CASUAL LABOUR, a term frequently used to describe the discontinuous and irregular employment which at certain times of the year is experienced in trades such as building, and in this somewhat loose sense of the term, casual labour is to be found in nearly every trade in proportions which vary with the unemploy ment situation in general, and the state of the industry itself in particular. The casual worker, however, with whom this article is primarily concerned is the man whose employment normally, and not only periodically, consists of a succession of jobs of short duration, whose contract of engagement is by the day or even by the hour, and who, from the method by which he is engaged, may be uncertain in the morning whether work will be available in the afternoon. He is typified in the casual labourer at the docks. It is in this industry and the ancillary transport trades, and in ship-repairing, that casualization is most extensive. The nature of the problem may conveniently be illustrated by the conditions under which the dock labourer is employed.
These conditions have their origin in the day-to-day variations in the amount of loading and unloading which has to be done at the docks. Trade movements in general, and seasonal causes such as the periodical arrival of staple imports like wool and timber, may influence the extent of these variations, but their intensity is mainly due to the natural uncertainties, accentuated by the vagaries of wind, weather and tide, associated with the arrivals and departures of ships. One vessel may just manage to catch a tide and afford employment for two or three hundred men; another may be held up by a sudden fog, leaving workless the anxious crowd of men who had carefully followed its progress up the river. From causes such as these the daily volume of work at the docks fluctuates to such an extent as to become almost unpredictable.
It is obvious that to meet a varying load of this sort a large reserve of labour is required, but the extent to which this reserve must necessarily be larger than that of most industries is not so apparent without a prior idea of the general layout of most dock areas. The expression "the Port of London," or "the Port of Liverpool" tends to obscure the fact that these areas consist of a number of separate docks and separate wharves, stretching for some miles on both banks of the river, between many of which there are no means of transferring labour with any degree of rapidity. It would be impossible, for example, to switch a gang of dockers from Tilbury in time to meet a shortage of labour brought about by an unexpected demand at Wapping. This may appear rather an extreme illustration, but the "turning round" of a ship, it must be remembered, is work which has to be done at high pressure and with the utmost expedition. It follows, therefore, that as the volume of work at Tilbury may vary quite independently of the amount at Wapping, a supply of labour sufficient to meet the maximum requirements of each area must always be available. In short, the load of a port like London is the aggregate of the loads of each separate labour area.
The Existence of Excessive Casualization.—The difficulty of providing a supply of labour to meet the practical requirements of the industry has tended to become somewhat obscured in the denunciation of the casual system of engagement. In solving the problem it must be admitted that the system gives rise to a great deal of chronic underemployment ; that it was in the past and still is in many respects a vicious and demoralizing system; and further that casualization tends to breed a class of inefficients and unemployables. But in spite of the social problem which it creates, the system has remained, not so much because of the passive attitude of employers or public opinion in general, as by reason of the impossibility of obtaining, without a substantial margin of casual workers, a supply of available labour which will rise or fall as occasion demands. The practical problem of decasualization lies in reducing this margin to the lowest possible proportions. In the past it is clear that owing to the methods and conditions of recruitment of the casual labourer, the margin was unnecessarily large; with every reduction in the margin there will be a corresponding diminution in the evils incidental to excessive casualization.
The extent to which indiscriminate selection and separate pools of labour spread work among an unnecessarily large number of men have been made familiar by the writings of Mayhew, Booth and others. But while the main features of the system of "calling on" still remain, something has been done to check the excessive competition for employment, which in pre-War days, caused much chronic distress among dock labourers. This over-competi tion arose through the influx into the docks of workers unable to find other employment, this being most seriously felt in years of trade depression, as for example, 1905-06. In theory, the remedy is obvious, but the practical application of the principle of restrict ing the right to look for work has proved no easy matter. It was not until 1912 that the first important experiment in this direction was made in Great Britain in the Liverpool Docks scheme.
The Liverpool Docks Scheme.—At the time the scheme was initiated, practically all the work at the Port of Liverpool was done by casual labour, of which there was an abnormally large surplus. It was estimated that the total number of men required on the busiest day was not more than 20,00o, while the number normally seeking employment was over 29,00o, and yet, it appears, "at a time when the surplus of labour exceeded 7,000, lodging houses in Liverpool were attracting labour from Ireland by advertisement that work was plentiful at the docks." Dock Labour and Decasualization.—The attempt to remedy this state of affairs was made by "registering" dockers, from which the name "Registration Scheme" is derived, and limiting the right to look for employment to men in possession of "tallies," which are brass tokens bearing the registered number of each docker. Special provision was made for facilitating the distribution of labour, while other reforms included the weekly centralized payment of wages, the object of the last mentioned being to save dockers from the hardship of tramping from employer to employer to collect their week's pay. The control of the issue of tallies as well as the general supervision of the scheme was under a joint committee of employers and work people.
