if they were in no way connected with him. Mather &
Platt was a family business, administered with as much
care as if there had been closer ties than those of
economic interest. The apprentices, for instance, had to
go for one hour a week in the firm’s time to the
Salford Baths to wash and to learn to swim. The lodge man
gave each lad his ticket and a man was sent with the boys
to see that they did not get drowned. At
the works themselves two early engines which provided
power for the plant were named after William
Mather’s two daughters, Florence and Grace. Paternalism
was only the beginning of a welfare policy: it fitted
into a Society where the state took no interest in
welfare, where the trade unions lacked organised
bargaining power, and where some employers were content
to treat their employees as mere “hands”. It
was the special greatness of Sir William that he saw that
paternalism was not enough in a changing age. As Bishop
Welden said at his funeral, “in the conduct of his
business he was a pioneer of reform. He was one of those
wise men, who foresaw that the relations of capital and
labour could not remain in a democratic age as they had
existed in the past”. Three of his ventures before
1914 stand out — the provision of canteen services;
the move to shorter working hours in 1893; and the
inauguration of a Workpeople’s Holiday Fund in 1910.
If those ventures stand out, it is not because they were
special or unusual, but because they were vivid examples
of a general policy, put into effect constantly and
without question by the firm. One present employee of the
firm still remembers clearly a speech William Mather made
during the Engineers’ dispute of 1897, which began
“Fellow workers and labourers". It was the
attitude that these words expressed which animated his
practical ventures. 1. Canteen Services Having
taken steps in 1873 to forward the mental training of
their workers, Mather & Platt turned in 1878 to
problems of’ physical welfare. Canteen facilities
were not in great demand at that time, for most of the
employees lived near the Salford Iron Works and went home
for dinner. In 1878, however, part of tile Queen Street
Institute premises were placed at the disposal of those
employees; for warming up food brought by those workers
who were not able to got home for the midday meal. Little
more could be done or indeed was necessary to develop
satisfactory canteen services at Salford, where space was
limited, but big changes were possible at Park Works. In
1912, when most of the departments had moved to Newton
Heath and many employees had considerable distances to
travel between home and work, a works dining room
designed to seat 1,400 men and women was opened and
equipped to serve regular hot meals each day. A separate
dining room for staff employees was added in 1917 and one
for girl employees in 1936. For
those employees who remained at the Salford Iron Works, a
hot meal service from the central kitchens at Park Works
was organised in 1924, and food was sent in bulk four
miles each day to the Queen Street Institute in heat
retaining containers. The service was so popular at
Salford Iron Works that men employed at the Boiler Yard
soon demanded it. By
comparison with the early workshops at Salford Iron
Works, general conditions of cleanliness at Park Works
were greatly improved. A cloakroom was installed next to
the canteen, with washing facilities and individual
towels, so that every man could wash in warm water and
have the sole use of a clean towel before taking his meal
or going home after work. A locker room was also provided
where a man could leave his outdoor clothes before going
into the shops. A
sub-committee of the Works Committee set up during the
First World War subsequently administered the dining
rooms, kitchen and laundry. The charge for meals was
expected to cover the cost of provisions, the labour
concerned in the preparation of food and the replacement
of breakage's while the cost of rent, light and heat was
borne by the Company. 2. The Forty-eight Hour Week In the
middle years of the nineteenth century life as lived by
the mass of Manchester’s workpeople was grim and
hard. The walls of economic necessity were as high as the
walls of’ the workshops themselves. Individual men
rose from the mass to proclaim the values of self-help,
character and duty, but for those who did not rise there
was often little in life save dependence upon the
machine. The hours of’ work were reduced, in large
measure as a result of trade union pressure, from more
than ten hours a day before 1831 to a 57 - 58½ hour
normal working week for Manchester engineers between 1850
and 1870. In 1871 and 1872 the nine hour working day was
established, and in 1890 the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers supported by other craft unions was pressing
for legislative action to secure an eight hour working
day “as an adjunct to the voluntary efforts of the
working men and women of the United Kingdom”.
(1) Although the agitation was carried on somewhat
sporadically, in 1894 the Government agreed to introduce
the 48-hour week in Government Factories and dockyards.
