Whatever happened to the good employer? more

Whatever happened to the Good Employer? Languages of justification at both ends of the twentieth century. Ron Beadle Principal Lecturer in HRM University of Northumbria at Newcastle Northumberland Building Northumberland Road Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST Tel: 0191 227 3469 Fax:0191 227 3682 e.mail: ron.beadle@unn.ac.uk 1 Abstract This paper compares the types of justifications offered for interventions in wage setting in Parliamentary Debates at both ends of the Twentieth Century. The dominant motif of utilitarianism remains as members conflicted on the likely consequence of the measures. As to their objectives, the issue of primary concern shifts from a mixture of motives in 1909 (removal of ills, fairness, the protection of the good employer and the health of the nation) to a discourse based overwhelmingly on the removal of ills in 1997. Of particular significance is the change in attention given to the idea of the good employer. When the Wages Boards were established by legislation in 1909, the minister responsible, Winston Churchill, justified them in terms of their ability to protect the good employer from being ‘undercut by the bad’1. This idea is central to the case in 1909 but reduced to passing references by 1997. The language of virtue applied to the employment relationship was by the end of the century, almost completely abandoned, replaced by the language of utility (the maximisation of values). While the transformation from a moral language of the virtues to a moral language of values has started to be documented2 work has yet to begin in tracing these changes in the context of employment. This paper starts to make good that deficit. 1 Official Report (Hansard) Parliamentary Debates. Commons VOL IV April 26 - May 1 1909, pp388. 2 See especially Himmelfarb, G. (1995). The De-Moralisation of Society – From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, London. 2 Introduction ‘when a species, such as our own, is able through the use of language to become reflective about its reasons, it is not only the having of reasons that is now causally effective in guiding behaviour, but the having of reasons for taking this set of considerations rather than that to be in this particular situation genuinely reason-affording that is causally effective.’3 MacIntyre’s argument suggests an understanding of reasons for action through three levels. At the first level is the identification of a possible course of action, at the second the reasons given for pursuing, not pursuing or otherwise modifying it, and at the third level evaluation of the appropriateness of these reasons given the circumstances and subject. This paper is a reflection on the types of reasons considered during the passage of legislation to set minimum wages in the United Kingdom in 1909 and 1997. In part this is to test the arguments of both MacIntyre4 but to a greater extent Himmelfarb5, that ‘modern’ reasoning has replaced a language of virtues with a language of values. In the former, reasons are considered reason affording inasmuch as they reflect the requirements of particular social roles. In other words, moral judgement is primarily a matter of the obligations associated with social roles – for example, husband, wife, teacher, friend and, for our purposes, employer’6. To be good is to carry out those obligations and to have those dispositions necessary for the conduct of one’s social role(s), hence the good husband, the good wife, the good friend, the good teacher and the good employer. In the latter reasons are genuinely reason affording inasmuch as they demonstrate value maximisation (utilitarianism) of a set of arbitrarily chosen but socially agreed values. Himmelfarb argues7 that the transition from the Victorian to the Modern era is characterised by nothing so much as the replacement of virtues as socially agreed reasons for acting by the maximisation of values. Modernity would reject the argument that something should be done because it is good to do it, as tantamount to idiocy (or at the very least an unreflective subjectivity). Accepted narratives argue with the detached phraseology of the technically competent in which ends are assumed and only means debated. Methodology This paper directly compares the arguments employed in the second readings of bills presented at both ends of the last century (1909 and 1997) to set a floor to wages. This offers an opportunity to compare the way in which judgements about employee relations have been made in precisely those periods about which Himmelfarb makes her contention. If she is correct we should expect an argument to protect the virtuous to be replaced by an argument to maximise valued outcomes 3 MacIntyre, A.(1999). Dependent Rational Animals: Why human beings need the virtues. Duckworth: London. p59 4 See for an introduction Knight, K. (1999). A MacIntyre Reader. Polity Press: London. 5 Himmelfarb, G. (1995). The De-Moralisation of Society – From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values. IEA Health and Welfare Unit, London. 6 For further justification see Beadle, R. (1998). Virtue Ethics and Employment Or The Case of the Cancelled Holiday. Paper presented to the Second Conference on HRM and Ethics, Kingston University, January. 7 Himmelfarb, G.