A valuable commentary on the practical difficulties of decasuali zation is afforded by the years working of the scheme. Although backed by their union, the scheme was launched only in the face of the fiercest opposition of sections of the dockers; when this was overcome, the casual workers objected to being shifted outside their own labour area. The special arrangements intended to improve the mobility of labour have thus been ineffective, and as a result the reduction of the casual margin has proved even more difficult than was anticipated. It is true that the position of the casual labourer at Liverpool is still unsatisfactory, though it is better than in 1912, but it is equally true that in warding off the threatened influx of unemployed from other trades the scheme has made the problem much less acute than it would have been.
Registration Schemes and the Post-War Problem.—Dur ing the World War period casualization as a problem practically ceased to exist in Great Britain. In most of the largest ports, registration schemes operated by "Port Labour Committees" were set up to deal with War-time labour questions, including the issue of exemption certificates and the release of dockers for military service; and at the Armistice, schemes on somewhat similar lines were resuscitated to assist in meeting the dual problem caused by congestion at the docks and the threatened rush of entrants from other trades. Except in one or two instances (e.g., Bristol), these schemes, for various reasons, either became ineffective or fell into abeyance. This was unfortunate, as the establishment of a registra tion scheme is the first essential step towards decasualization. As a result, however, of the movement which originated in the ap pointment of the Roche Committee of Enquiry in 1919, and sub sequently led to the formation of a standing committee urder Sir Donald Maclean in 1924, registration schemes have been estab lished in practically every large port.
A general idea of the problem can be obtained from a survey of the conditions of the Port of London, not only because casualization there is more extensive, and probably more intensive as well, than in any other large area, but also because conditions in London serve best to illustrate the extent to which the varying volume of work at the docks creates casualization in other trades, and in this way brings into existence a vast pool of casual labour.
Port of London Registration Scheme.—It was not until 1920 that a registration scheme was established to deal with the port of London as a whole. As far back as 1905 a successful attempt at decasualization was made by one of the largest em ployers in the port, the London and India Dock company, and this reform was carried a little farther when this company and others were absorbed in the Port of London Authority in 1908. But the decasualization of one body of dock workers into various grades of "permanent" and "preference" men, while affording incon trovertible evidence of the beneficial effects of the reform to the men involved, and also of the economies which could be effected by a systematic distribution of labour, only tended to make the burden more acute for the remaining casual margin. The intensity of the problem in London is, in fact, due in considerable measure to the existence of so many specialized workers, such as deal porters and coal porters, and the non-interchangeability of the work of these men with that of the ordinary casual labourer. That the problem was accentuated by the influx of workers from other trades, particularly since the commencement of the post War depression, there was little doubt, and the delay in evolving a suitable registration scheme arose not from apathy on the part of the authorities concerned, or from opposition on the part of the dockers (such as, for example, has proved so great a stumbling block in Glasgow) but mainly from the difficulty of dealing as a whole with the many diverse elements in the port. Following the recommendations of the Roche Committee of Enquiry these difficulties were overcome.
The scheme was framed on the lines of the Liverpool model, the control of the issue of tallies, as is essential for the smooth working of a registration scheme, being under a joint committee of employers and workpeople. Such was the extent of the casual problem in London that, although applications were carefully scrutinized, the committee found it necessary to issue about 61,000 tallies. This number obviously exceeded the port requirements, but owing to difficulties which arose in the working of the scheme, the register was reduced by only about 7-8,000 in the first five years. On the reconstitution of the committee in 1925, it was found possible, with closer co-operation from employers and trade unions, to effect further reductions. At the end of 1927 the number of tallies in circulation was about 40,00o, and although the retention of a registry of this size still involves the existence of a substantial fringe of under-employed workers, it is con sidered, in view of adverse London factors, that it hardly exceeds normal requirements.
The Transport Trades.—Casual labour has so far been treated as it emerges from the varying amount of loading and unloading at the docks. It would be misleading, however, to suggest that this is more than one aspect. Since the varying volume of dock work necessarily causes a varying load in transportation and distribu tion, the different transport trades must each have their separate casual margins. The extent of casualization thus engendered is difficult to estimate. Its existence is most apparent in a large distributive area like London; and there is little doubt that the post-War depression in Great Britain with the general shortening of contracts incidental thereto has increased the dimension of the problem. While a more systematic distribution of the load might possibly lessen the intensity of its fluctuations, it is difficult to see that there is any way to a general diminution of casualiza tion in these trades other than that which would follow from a trade revival.