Even the it was not until after the London engineering
societies had taken the initiative in 1896 that there was
a general demand for an eight-hour day. Serious
consequences were to follow the pressing of the claim in
1897. Long before
that time William Mather had taken the initiative on his
own without pressure of any kind being applied. In 1893,
before the government had decided to introduce the
shorter working week in their engineering establishments
he took a characteristically bold step. He had come to
the conclusion that the long working week of 53½ hours
did not allow the workers that time for leisure and
recreation, which he held necessary to their well being.
Furthermore, and this appeared to him to be decisive - it
seemed likely that shorter working hours would not only
benefit the workers but also, by abolishing fatigue,
would involve no loss of output.
Up
to that time the working day had begun at 6.a.m. and with
half an hour’s break from 8.a.m. to 8.30a.m. for
breakfast and an hour's break from 12.30 to l.30 p.m. for
dinner had continued until 5.30p.m. (1) Some
industrialists questioned the value of the hours between
6.0a.m. and 8.0a.m. and doubted whether they were
economically as well as socially desirable. In 1893
William Mather told the trade unions that he would like
to try a year’s experimental working of a 48-hour
week. This was a pioneer step, supported by only a
handful of other employers who included Hadfields the
Steelmakers of Sheffield, the Thames Iron Works, London
and the Scotia Engine Works, Sunderland, owned by William
Allan M.P. The experiment by Mather & Platt, was,
however, deemed to be successful and the 48-hour week
became a permanent feature of employment at Salford Iron
Works. Yet although it was found, as had been assumed,
that output was increased, few employers were prepared at
that time to recognise the advantages of shorter working
hours. For a long time indeed the firm, of Mather &
Platt was boycotted by employers organisations, the most
important of which, the Employers’ Federation of
Engineering Associations, was set up in 1896. Even John
Morley, with whom William Mather was corresponding, was
sceptical about the effects of the scheme on the payment
of overtime and on the position of other industries more
subject to foreign competition. (2) The
shrewd judgement behind Mather & Platt s introduction
of the 48-hour week was revealed four years later during
the Engineers’ Dispute of 1897. It was an extremely
bitter dispute, with the employers banded together in
newly organised employers’ associations, attempting
to make the most of reviving trade, and the workers,
rallied by an Eight hour Committee, seeking to cling to
existing industrial practices and to shorten the length
of the working day throughout the whole of the industry.
During the struggle, which was fully reported in the
press at the time William Mather tried hard to bring both
sides together. He explained that he could be heard by
both sides “at least with toleration” because
he was in a “neutral position. “I have never
been a member of any employers federation, nor have I had
a difference with our workpeople.” It was essential
to end the dispute, because it was undermining
Britain’s competitive position as an engineering
country. “Our existence as a great engineering
industry is, through this deplorable and truly
fratricidal war, in imminent danger of collapse and ruin,
from which it would take years to recover.
The
consequences of a long-continued, struggle, ending at
last only through the exhaustion and not the submission
of either side, would be infinitely more serious than
those which would fellow any other trade dispute in this
country. For instance, a protracted stoppage from like
causes in the coal, iron or cotton trades though for the
time calamitous would not mean the extinction of those
industries .... but our machine-making engineering and
shop-building productions can be replaced by those of
America, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and even
Russia with great rapidity.” (1) Sir
William proposed that the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers and the Employers’ Federation should meet
and discuss the question of coming to a mutual
understanding, based on the acceptance of a 48 hour week
and an agreement about the use of machine tools. He
thought that such a compromise would ensure the
safeguarding of the joint interests of employers and
workers. The Manchester Guardian took up
the point in an editorial: - “could the British
engineering industry be what it is without the organising
and directory power of the British employer, or without
the readiness and energy which he can command in his
workmen"? (2) William
Mather invited Colonel Dyer, a managing director of
Armstrong Whitworth and president of the Employers’
Federation to visit him at his home and made the proposal
that the 48 hour week should be granted provided that the
unions ceased “interfering with the functions
of’ management and restricted output”. The
proposal was rejected by the Federation, and the dispute
went on until the funds of the Union were exhausted. This
was exactly what William Mather had tried to avoid.