(1995), op.cit passim 3 Parliamentary debates have been recorded in the same format for centuries and this allows for direct comparison of language and arguments. In testing a hypothesis about the types of reasons regarded as legitimate within a particular type of considered discourse they are of particular interest precisely because they are intended for a public audience as well as immediate listeners. In general, parliamentarians offer the best arguments available to them. Our interest then is in considering the types of reasons offered for approving or opposing the bills at the stage in the parliamentary process (second reading) in which their principles rather than their details are considered. We have no method of determining the relative influence of interventions though the fact that most speeches are pre-written indicates that little influence is exerted in the debates; we can (however crudely) measure the number of occurrences of particular types of justificatory language. Given that the data set is qualitative, interpretation is ineliminable. Each argument presented in every speech has been categorised according to categories identified within political economy. Appendices 1 and 2 list speeches and the categories of arguments found. This allows readers to check classification for consistency and accuracy. Three additional limitations should be borne in mind. First the technical issues differ between the two bills, with the former establishing trade boards to determine minimum rates within specific industries and the latter establishing a mechanism to determine the minimum wage across employments. Second, the debate was longer in 1997 when 23 members spoke (and over 50 intervened), than in 1909 when 19 spoke and a handful interrupted. This paper only considers speeches because the nature of interruptions is to make single points, or to put single questions, rather than to develop an argument. Third, the debate in 1997 is littered with abuse of opponents and their records. This is completely absent from the debate in 1909. The section below introduces the debates, and presents the designations of argument identified. The study continues with findings and concludes with a discussion of implications. State Intervention in Wage Setting 1909 and 1998 In 1909 and 1997 significant periods of Conservative rule had recently been overturned by an administration willing to intervene intervene in the market to raise terms and conditions. The 1909 Trades Boards Bill proposed to establish Minimum Wage Setting Trades Boards in a limited number of industries and the reasoning behind the choice of industries and the possibility of extension to others was one of the issues which occupied members’ minds. The Bill was supported by all four major parties (Liberals, Conservative and Unionists, the Irish Party and Labour). In 1998 the National Minimum Wage Act proposed to establish a mechanism for the setting of a national minimum wage through an appointed Low Pay Commission. The Labour Government introduced the Bill with support in-principle from the Liberal Democrats but opposition from the Conservatives. Neither Bill dealt ostensibly with the actual rate of wages under consideration. 4 Categories of Argument Six categories of arguments have been identified as occurring in the debates. These have been defined broadly and their inclusion is justified in the illustrative examples presented below. Put briefly arguments are from: • • • • • • Utility The removal of ills The notion of the Good Employer Fairness / Justice Nationhood Rights Before defining the arguments some introductory notes of caution should be offered. The first is that speakers do not use these terms themselves, they are constructs developed for the purposes of this paper but reflecting identified themes within political economy. The second is that very few of the speeches under consideration present arguments from only one of these categories. For example, Ian McCartney, the Labour Minister steering the legislation in 1997 sums up his contribution: The minimum wage is vital to ending the scandal of poverty pay; it is not only social justice, but it makes good economic sense. 8(234) This sentence incorporates arguments from utility, the removal of ills and fairness/justice. With this proviso, we discuss the designations of arguments used in the paper. The categories were developed in reading the two debates, and they represent positions clearly recognisable in political economy. It is also worth noting that they are available to all sides of political spectrum – a notion such as fairness or justice is routinely employed by politicians of all hues though some association between party and the type of argument made is found. The paper is also unconcerned with the types of evidence used to support arguments though the availability and range of sources cited are far wider in 1997 that 1909. A typical statement in 1909 uses for its evidence a mixture of experience and intuition: ‘ I think the establishment of trade boards and trade committees will be of very considerable value to the traders themselves, and to fair employers the establishment of minimum rates of pay can do absolutely nothing but good. The trades concerned, I am quite certain will easily accommodate themselves to the new conditions.’(358) By 1997, no argument appears without evidence and indeed John Redwood, the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman makes an issue of this with his Labour opponent Margaret Beckett: If the right hon. Lady would like to offer a different set of assumptions or if she has found an error in the way in which the officials calculated the figures, I invite her to correct the figures or provide alternative figures based on her alternative assumptions. We can then debate the matter properly. It is unacceptable for the right hon. Lady to produce a piece of legislation that many in this country believe will destroy many jobs and then wash her hands of the matter by 8 All references from the 1997 debate give column numbers from Hansard and can be found at www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199798. 