FIRST SESSION OF PLENARY LABOUR CONFERENCE 103
unanimity the Government of India has not been slow to accept those decisions and give effect to them. In support of this I would refer here to certain items such as the War Injuries (Compensation Insurance) Act and the National Service (Technical Personnel Amendment) Ordinance. Other instances would be the Industrial Statistics Act and the Employment Exchanges Scheme. Action in consonance with the decisions of the Conference under both these will be taken very soon.
Fundamental Change In Outlook
There may be many to whom this progress may appear to be very meagre. To them I would say that theirs is the wrong perspective. There are no short cuts to progress and one cannot be sure that short cuts will be right cuts. Progress by peaceful means is always a slow process and to impatient idealists like myself it is sometimes painfully slow. In an old country like India, with no tradition of collective action and no trace of social conscience progress is bound to be slower. No one need be disheartened by this. For to my mind what matters is not so much the rate of progress as the nature of the outlook.
Looking at the Tripartite Conference from this point of view I have no hesitation in saying that the great achievement of the Tripartite Conference is the fundamental change it has brought about in the outlook of Government and of Employers and of Employees on labour problems. No one who has participated in these Conferences could have failed to sense it. Assured of a healthy and wholesome change in the outlook we can confidently hope for acceleration in the rate of our progress.
ITEMS ON AGENDA
The Agenda of this Plenary Labour Conference include eight items. They are:—
(i) Involuntary unemployment, due to shortage of coal, raw materials etc.
(ii) Social Security; Minimum wages.
(iii) Principles of fixing dearness allowance.
(iv) Provisions for standing orders on the lines of the provisions in Chapter V of the Bombay Industrial Disputes Act, in large industrial concerns.