“A complete defeat of the Employers Federation in
the present struggle would not give the workmen any
permanent advantage. Their victory would only be the next
worst thing to utter defeat. On the other hand were the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers defeated and, in
consequence were it to resort to the legislature to
enforce a 48 hour week, no Act of Parliament could be
granted by the wit of man to meet the complex conditions
of’ the engineering industry.” At this
stage Mather turned to the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers, and secured their co-operation in the
summoning of a conference which brought the dispute to an
end. He accomplished what Ritchie, the President of the
Board of Trade, had thought impossible, and although the
Union at the conference was compelled to withdraw its
demand for an eight-hour day, it was by no means
completely defeated. Between 1898 and 1902 all the
engineering unions were able to replenish their funds,
and persuade the employers to accept “a system of
collective bargaining even more systematic and national
than before prevailed.”(3) Although many
engineering firms were still working to a 54 or 54½ hour
week when war broke out in 1914. (4)
Mather
& Platt emerged unscathed from the dispute. Work
continued throughout the whole of the tension period.
Indeed, during the trouble, some valuable recruits were
added to the staff of the firm including one popular
foreman, Jack Leigh, a man who had previously worked at
Whitworths’, and who stayed with Mather & Platt
Ltd. until 1926. His first job was to turn the shafting
from the new Klondyke building at the Salford Iron Works,
which the firm was beginning to build while ‘the
general dispute was still in progress. (1) Throughout
and after the dispute Mather & Platt remained on good
terms with the trade unions. Indeed a clause in
Mather’s suggested settlement of the 1897 dispute
was that “on a settlement being arrived at, the
Employers Federation shall undertake to do nothing for
the purpose of impairing the trade union.” There
were in the Salford workshops representatives of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers, the Steam Engine
Makers, the United Pattern Makers Association and the
Foundrymen’s Union, and industrial relations were
smooth and unruffled. William Mather preferred a trade
unionist to a non-trade unionist as a workman because be
knew the sort of person with whom he was dealing, and he
was able to instil a sense of mutual responsibility. It
was natural that he was able to remain on good terms with
the local and national representatives of’ the Trade
Unions for the whole of his business career. The
payment of wages by the firm followed the standard
district rates, systemised from 1878 onwards by the
District Committees of the Union. Most wages were
time-rates until the 1880’s and 1890's.
In 1886 only 5% of the men and youth employed in the
engineering and boilermaking industries were paid on a
piecework system. By 1914, some 46% of the fitters, 37%
of the turners and nearly 50% of the machinemen in
Federated shops were working under some system of payment
by results. (2) Mather & Platt introduced
piecework in most sections of the firm before 1890: a
booking-in system was adopted, and every hour worked was
booked against the appropriate job number. A piece of
whitewashed board was used, with lines and figures ruled
in black lead. This was a very simple procedure,
especially when compared with the current practice of
giving a man a clock card for every job done and of
operating a central punch card system to tabulate results
by mechanical means. Although the introduction of
piecework and of premium bonus systems led to industrial
disputes in some firms, it created no serious
difficulties in either the Salford Iron Works or the new
shops at Park Works. During the early years following the
First World War, hours of work were reduced and higher
wages were secured by agreements between unions and
employers.
There
was a marked freedom from disputes during the inter-war
years, when the piece-rate system was more generally
applied. The 48-hour week gave way to the 47-hour week
and for the first time in September 1920 the Overtime and
Night Shift Agreement fixed overtime rates for the whole
country. Shortly after the end of the Second World War a
five-day working week of 44 hours was generally adopted
throughout the engineering industry. 3. The Holiday Fund Although
Sir William Mather recognised the place of trade unions
in modern industry and was anxious to co-operate with
them, he saw that there was still a place for
individualist action by an enlightened employer. He was
anxious that his eldest son, Ernest, who joined the firm
in 1899, should follow in his footsteps and was delighted
with the welcome given his son by the employees of the
firm. At celebrations held at Belle Vue they presented
Ernest with an illuminated address, offering him
congratulations on his success at Cambridge, his coming
of age and his association with the firm, and expressing
the ”earnest hope and desire ... that you may carry
into its management the broad views both with regard to
business policy and to the dealings and relationships
with the workmen that have always characterised your
father, and made his name a household word”.