5 saying, "I have no idea whether any jobs will be lost. I'm not going to calculate any figures and, if there are any figures in the Department, I'll make sure that they are all suppressed." (181-182) This paper then makes no effort to judge the merits of any of the cases presented, nor is it concerned with the authorities cited in the debates. Where authorities are cited, it is the argument in virtue of which authority is claimed that has been noted. What categories of argument have been found? Arguments from Utility Arguments from utility reason about the consequences of action for a bundle of ends (utilities). We need to distinguish between this designation which concentrates on the assessment of likely policy outcomes with a strict Utilitarianism, which is the argument that associates right conduct with the maximisation of happiness. The popular currency of both types of argument took hold in the nineteenth century writings of Bentham, Mill and their successors9, but the former method of decision making predominates in the arguments considered here rather than any reference to the happiness principle. According to Himmelfarb10, this method dominates modernity because of synergies with a value free cultural pluralism in which the ends of policy are assumed and only the means discussed. Reasons here are considered reason affording if they demonstrate the attainment of a larger bundle of these ends (utilities) than alternatives. The argument is always consequentialist and aggretative, inasmuch as debate centres on prediction of consequences for the whole affected group. The bases for these predictions – whether empirical or logico-rational are also therefore up for contest). Arguments from the removal of ills Arguments from the removal of ills are about a specific end. These arguments suggest that a reason is reason affording if it removes ills and/or creates well being. The principle has been most famously defined by Raz 11 who distinguishes it from utilitarian and egalitarian arguments as follows: ‘Utilitarianism in morals and politics is to be rejected, among other reasons because of the limitless and inexhaustible demands it puts upon us. Egalitarianism, along with other forms of distributionism, is to be rejected because it falsely attributes intrinsic value to relational properties that have none in themselves. It is a cardinal point in my argument therefore that the basic principles of political morality cab be neither aggretative (having to do with collective or general welfare) nor distributive (having to do with relative standing). They are instead, all of them, diminishing principles, having as their subject matter individual human well-being and the satisfaction of basic need in respect of vital interests central to well-being.’ Arguments from the notion of the good employer Whereas other arguments operate in a variety of contexts this argument is a species of virtue ethics in which a reason is reason affording if it reflects virtuous conduct. In this context, the argument is about the virtues associated with employment. 9 For a good history see Scarre, G.(1996). Utilitarianism. Routeledge: London esp. pp48-72 Himmelfarb, G.(1995). op.cit passim 11 Raz, J.(1986). The morality of freedom. Clarneden Press: Oxford 10 6 therefore in the same way as an argument against adultery is based upon the virtues said to reside in marriage, an argument against low pay is based on the virtues said to reside in employment. The good employer is the employer who carries out the virtues associated with his role. The argument is critically linked to the idea of the proper conduct of social roles as being the foundation of the development of individual virtues and the virtuous society12. It is a reflection of the type of moral discourse Himmelfarb describes as Victorian and MacIntyre as ‘Classical’. Arguments from fairness/justice Definitions of fairness and justice are notoriously difficult and essentially contested. Here the category is used to designate arguments which are (in Raz’s terms) distributive, inasmuch as they suggest a reason is reason-affording if it reduces disparities between individuals and/or groups along a particular dimension of value, in this case disparities in income and wealth. Arguments from Nationhood These arguments follow from an image of the nation as an organism popular in the Victorian period and see an argument as reason affording if it contributes to the health of the organism. One of the most prominent advocates of this view (and a crucial influence on the ‘new’ liberals of the turn of the twentieth century) was Hobson who summarised this view as follows: Society is rightly regarded as a moral rational organism in the sense that it has a common psychic life, character and purpose which are not to be resolved into the life, character and purposes of its individual members 13 And that therefore The good of the organism as a whole is the absolute criterion of conduct, and may in extreme cases require the complete sacrifice of an organ or its cells.14 Arguments from Rights Arguments from rights are the classic deontological claims which assert individual rights as binding on social conduct. This paper assigns arguments from both negative liberties (i.e. rights against state interference in conduct) and positive liberties (i.e. rights to goods secured by the state) to this definition. Findings Arguments from all six positions are found in 1909 (see appendix A), with five receiving mention in 1997 (see appendix B). Inasmuch as they involved assertions as to the benefits or disbenefits of the proposals nearly all speakers made a case from utility but the utilities at which the measure was aimed were far wider and far less predictable in 1909 than those which concerned legislators in 1997. 12 13 This is a rendition of some of MacIntyre’s central themes. See Knight, K.(1999) op.cit. Freeden, M.