Ship-repairing Industry.—The special problem of casualiza tion in the ship-repairing industry arises from the short, inter mittent spells of work which the industry affords. The decision to send a ship to the yard for repair or overhaul depends on an almost infinite variety of factors, ranging from the age of the ship and the general state of trade, to the manifold uncertainties associated with the operation of steamship traffic. Ship-repairing jobs, moreover, unlike shipbuilding contracts, are essentially short in their nature. The quick "turn round" of a vessel is a factor even more essential in ship-repairing yards than at the docks. The conditions of the industry are, therefore, such as to involve for its personnel long periods of unemployment between short spells of intensive employment. The "scaler" or "rigger" may be working overtime for two or three days on end and obtain no further work for days or weeks, or even months thereafter.
Decasualization in ship-repairing is even more difficult than in dock labour. It is accentuated by the fact that in most of the big ship-repairing centres the yards are often spread over a wide area or separated by distances too long to make labour effectively mobile. But an unnecessarily large margin of casual labour is retained owing to the wasteful methods by which this labour is recruited and distributed. In this industry, to an even greater extent than at the docks, the old system of small, detached "call ing on" stands remains general.
Future of Decasualization.—The existence of an under employed fringe of casual workers at the docks, and in other industries, gives rise to one of the most pressing industrial prob lems of the day. It is a problem whose solution cannot be found in the force of economic tendencies; moving in the direction of driving from these industries those who are unable to obtain a livelihood there. The possibility of short spells of employment at the relatively high rate of wages, which is a general feature of industries utilizing a high proportion of casual labour—the ship repairing industry in particular—is sufficiently attractive to com pensate for long periods of under-employment. It is, therefore, abundantly clear, in view of the manifest evils incidental to chronic under-employment, that decasualization, from every point of view, is a step which is eminently desirable.
Ethical and moral considerations, however, should not be per mitted to obscure the fact that, not only from the economic needs of the industries concerned, but also because of the problem in volved in making provision for the unemployed margin displaced in decasualization, the step must necessarily be a gradual one. As Sir William Beveridge pointed out in 1908 (Unemployment— A Problem of Industry), it is a step which should be made in times of good trade rather than of bad trade, and it is one in which an important part can be played by an efficient system of Employment Exchanges.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A very wide literature exists on the casual labour Bibliography.--A very wide literature exists on the casual labour question. The most modern and at the same time the most informa tive book on the subject is by Lascelles and Bullock, Dock Labour and Decasualization (1924), where a comprehensive bibliography is given in appendix C. (G. C. P.) United States.—The term "casual labour" is used in the United States for irregular, short-time employment of a wide va riety of types. It ranges from extra help for house-cleaning, snow shovelling and the like to short engagements on docks and in agri culture, lumbering, contracting and other industries. Many thou sands pick up a precarious livelihood at such work.
The construction industry makes frequent calls for men to work from a day to two or three weeks. They expect a supply of casual labour to be continually available. Increasing mechanization and decreased use of labour in proportion to the volume of work done are tending to reduce the construction demand for casual labour. Little attention has been given to the problem as such by the industry. Mercantile establishments hire casual help at the holi day season, for sales and other rush or extra emergency work. Part of this demand is satisfied in the case of the larger stores by a reserve list largely consisting of married women. Many of them do not want steady employment. The remainder is genuine casual hiring. Caterers, hotels and restaurants hire casual labour for waiting table at banquets and other social functions; advertisers, theatres and business houses to distribute advertising matter. These are typical of a wide range of casual jobs in ordinary busi ness. The maritime, agricultural and lumbering industries have had mass problems of casual labour. Dock work is in all coun tries the familiar example of large scale casual employment. American and Canadian agriculture and lumbering have offered only casual engagements to a larger number of workers than have been employed on the docks.
Longshore (dock) work is subject to unpredictable daily varia tions due to the irregularity of arrival of ships and variations in cargoes. The unceasing hiring, discharge and new hiring of long shoremen has in every port produced intense competition for jobs, the accumulation of surpluses of labour around the docks and easy access into longshore work of unemployed men from other industries. But it has also produced more constructive effort for decasualization than in any other "casual" occupation.
Seattle was the pioneer among American ports in regularizing longshore work. The decasualization plan in effect there in evolved from a plan started in 1921. The successful strikes of the International Longshoremen's Association in 1934 and 1936 re sulted in the reorganization of the plan and its extension from Seattle, Portland and Los Angeles to all American ports on the Pacific coast. It had not been established on the Atlantic coast down to 1939. The question whether the employers or the union should control the dispatching halls (hiring halls) was a basic issue in the 1934 strike. The issue was compromised by putting the dis patching halls under the supervision of a Labor Relations Commit tee composed of an equal number of employer and union represent atives. All personnel necessary for operating the scheme are se lected by the committee except—and the exception is of vital im portance—the dispatchers, who are elected by the union. No one can serve for more than two consecutive years on the dispatching staff. The union, therefore, has actual control of the employment process. Theoretically, a longshoreman who is not a member of the union can register at the dispatching hall as a "permit man" and be listed for work. Actually, there is both a closed shop and a closed union, and "permit men" have little chance. Even mem bers of the union who come from other ports are permitted to work on the local docks for a period of but 3o days and only on a "visitor's card." The union will not increase its membership ex cept when its members see that the labour supply is inadequate, and they will not admit it is inadequate until they are earning over $1,800 a year.