(1) Unfortunately, Ernest Mather died as the result
of an accident while riding shortly after becoming a
director of the company and in 1910 Sir William endowed a
Workpeople's Holiday Fund in his memory. Sir
William hoped that grants from this fund would make real
holidays possible for the workpeople of the Company. In a
letter to Mr.L.B.Mather, posted on the notice boards in
the Salford and Park Works, he wrote that he had been
considering for some time how; he could best show his
“continued interest in the welfare of our
workpeople. For seventeen years we have given our
workpeople the benefit of shortened hours of labour,
establishing the forty-eight hour week. Recently we have
established an annual holiday of a week, when the works
are closed, and are making arrangements for assisting
certain of the unskilled workmen and their families to
enjoy this holiday. It has occurred to me that the annual
holiday may be more thoroughly enjoyed, as a means of
healthy recreation out of town, if a Fund existed, the
income of which could be distributed amongst the
workpeople at both Salford and Park Works, to help them
to meet the expenses, in so far as the income of the Fund
will permit."(2) Sir
William inaugurated this fund, which was designed to make
it easier for "wife and family to share in a
husband’s recreation during the summer
holiday”, by placing 10,000 one pound fully paid
ordinary shares of the Company in trust, over which
Mr.L.B.Mather and two co-trustees, Alfred Willett and
Edwin Buckly, exercised control. The setting up of this
Fund, just at a time when working class holidays by the
sea were beginning to be popular, was an enlightened and
generous gesture, which long anticipated statutory
holidays with pay.
The holiday
Fund grew. In 1920 a further 7,500 shares were added to
it, providing at that time an annual distribution to
workers of nearly £3,000. When, after 1937 the industry
had adopted the policy of normally granting a full
week’s pay to employees about to take their
holidays, the Ernest Mather Fund used to make special
payments which varied with length of service to the firm.
The distribution was, and still is, regulated by the
Trustees (1) after discussion with the Works
Committee. In 1949 the Directors decided to make an
annual payment to the Fund out of profits and in the
following year made a 50% bonus issue to the Fund while
in 1951 a special Jubilee grant was paid. 4. The Works Committee One
of’ the most important changes in the approach to
industrial relations, distinguishing the twentieth from
the nineteenth century, has been the growth of works
committees consisting of representatives of both labour
and management. Although
before 1914 there were in existence in some firms works
committees of various types - recreative, social and
welfare committees; profit-sharing or co-partnership
committees; or industrial committees (1) -it
was the First World War which gave an impetus to their
formation, and it was then that Mather & Platt Ltd.
had its first general works council. In March
1917 the interim report of the Whitley Committee on the
Relations between Employers and Employed recommended the
organisation of general industrial councils and of works
committees at shop level, and in a further supplementary
report in October 1917 the proposal was elaborated.
“We regard the successful development and
utilisation of Works Committees in any business”,
the signatories stated, “as of equal importance with
its commercial and scientific efficiency, and we think
that in every case one of the partners or directors or
some other responsible representative of the management
would be well advised to devote a substantial part of his
time and thought to the good working and development of
such a committee". (2) Sir
William Mather welcomed these proposals but believed that
initiation should come from the firms themselves. “I
would begin with the shops”, he wrote in a letter to
his son, “and work back to general council; the
great thing is to promote co-operation in individual
shops (I mean separate firms) to raise the status of
employees from servants to patrons of a sort”.
(3) He quickly put his ideas into practice and in
the same month that the Whitley Committee published its
report a Works Committee was set up by Mather & Platt
Ltd.