(ed). (1988). J.A. Hobson – A Reader. Unwin Hyman:London p66 14 ibid p74 7 The table below gives the number of occasions in which arguments were deployed: 1909 (n=19) 18 12 8 6 4 5 1997 (n=23) 20 22 8 12 0 1 Utility Removal of ills Good Employer Justice Nation Rights An initial reading of the table may suggest that little had changed but it is at the level of priorities between these arguments that substantial differences appear. We shall compare the types of arguments recorded under each heading in both debates. Arguments from Utility In 1909 the argument was predominantly concerned with the employment effects of the measure and the issue of free trade. Conservatives who followed the front bench supporting the principle were keen to draw attention to the likely loss of jobs it would create unless accompanied by a policy of protection. In 1997 the employment effects were matched, as a utilitarian concern with the impact of the measure on the payment of welfare benefits – the likely reduction of which became a significant argument deployed by Labour. With protection no longer an issue the Conservatives opposed the proposal almost solely on the basis of its likely employment effects.15 Their front bench spokesman, John Redwood made this clear: We therefore say: minimum income yes; minimum wage no. We want every family in this country to be able to earn enough from work to lead a decent life. Of course that is our objective, and let no Labour Member deny that or say to the contrary. The Conservative party wants a prosperous country. The issue is how to achieve it. Legislation cannot create prosperity in the way that the Government naively believe; there must be a low-tax, lowregulation economy, full of enterprise and initiative so that small companies can prosper, and more and better jobs are created. (174 emphasis added) This argument is typical in making a utilitarian assessment allied to an argument around removal of ills (Unemployment and poverty) as the over-riding policy objectives. The Labour Front bench was overwhelmingly concerned with the rejecting the predicted job losses while agreeing with the Conservatives’ utilitarian premises. Margaret Beckett, President of the Board of Trade made a classic utilitarian case based on maximising various utilities, as she stated: The main issue with respect to a national minimum wage is getting the policy mix right. So long as it is set at a sensible level, taking economic circumstances into account, it can contribute to growth and job creation, while helping to tackle poverty pay and to alleviate the burden on the taxpayer (163). That utility had become central to a case formerly argued on moral grounds was admitted by a Labour backbencher, Judy Mallaber. She said: 15 It is of particular relevance that the Conservatives moved in 1999 to accept the principle of the minimum wage arguing that the negative employment effects they had feared were not apparent. 8 I have made those arguments over many years. I am very emotional about the debate because, I am proud to say, I was employed by the National Union of Public Employees when we were advancing the arguments for a minimum wage. I wrote many of the documents that made that case. We saw it as a moral argument about justice, but now we see it as an economic argument about a measure that will get the country on its feet again (219) Arguments from the removal of ills This argument is central in 1997 but referred to by just over half of speakers in 1909. The image in the earlier period is one of a small number of industries and employers undermining the virtues of the rest. The organic metaphor is clear in H.J. Tennant, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade’s summary: ‘the application of this measure is very limited. It is intended to be applied exclusively to exceptionally unhealthy patches of the body politic where the development has been arrested in spite of the growth of the rest of the organism. It is the morbid and diseased places - to the industrial diptheritic spots that we should apply the toxin of trade boards.’ (344) By 1997 the House of Commons contained many more members with direct experience of the conditions they were describing and the issue of low pay was regarded as of far more generic concern. Beckett, combining an argument around the extent of the problem with her utilitarianism argued that: In consequence, we see low standards, not merely becoming the norm, but being reflected in the poor quality, or indeed the lack of any training or of development, in the work force, in levels of productivity that still lag far behind our competitors because improved productivity depends crucially on improved levels of investment, and in consequent reductions in the competitiveness of much of British industry. (163) Indeed this is the first issue referred to by Beckett in her opening remarks: I am proud to be able to stand before the House today moving the Second Reading of the National Minimum Wage Bill. The Bill will introduce, for the first time in the United Kingdom, minimum wage protection for all workers and will begin to end the scandal of poverty pay (162) What emerges in 1997 is a policy which aims to reduce poverty while having economic benefits. Opponents however used the same grounds for predicting consequences diametrically opposed to these outcomes. Conservative MP, Michael Fallon stated: It is no comfort to those who will be thrown out of work by the Bill to be told that an econometric model has been measuring the potential impact on their jobs. It is no comfort to those whose low-skilled jobs will disappear, and such jobs are often the first to start up the ladder. Through the Bill, the Government are kicking that ladder away for those who are least able to compete--the unskilled, the young, the elderly, the most vulnerable in our society. The Bill will be deeply damaging (231) This clearly demonstrates that by 1997 both government and Opposition were contesting the same grounds, which had the better policies for reducing poverty and unemployment. The remaining arguments, common in 1909, were marginal by 1997. We begin with the argument around fairness. 