The present dispatching system went into operation March 4, Its procedure equalizes man-earnings through equalization of gang hours. Most of the longshoremen are assigned to eight man gangs. The balance are on "the extra board" and used to fill the places of absentees and to increase the size of gangs when necessary for handling cargoes. The cumulative annual earnings of each gang are recorded daily on a blackboard in the dispatching hall. Assignments of gangs to the employers are made each day on the basis of balancing the gangs' earnings. The dis patching office at Seattle stated that they would balance the man-year earnings of all the men on the Seattle docks for the year 1939 with a variation of not more than two or three dollars per man in annual earnings.
Until recently there were "preferred gangs" and "casual gangs." Employers asked for particular gangs for certain classes of work, such as unloading lumber. In the interest of equalizing earnings, the union did away with the preferred gangs. Employers com plain that some gangs are not competent to handle some cargoes but from the point of view of equalization of earnings the pres ent plan produces an almost perfect result.
The men on "the extra board" are sent out under the same principle of earnings equalization but union men are given a pref erence, men whose initiation is pending second chance, and permit men (non-union) last chance.
American agriculture has been another source of extensive cas ual employment. A large, but never enumerated, number of peo ple have been used in the wheat harvest of the great plains, the California and Atlantic coast fruit and vegetable harvests, in onion growing in Texas and other States, sugar beets, peas, tomatoes, corn and similar products in various parts of the country. In California estimated its harvest labour needs at 198,00o persons, 5o,000 of whom would be non-residents of the county where the crops were harvested. Most of these crops, in addition to their seasonality, have a high sensitivity to weather, which may in a short period of time advance or retard maturity of the crops.
The increased use of the combine, which cuts and threshes wheat in a single operation, and many other forms of agricultural ma chinery have greatly diminished in recent years the casual labour demand for wheat harvesting, cotton, peas and corn. But in solving to a degree the casual labour problem, they have in some cases intensified other types of unemployment problems.
The lumbering industry, like the agricultural, has greatly di minished its demand for casual labour, partly through the de crease in merchantable forests, partly through increased mecha nization and longer lumbering seasons.
Much of the American casual labour problem has centred around the migratory casuals, as contrasted with the resident cas uals. It is the combination of habitual migration with short time employment that distinguishes the migratory casual from all other types of workers in the American labour supply.
The agricultural, lumbering and construction industries have been the most important employers of migratory workers, and typically on a very irregular and casual basis. Ordinarily, the migratory casuals have lived (and do now) on the very margin of subsistence. When in need, because non-residents form a poor law point of view, they seldom have had a clean-cut right to public relief. It was the established practice either to give them emer gency aid and make them leave town immediately or to arrange to ship them to the locality where they last had legal residence. There they might or might not be accepted as eligible for relief. When the Federal Emergency Relief Administration was set up in 1933, its relief program for transients gave the migratory cas uals recognized rights to relief for the first time in American his tory. The right was destroyed in 1935 when the WPA was set up and the Federal direct relief system liquidated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-D. D. Lescohier, Sources of Supply and Conditions Bibliography.-D. D. Lescohier, Sources of Supply and Conditions of Employment of Harvest Labor in the Wheat Belt, Bulletin 1211, U.S. Department of Agriculture (May 23, 1924) ; A. H. Hansen et al., The Duluth Casual Labor Group (University of Minnesota Press, 1932) ; Eldon E. Shaw and John A. Hopkins, Trends in Employment in Agriculture, 1909-36, WPA Report No. A-8 (Nov. 1938) ; John H. Webb, The Transient Unemployed, WPA Research Monograph III (1935) ; John H. Webb, The Migratory Casual Worker, WPA Research Monograph No. 7 (1937) ; Marvel Keller, Decasualization of Long shore Work in San Francisco, WPA Report No. L-2 (April 1939) (Bib liography) ; Boris Stern, Cargo Handling and Longshore Conditions, United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin S5o (Feb. 1932) ; Edward E. Swanstrom, The Waterfront Problem, a Study in De casualization and Unemployment Insurance (Fordham University Press, 1938) (Bibliography). (D. D. L.)