The idea was not a new one, for already there had been a Shop stewards’ Committee in existence for some time. (1) The trade union stewards, whose workshop position was enhanced by the restrictions on general trade union activities, appointed from their own number a convenor, who had power to call meeting’s of all the stewards in the shop. By contrast with such a committee, which represented the interests of labour only, the Works Committee of Mather & Platt Ltd was an organisation designed to increase the participation of workers in welfare and workshop activities, where both management and labour could exert responsible initiative. The first Chairmen of the Park Works Committee was E.W.Buckley, the Works Manager, who was on excellent terms with the trade unions and who had always tried to treat workmen as “partners and friends”. (2) The
other members included two managers, the Welfare Officer,
three foremen, and two charge hands on the management
side, and four shop stewards, two girl workers, one
labourer and one other worker on the labour side.
Subsequently voting for the labour places on the
Committee was arranged by ballot in the shops, twelve
representatives being chosen from the various bays, the
smithy, the pattern room and the millwrights. (3) The
management retained its eight members, the foreman being
elected by their fellow foremen. Much of
the early work of The Committee was concerned, as was
natural and desirable, with domestic topics of the
moment, which are of little historical interest. As a
result of these early discussions improvements were made
in the dining room and lavatories; the payment of workers
was switched to Friday night to give wives more time for
shopping (4) and arrangements made by other
firms for housing bicycles were investigated. (5)
There were two occasions however when more permanently
interesting topics were discussed. The first was at the
opening meeting, when it was decided to inaugurate a
Suggestions Scheme; the second was a general review of
the atmosphere and conditions of the firm in January
1918. The Suggestions Scheme was designed to give every employee the opportunity of bringing forward his ideas for the prevention of accidents, the better organisation of a section of’ the works and improvements in machinery design or operations.
The procedure as it was subsequently developed was for employees to write out suggestions, preferably upon printed forms which could be procured from the Secretary of the Company or from a box in the canteen. These forms which, on completion, were placed in a box carried, the name of the employee on a detachable counterfoil which was treated as secret by the secretary so that the members of the Suggestion Committee did not know the name of the man who had made the suggestion. There was considerable discussion and division of opinion about both the procedure and the principle of the Suggestions Scheme, and during the first year the number of’ suggestions actually fell off, partly because of delay in answering them, partly because of a report that the names of men who had made suggestions were published. (1) The Committee persisted in the project and stressed that “in large Works like these, there must be a very great amount of latent ability that still remains untapped”. It went on to hope that “there may flow through the channel of the Suggestions Scheme, not only good ideas for improvement, but a series of patentable inventions.” The scheme eventually got under way and an average of about 100 suggestions annually were received during the next ten years. Many of the suggestions were valueless or impracticable, but some of’ them were acceptable and worth remuneration. The original Suggestions Committee consisted of the Director of Research, the Works Manager, a departmental head, a representative of the Works Office, and a representative of the workmen appointed by the Works Committee. The present Committee (1952) is on similar lines but a member of the Board (apart from Works Manager) and an additional representative chosen by the workmen have been added. From the point of view of the Company the sponsors believed that the value of the scheme lay “not only in the actual suggestions accepted, but in the alert interest in his work, which had undoubtedly been taken by every employee who offers a suggestion through the scheme.”(2) Some
thousands of useful suggestions have been submitted
through the scheme, which continues to operate with
considerable success. A review of the 'atmosphere and
conditions of employment with Mather & Platt Ltd. in
January 1918 was carried out informally by the Works
Committee of the period when problems of absenteeism,
rate-fixing and the movement of employees from the
service of the company to other firms were discussed. In
October 1917 official leaving certificates, which had
restricted the movement of certain classes of munitions
workers, were abolished by the Government and a number of
men (in consequence) had either been discharged or had
left on their own accord. The following figures for the
fourteen weeks from 15 October 1917 to 22 January 1918
were studied by the Committee and proved that nothing was
wrong with the morale of what had become a
large wartime establishment.(3)
The ventilation of common problems in the Works
Committee at that date was recognised as being a very
useful device.
