Records of Trade Boards and Wages Councils, and the responsible departments

Division within LAB

1910-1993

Records relating to the administration, enforcement and inspection of minimum wage regulations.

Most records are in LAB 11, with minutes and papers of the Trade Boards and Wages Councils in LAB 35. Records of the Road Haulage Central Wages Board and the Catering Wages Board are included in both of these. Records of the Catering Wages Commission are in LAB 30. Files relating to the reconstitution and general history of Wages Councils may be found in LAB 95

Public Record(s)

English

• Board of Trade, Trade Boards Branch, Office of Trade Boards, 1909-1917
• Department of Employment and Productivity, Incomes Division: Private Sector, Wages Councils, 1968-1970
• Department of Employment, Wages Councils, 1970-1988
• Employment Department, Wages Councils, 1988-1995
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Industrial Relations and Trade Boards Department, Office of Trade Boards, 1945-1946
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Industrial Relations and Wages Boards and Councils Department, Office of Wages Boards and Councils, 1953-1959
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Industrial Relations and Wages Boards and Councils Department, Office of Wages Councils, 1951-1953
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Industrial Relations and Wages Councils Department, Office of Wages Councils, 1946-1951
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Trade Boards Branch, Office of Trade Boards, 1940-1942
• Ministry of Labour and National Service, Trade Boards Department, Office of Trade Boards, 1943-1945
• Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Wages Councils Department, Office of Wages Councils, 1960-1964
• Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations Department, Wages Councils, 1965-1968
• Ministry of Labour, Trade Boards Branch, Office of Trade Boards, 1936-1939
• Ministry of Labour, Trade Boards Division, Office of Trade Boards, 1917-1936

4 series

Topics

Trade and commerce

Pay and pensions

The Trade Boards Act 1909 established wage fixing machinery in certain 'sweated' industries for the purpose of determining statutory minimum wages. The Board of Trade was responsible for administration and enforcement of the Act until it was transferred to the Ministry of Labour in 1917. The Trade Boards Branch of the Board of Trade became the Trade Boards Division of the ministry's Headquarters Department. During the First World War, Trade Board activities were suspended. Following the Trade Boards Act 1918, the ministry's powers were extended to cover badly organised trades, and the division was transferred to the Wages and Arbitration Department. It became involved in determining general questions relating to minimum wages policy, with the work of inspection and enforcement being carried out by a Trade Boards Inspectorate. Although nominally attached to the industrial relations departments, the Office of Trade Boards developed as a self-contained unit during the inter-war period. The ministry provided secretarial and clerical staff for Trade Boards as well as accommodation at which their meetings could be held.

Under the Wages Councils Act 1945, Trade Boards were replaced by Wages Councils. Their position was consolidated in 1959 by the Terms and Conditions of Employment Act and the Wages Councils Act. Under these statutes, wage regulating machinery could be set up in any industry where the workers desired it; decisions of Wages Councils were, if acceptable to the minister, promulgated as statutory instruments. The minister could also abolish a Wages Council if voluntary bargaining machinery replaced it satisfactorily.

Two industries developed independent schemes which were subsequently absorbed into the system:

The agriculture industry remained independent of the system, retaining its own statutory wage fixing procedure under the Agricultural Wages Board, directly responsible to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and its predecessors.