General waste materials reclamation
General Waste Reclamation Trade Boards for Great Britain and Ireland were established in 1920. In 1922 the Irish Board was transferred to the control of the Irish government and a separate Trade Board for Northern Ireland was created. Waste reclamation work included sorting and cleaning scrap metal, sorting and packing waste fabrics or paper, stripping or tearing old clothes for rags, and repairing sacks and bags.
The series of trade board papers in the Trades Union Congress archive includes four files of documentsLink opens in a new window relating to the General Waste Reclamation Trade Board (Great Britain). As part of the Modern Records Centre's 'Sweated trades' digitisation project, we have made a selection of these documents available online, including the items highlighted below. The sources can also be browsed through our digital collectionLink opens in a new window.
Illustration: Factory view of rag sorting room. Image included in Roberts Beaumont, 'Wool Substitutes'Link opens in a new window (Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1922).
Scope of the Trade Board:
Not all workers in Trade Board regulated industries were eligible for the minimum wage, employees who were regarded as doing peripheral jobs (such as messenger, delivery driver, etc.) could be excluded. In some cases the Trade Board was required to rule on 'questions of scope' - whether the work of certain employees came within the scope of the Board (and the minimum wage). Submissions to the Board on questions of scope can include information about manufacturing processes and types of work done by individual employees.
Salvation Army workers, 1922Link opens in a new window
Copy letter from the Ministry of Labour ruling on whether workers employed by the Salvation Army to collect and sort waste materials would come under the Trade Board minimum wage.
Summaries of questions relating to the scope of the Trade Board, 1922Link opens in a new window
Includes information about the work of individual firms, including S.D. Harrison, rag merchants of Great Yarmouth; F.C. Allin, paper sorters of Manchester; Alexander Jacob & Co., merchants of South East London; S. Sonenberg, rag merchants of East London; W. Thomas, rag and metal merchant and horse slaughterer of Windsor; J. Corb & Son, rag sorters of East London; Anglo-American Nitrogen Co. Ltd., fertiliser manufacturers of Leicester; E. Goldberg of Coatbridge; F. Clarke & Son of Bristol; Harris & Co. of Bristol; J. Schnurmann of Tottenham; and G.R. Jackson of Reading.
Queries about application of the Board to individual businesses, 1922Link opens in a new window
Minutes of meeting of the Trade Board's Administrative Committee on 20 September 1922. It includes copy correspondence and minuted discussions about companies including Butterworth & Co., R. Kenyon Ltd., E. Illingworth & Co. (axle box packing), an unnamed manufacturer of fur tails, and Alfred Hoyle of Halifax.
Proposed revision of definition of scope, scrap metal section, 1922Link opens in a new window
Copy of a letter calling for shipbreaking to come under the scope of the Trade Board.
Draft of proposed revised definition of the scope of the Trade Board, 1924Link opens in a new window
Outline of the types of work that would come within the Trade Board minimum wage.
Outline of the types of work included and excluded from the scope of the Trade Board.
The document includes information about the work of a man employed in a scrap metal yard and as a lorry driver (who also loaded and unloaded scrap from the vehicle).
Wages and working conditions:
Letters between Susan Lawrence, Women Workers' Section of the National Union of General Workers, and J.J. Mallon. Lawrence described negotiations with the employers which resulted in the "very bad wages" for the trade and problems with the appointed members on the Board. She commented that "this Board has been in existence for about a year and has never yet proposed or fixed men's rates at all". A memorandum about delays and deadlockLink opens in a new window on the Board is also available.
Trade Board notices of fixed minimum wages:
Minimum rates effective from 1 March 1922Link opens in a new window
Minimum rates effective from 31 July 1922Link opens in a new window
Scrap iron and iron and steel wages, 1923Link opens in a new window
Copy of letter from Arthur Pugh, General Secretary of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, to Susan Lawrence. He provided information about "the comparative position between the workers represented on the General Waste Materials Reclamation Trades Board, and men engaged in the handling of scrap iron and similar classes of labour in the iron and steel trades".
Objections:
Each change to the recommended minimum wage was publicised by the issuing of printed notices by the Trade Board. Individuals and organisations then had a set period of time during which they could submit formal written objections to the proposed changes. Inevitably, when wage rates increased most objections were sent in by employers; when rates were reduced most objections were sent by trade unions or workers.
Employers' protest against the proposed minimum wage rates, 1921Link opens in a new window
Copy of resolution passed by the West of England and South Wales Iron, Metal and Waste Trade Association. The names and addresses of 54 member firms are given.
The letter from Hilda Matheson, political secretary to Lady Astor, refers to lobbying by the Plymouth and District Waste Trade Association against higher rates of wages.
Objections to proposed minimum wage rates, 1922Link opens in a new window
Submitted by George William Green & Co. of Horbury; P. Padwa of Cable Street, East London; F. Egan of the Wool, Yarn and Warehouse Workers' Union, Bradford; John Pritchard and Douglas Rawnsley, workers of Bradford ("if your Committee propose and second this it will not be a living, perhaps an existence"); G. Stone and 14 other unnamed employees of E.J. & H.E. Rose & Co. Ltd. of Bristol; and Lewis Goodman, employer at Cheetham, Manchester.
Objections to proposed minimum wage rates, 1922Link opens in a new window
Submitted by 27 unnamed female workers at Jackson's Millboard & Paper Co., Battersea; and Henry George Knights, worker at Battersea (complaint about women's wages becoming closer to men's - "the way you are rushing the male workers wages down you will soon have them on a level and then I think that the workhouse will be the best place for all Males as I cannot see how they can maintain themselves let alone Wives and Families on that wage").
Objections to proposed minimum wage rates, 1923Link opens in a new window
Submitted by Robert Wood & Sons of Ossett, Yorkshire, and George A. Hutchinson of Deckham Marine Store, Gateshead ("I contend that a vast amount of unemployment amongst women of 16 to 20 is owing to interference by Trade Boards").
Objection to proposed minimum wage rates, 1923Link opens in a new window
Submitted by the Federated Associations of Scrap Iron, Steel, Metals and Machinery Merchants of Great Britain.
The reports refer to complaints from employers that the wages were too high.
Memorandum on female juvenile rates, 1927Link opens in a new window
Memorandum submitted by employers' representatives. They argue that the rates of pay for girls aged 18 or under (when they are "not normally serious or responsible") make them less likely to be employed.
Exempted workers:
Trade Boards could issue permits of exemption which allowed employers to pay less than the minimum wage. Permits were given to workers who were regarded as having a physical or psychological disability which affected their work. Applications (usually submitted without the employees' names) include short medical profiles of the individuals.
The General Waste Materials Reclamation Trade Board papers include a series of applications for permits of exemption and statements of permits granted. These include cases relating to workers who were described as having a range of physical and psychological symptoms, including age, loss or paralysis of limbs, "defective eyesight", chronic bronchitis, "excessive stoutness", "smallness of stature", being "deaf and dumb" or "mentally deficient".
Inspection and enforcement:
Short report of legal proceedings against individual employers: