Article

Trade unions

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Trade unions

Scope and Historical Definition

The trade-union movement in the Federation of Malaya between 1948 and 1957 was shaped decisively by the onset of the Emergency and the collapse of Communist-dominated unions in the private sector, which left the movement divided into two clearly distinguishable parts: the remaining private-sector unions and the unions of government employees [1, pp. 129–130]. The Trade Unions Ordinance 1946 prohibited government officers and servants from joining trade unions but empowered the High Commissioner to grant exemptions, which he exercised to permit most classes of government employees to form unions restricted in membership to fellow government employees [1, p. 129]. The term government employee was broad, encompassing staff of the Federal government, the eleven State and Settlement governments (including their town boards), the three municipalities of Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Malacca, and employees of public utilities such as railways, broadcasting, posts and telecommunications, port authorities, water supplies and the major part of the educational system [1, pp. 129–130]. Uniformed members of the police and armed forces were excluded, as were civilian employees of the United Kingdom government [1, p. 130].

Economic and Organisational Strength

Government employees’ unions constituted the most financially robust and structurally stable segment of the Malayan trade-union movement throughout the period. In-benefit membership grew from 27,392 in 1948 to 51,572 in 1957, while the number of active unions trebled from 48 to 129; unionisation among eligible government employees rose from 25 per cent to 36 per cent [1, pp. 129–130]. In every year except 1948, the accumulated funds of government employees’ unions exceeded those of all other unions combined, reaching $826,522 by March 1957, with funds per member rising steadily from $4 to $10, compared to a fluctuating $2 to $4 for all other unions [1, pp. 133–134]. From 1951 onwards, the accumulated funds of government employees’ unions amounted to approximately one year’s income or expenditure, whereas the equivalent ratio for all other unions varied between 17 and 33 per cent [1, p. 134].

Despite this financial strength, the movement was characterised by extreme fragmentation. In 1953, forty of the government employees’ unions had fewer than one hundred members, and only one union (railwaymen) exceeded two thousand [1, p. 135]. Two main structural patterns emerged: unions defined by department, status, geographical location and race or language (such as the Malacca Government Medical Workers Union or the Malay Teachers Union, Kedah), and unions based in Kuala Lumpur of staff at a particular level in a particular federal department (such as the Income Tax Officers Union, Federation of Malaya) [1, pp. 134–135]. The fragmentation was sustained by social factors—union activities were most successful in small groups with high mutual acquaintanceship, and the officers of one hundred and thirty unions felt the satisfactions of office would diminish if they became subordinate officials of a larger body [1, p. 135].

Collective Bargaining and Consolidation

The Malayan government, aided by its Trade Union Adviser, pursued a policy of educating workers in the principles and practice of collective bargaining, following the British system of Whitley Councils [1, pp. 137–138]. In 1946 an Interim Joint Council was established, and in 1950 the Legislative Council approved the principle that rates of remuneration for government employees were properly a matter for collective bargaining [1, p. 138]. Following the advice of a British expert in 1952, two National Whitley Councils—one for monthly-paid staff and one for daily-paid staff—were established in April 1953, with arbitration procedures accepted by both councils by the end of that year [1, pp. 138–139].

Efforts to consolidate the fragmented movement met with limited success. Seven federations of government employees’ unions were formed between 1948 and 1955, but by 1957 the Registrar of Trade Unions noted resignedly that, although it had been assumed federations would give way to national unions, this did not appear to be so; individual unions clung tenaciously to their identity [1, pp. 140–141]. The only recorded amalgamations were four unions of postal staff in 1954, nine small unions of schoolteachers in 1955, and three unions of railwaymen in 1956 [1, p. 141].

Research and Documentation

R.N. Jackson’s 1970 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society remains the foundational quantitative study of government employees’ trade unionism in the Federation during the Emergency and independence period [1, p. 129]. Drawing primarily on the Annual Reports of the Registrar of Trade Unions, the 1947 and 1957 Census Reports, Ministry of Labour Annual Reports, and the conference papers of the Malayan Trade Union Council, Jackson established a detailed statistical baseline that has since attracted considerably more scholarly attention [1, p. 142]. His work identified the over-representation of Indian employees in government service (24 per cent of government employees against 11 per cent of the total population) and their predominance in union leadership, with 62 of 118 delegates at the 1950 Malayan Trade Union Council conference and 30 of 50 in 1957 being Indian [1, pp. 136–137]. Jackson’s framing of the period as one of recovery from the shock of the Emergency’s onset, and his emphasis on the financial and structural superiority of government employees’ unions over both the private sector and the rubber-estate unions, established the analytical categories that subsequent labour historians have built upon [1, pp. 129].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. R.N. Jackson (1970). Notes on trade unionism amongst government employees in the Federation of Malaya, 1948–1957 JMBRAS 43(1): 129–142.