Chapter VII. The Workers under Nationalisation

In all the schemes for nationalisation, public utility corporations, etc., advocated by the Labour Party and other reformist bodies in the last half century, one of the arguments has always been that the workers employed in those undertakings would be better off than they were under private companies.

It is not possible to give a simple yes or no answer to the question whether this has actually taken place because some complicating factors have to be taken into account.

One of these factors is that the majority (about two-thirds) of the staff of the Post Office, for example, can qualify for a pension at the end of their service, while in the past the majority of workers in private employment have not received pensions. Naturally if nationalisation involved changing over from unpensioned and insecure employment to a permanent, pensioned job this would constitute a decided advantage in the eyes of many workers. Even if the prospects as far as wages are concerned were less promising in State employment many workers would still attach more importance to the pension.

As against this is the fact that employment in State concerns does not invariably carry a pension, and still less is this the position under the Public Utility Corporations. Where pension schemes exist outside Government service they are usually schemes to which the worker has to contribute and the amount of pension is small.

Apart from the pension there is in State service often the attraction of a permanent job (subject, of course, to good behaviour), and undoubtedly many of the railway workers, miners and others who have supported nationalisation schemes for their industries have been greatly influenced by the anticipation that as employees of a nationalised concern they would no longer be liable to dismissal in times of bad trade. It certainly is true that in the Post Office many even of those workers who are not entitled to pensions (including huge numbers of part-time workers) have a considerable degree of security.

In the matter of wages it is not easy to make comparisons since many of the jobs in State services are of a kind which have no exact counterpart in outside industry. It is, however, possible to establish beyond doubt that, taking all factors into consideration, the possible differences between the pay of similar types of worker inside and outside nationalised services are of small dimensions. This is established by the fact that the Arbitration Tribunal which fixes the pay of Government employees specifically fixes its awards on the rates of pay in outside industry, and it is the declared policy of the Government in regard to the pay of its employees to relate that pay to movements upwards or downwards of outside wage levels, tending, however, to take a long-term view and not to follow outside movements too closely, either upwards or downwards. In making comparisons between civil servants’ pay and outside pay the pension is, of course, taken into account.