In
1919 a special sub-committee of the Works Committee
concerned itself with a problem specifically concerned
with production methods. It examined the question of shop
tools, and presented a complete report dealing with
cutting and radius tools templates, mandrills, drill
stores, and the tool issue system. At the same time the
whole Committee made a recommendation to the management
advocating that more detail should be shown in working
drawings. (1) Those extensions of the
boundaries of interest of the Committee were followed by
an important constitutional change in its position. The
York Agreement of May 1919 drawn up by certain skilled
engineering trade unions and the employers federation
recommended that “a Works Committee may be set up in
each establishment, consisting of not more then seven
representatives of the management and not more than seven
shop stewards, who should be representative of the
various classes of workpeople employed in the
establishment”. Mather & Platt Ltd. were the
first Company to put the York Agreement into operation.
(1) The old Committee was dissolved at the end of
1919, and a new Committee came into being with shop
steward representation. In order that the new Committee's
activities should not be interrupted by frequent
elections, and in order that the workers should have the
opportunity of selecting candidates for membership, the
management asked that a new election of shop stewards
should be held. This was carried out; fifteen shop
stewards being elected seven of who were chosen by their
fellow stewards to be the workers’ representatives
on the Works Committee. (2) In 1920 the
problem of choosing shop stewards was simplified by the
creation of the Amalgamated. Engineering Union,
consisting of the old A.S.E., the Steam Engine Makers
Society, the Amalgamated Society of General Toolmakers,
the United Machine Workers’ Association and various
other smaller unions. (3) The amalgamation
movement, which had long been in the air, had at last
produced effective results. The
change in the status of the Committee and its official
recognition as part of a national framework enabled the
members of the Committee to debate freely and frankly
topics which committees of previous years had not been
competent to discuss with authority. It is true that in
the early months of 1919, before the change, the
Committee was extending its range of interests, but from
1920 onwards it concerned itself with more controversial
issues, including questions relating to employment and
piece-rates. At the beginning of 1920 the Committee
devoted considerable time to the question of output from
engineering workshops and the possibility of increasing
the ”man-hours” worked. The Committee was kept
in touch with the condition of affairs regarding the
employment, engagement and dismissal of employees, and
with the working of the Piecework Bonus Scheme, seen in
relation to alternative schemes operated in other
factories.
It
also had one or two long discussions on possible ways of
widening its own influence. “Various duties and
responsibilities which could be undertaken by a Works
Committee were discussed although it was generally
decided that it was not possible, under present
conditions, to go much further. (1) The
Works Committee soon established its position within the
firm in relation both to management and to labour.
Fortnightly meetings were held, followed the day
afterwards by meetings of a committee of the foremen and
by the Shop Stewards Committee to take any necessary
action upon points raised by the Works Committee.
(2) As the years have gone by, the machinery of
consultation which either broke down or was never
properly tried by some firms, has proved itself efficient
and useful, and has been further developed since the
Second World War to make bitter disputes between capital
and labour unlikely. The existing chain of procedure for
avoiding disputes would have surprised most early
nineteenth century employers and workmen alike. (3)
It has been sufficiently well contrived to eliminate
almost all labour troubles in the firm. 5. Workers and the Firm Despite
its increasing size Park Works has still retained many of
the qualities of a smaller establishment and the
atmosphere is still one of partnership. Workshop
personalities stand out and are well known throughout the
firm; voluntary bodies representing all sections of the
works fill in gaps in the various employees organisations
and sponsor direct participation in schemes for social
welfare; and shareholders have been ever-ready to support
schemes for improving the well-being of the workers of
their Company. From
the Shareholders side the Employees’ Benefit Fund,
launched in 1908, was designed to assist the needy among
former employees and employees suffering from sickness or
family misfortune. It has been and is augmented from time
to time by grants made at Annual General Meetings of the
Company. From the workers’ side the Mutual Help
Fund, inaugurated in 1916, is a fund supported by
quarterly contributions collected by workers
representatives from their own comrades, and donations
from various sources. It is administered by a committee
of four, three of whom are elected by the shop stewards,
and is intended to provide means for making grants to
sick employees and others who may be in need of
assistance as a result of some misfortune. The amount of
the disbursements from this fund are published annually
in the works magazine “Our Journal’, but
the details of all grants made are treated as
confidential. Some of the initiative towards new schemes
of direct participation in workshop activities has come
from the Works Committee.
The
Savings Association, for instance, was created during the
depression in 1930 to “encourage the employees of
Mather & Platt to accumulate a sum of money which can
be used towards providing an increased income for their
old age, or something worth striving for, through the
medium of National Savings Certificates, or State
security, the Members’ Savings being supplemented by
Savings Certificates presented by the Company.(1)
Membership is voluntary, and only three conditions are
laid down- workers must not be on the salaried staff,
must be at least 18 years old, and must have been
continuously employed for six months by the Company. A
grant of National Savings Certificates, in proportion to
those saved by the employee, is added by the Company, the
proportion rising with increasing years of service, until
an employee with over 35 years continuous employment with
the Company receives one certificate for every one
purchased with his own savings. The maximum subscription
allowed by H.M. Treasury is four shillings a week by the
member. Other
projects launched under the auspices of the Works
Committee include the hire of overalls and schemes for
the purchase, at cost price, of tools and safety boots
the last two on the basis of weekly contributions.
Privileges obtained by negotiation include the services
of a men’s hairdresser, who visits the Works each
Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Leave of absence without
pay is granted to any male employee who desires to take
advantage of this service. A proportion of the charge
made is placed to the credit of the Mutual Help Fund. The
Works Committee was instrumental in arranging with the
Manchester Corporation Transport Department for a service
of special works buses; a great convenience to employees
living a considerable distance away. Employees have also
been granted the right to ballot for the date of the
annual works holiday. There were ten “Premium
Time” days for recognised holidays observed in the
Manchester district, two of which, Christmas Day and Good
Friday are paid “Double Time” if worked and
eight other days which are mutually agreed by the Works
Committee, paid for at “Day Time Rate and Half”
for all hours worked. The
success of the main Works Committee led to the setting up
of a similar institution at Salford Foundry, later
transferred to Park Works, the Iron Foundry Committee,
and to the organisation of a Women’s Committee,
consisting of representatives of the women workers and
management both of which meet fortnightly. Among the
special privileges accorded to women workers, who have
now penetrated many departments of the factory, is the
daily fifteen-minute break, with pay, at 10.0a.m. and
4.0p.m. when women are allowed to go into the Dining Room
and obtain tea free of charge. In addition to the above-mentioned
bodies, two Apprentices Associations co-ordinate the
Social activities of Trade and Special Apprentices and a
committee composed of representatives of management and
apprentices meets monthly to discuss problems of
particular interest to apprentices.
6. The Prevention of Accidents Another
problem in a large modern factory, the prevention of
accidents, has received constant attention in the various
works of the Company, since Mather & Platt Ltd.
joined The British Industrial ‘Safety First’
Association in 1922. The Factories Act of 1901 marked the
beginning of official safety regulations in factories in
this country. Shortly afterwards a Safety First
Association was formed and this, like many other good
ideas, spread to the United States where the need was
even greater than in the United Kingdom. It was
not until 1918 however, that accident prevention in
factories was to be encouraged by the formation of an
Industrial ‘Safety First’ Association. Four
years later a Manchester and District Branch came into
existence as the result of a meeting, held at Park Works
under the chairmanship of Mr. L.E.Mather and attended by
representatives of Engineering, Chemical Iron and Steel,
Sawmill and Mining Trades. From the start a close and
friendly connection was formed with the Factory
Department of the Home Office. H.M. Inspectors have
continued to take an active interest in the work of this
voluntary Association. The name of the Association was
later changed to the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents and under its new title it combines with
efforts to increase industrial safety, public safety on
the roads, in schools and in the homes. Many
supplementary Factory Acts passed between the years 1901
and 1929 included new provisions for the safety and well
being of industrial workers. Simultaneously the Works
Committees at Newton Heath and Salford had played an
important part in investigating accidents in the machine
shops and foundries and in 1938 a Works Safety Committee
was formed. This Committee included representatives of
management and workers under the chairmanship of a Shop
Superintendent. Evidence of the value of
attention given to accident prevention in the Company's
Works is shown by the records. Since 1925 when lost-time
accidents involved 2.39% of employees in the works, the
casualty list has fallen steadily to 0.4% the figure at
the time of writing; thus indicating a marked reduction
in the number of productive man hours lost from this
cause. One of the regular features of
the work of the Royal Society for the Prevention of
Accidents in the Manchester district has been the staging
of Annual Ambulance Competitions. Since the formation of
the Society the Manchester competitions have always been
held on the premises of Mather & Platt Ltd. The Second
World War gave an impetus to two new features in
industrial relations. In the first place, it encouraged
the setting up of new organisations designed to increase
output, and, following a national lead, Mather &
Platt Ltd. established Departmental Joint Production
Consultative and Advisory Committees, to meet monthly.
There are six committees representing the various
production departments at Park Works — General
Machinery, Fire Engineering, Electrical, Pump, Iron
Foundry with Pattern Shop and Roller Shutter Shop and a
seventh at Radcliffe for the Food Machinery department. About three
times a year the Central Meeting of the members of the
Departmental Joint Production Consultative and Advisory
Committees, drawn from the members of the six committees
at Park Works, is held to review the general situation
and the work of the departmental committees. Another
object of the Committee is to influence conceptions of
welfare, stressing the need for relaxation at the same
time as and parallel to the need for increased
production, and underlining the desire for all workers to
feel that they are part of the concerns in which they
spend their working hours. It is
in line with these trends that a Social Club was set up
by Mather & Platt Ltd. in March 1947 “to promote
and co-ordinate all the social activities of
employees”. Extensive new sports fields were
provided by the Company, which both gave a “green
belt” appearance to Park Works, and provided
adequate facilities for healthy open-air recreation. The
subscription to the Club is 2d. per week - ld. for those
under 18 - and the amenities provided include mid-day
concerts by members of the choir, Silver Band and Concert
Party; monthly dances; football, cricket, bowls and
badminton. Those are the delights of a new age, only the
revived ‘Silver Band’ recalling the forgotten
days of Victorian England. But it
is not only the manual workers who have shared in the
welfare activities of the firm. The Staff Holiday Club,
an inheritance from the Salford Iron Works, is an early
example of a welfare organisation going back to the
beginning of the century. Originally run by and for the
Textile Department staff, it came to Park Works and was
there expanded to embrace all the staff. Officials of the
club, which is now run by a voluntary Committee, collect
weekly subscriptions from the members as savings towards
the annual holidays, interest being added by the Company.
In 1950 the Club numbered just over 600 members, and the
repayments amounted to £7,800. A
contributory scheme to secure pensions for members of the
Male Staff was inaugurated in 1919 and a supplementary
Pension Scheme, launched in 1947 to take into
consideration the rising cost of living was introduced to
provide new benefits for the senior officials of the
Company. A scheme to provide female members of the staff
with pensions at the age of 60 was introduced in 1948. In 1952
the Directors decided to increase the benefits payable
under the Staff Contributory Pension Scheme and also to
convert that Scheme to non-contributory. At the same time
the Directors made arrangements for the existing Works
Savings Scheme to be succeeded by an Assurance Scheme for
all male hourly paid workpeople between the ages of 25
and 60 years who have completed three years continuous
service with the Company. Both Schemes provide for
retirement benefits at the age of 65 and also a payment
to employee's dependants in the event of death occurring
before that age. "You
have joined, a firm with a fine reputation” begins
the little booklet Information for Employees, which tells
newcomers about service, amenities and conditions of
employment at Park Works. The object of such productions
of the Company in an age when individuals often appear to
be less important than groups is to make each employee
take a personal sense of pride in belonging to an old and
established business and to know something of the whole
picture into which he will fit. When “Our Journal” made its appearance in October 1919 the Editor expressed the view that to many workers everything “outside their own department is a closed book”. If this is still the case with some workers, it is certainly not the fault of the Company. Although its products are diverse and its technical processes often distinct, Mather & Platt Ltd. is conscious of the unity of its enterprise and is anxious to communicate the sense of unity to all employees. What the first workers knew because they all knew each other and the representatives of the family which employed them, must now be communicated in twentieth century terms by twentieth century means to several thousand employees at home and abroad. As times change so ideas and methods will continue to change, but the road which has already and still is being trod is one of which the founders would have been legitimately proud. |
A History of Mather & Platt
Ltd.