9 Arguments from fairness/justice In both debates these arguments and are only referred to by proponents of the measures. The argument takes both moral and empirical forms. The moral is clear from Alasdair Morgan’s summary in 1997 which clearly links a distributive egalitarianism to a notion of desert: It is the principle that, in a civilised society, there is surely a minimum wage below which anyone who works for a living does not deserve to fall. I would go so far as to say that it encapsulates a moral imperative: people should be paid a wage that is capable of supporting them in their daily existence, after they have given their work to earn that wage. (199) In 1909 a central theme of the Government’s case was that power was unequally distributed between employer and employed in the industries under consideration. This was common to both sides of the House who contrasted fair bargaining with the unorganised sector. Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade makes this central: ‘But where you have what we call sweated trades, you have no organization, no parity of bargaining, the good employer is undercut by the bad, and the bad employer is undercut by the worst; the worker, whose livelihood depends upon the industry, is undersold by the worker who only takes the trade up as a second string, his feebleness and ignorance generally renders the worker an easy prey to the tyranny of the masters and middle-men, only a step higher up the ladder than the worker, and held in the same relentless grip of forces where those conditions prevail you have not a condition of progress but one of progressive degeneration.’ (388) Lyttleton, a Conservative member contrasts this with the fair conditions normally prevalent: ‘Gradually that competition has been evolved in such a way as in all the organised trades to put organised labour in conflict with organised capital. It is not always in conflict, it is often acting in harmony, but is the organisation of labour which makes it competent to deal with organised capital. Normally that is quite adequate to ensure, by the dealing of the market, fair play as between employer and employed.’ (353) Balfour, Conservative leader, re-iterates the point with reference to the wages of the lowest paid: ‘These wages are not fixed by competition, but it is a forced sale of value. It is not competition value. It is a forced sale value. It is grossly unfair of anyone to say that a forced represents the true value of the article sold. A forced sale never gives a true market rate of wages. Therefore I do not think that if this Bill is properly worked it will interfere with anything that can truly be said to be a fair market rate of wages.’ (380) The role of fairness then, is central to the purpose of legislation in 1909, but its absence not considered to be widespread. Perhaps it is for this reason that members could be far more assertive about the appropriate remedy for its presence than in 1997. We continue to quote Lyttleton, ‘Moreover, I myself face the position - I think it useless not to have the courage to face it - that it is absolutely better that some industries should perish than that they should continue necessary under such conditions as now obtain’ (356) Not a single member in 1997 made the case that fairness either did or should require such sacrifice. 10 Arguments from the notion of the Good Employer The notion of the good employer was central to the legislation of 1909. Not for nothing is Churchill’s quote above the most famous of the debate. But the fact that this notion was the central construct around which employment policy was determined only becomes clear when we note the passing references to it. They are passing, and no case asserted, because no case needed to be asserted. All the hearers understood what was meant by the term ‘good employer’. So we quote now a number of occasions when reference is made to the good employer in a variety of contexts, as beneficiary of the legislation, as representative of the nation’s trading interest, and as future enforcer of the Act: First Richardson, a Conservative who summarised the Bill What is the object of this Bill. First, I take it, to improve the conditions of home workers, and incidentally, to protect the fair and legitimate employer against the unfair and illegitimate employer. Some two or three years ago in connection with the lace trade the better class of employers, irrespective of party - because I find that as many conservative as Liberal employers take a great interest in this matter - banded themselves together for the purpose of accomplishing the very object which this Bill has in view; but as a result of the unwillingness on the part of the unfair employers - and we find unfair employers among Liberals as well as among conservatives- the scheme fell through.’(370) According to A.G. Hooper: ‘‘I am informed by the Hon. Secretary of the Chainmakers Association - who has been Secretary for 25 years - that every one of the good employers agrees that this trade should be put in the schedule of the Bill. They say not to only that sweating is bad for the employees who receive such miserable wages under such hard conditions but also that it is fatal to the reputation of the trade itself(368-369).. the hope and expectation which the good employers have as to the ultimate effect of this Bill is that it will prevent this shoddy manufacture of chain which is being sent abroad to the detriment of the good name of the trade’ (369) Gooch argued: ‘The Hon member for Leicester appears to me to think that the only people who are really being employed or employ themselves in trying to prevent evasion are the official inspectors. If that were so I would entirely agree with him that evasion would become very prevalent but I believe, especially if we get the good employers on our side - and we have every reason to think that we shall do so - we shall have good employers and philanthropic and other people who are interested in the success of the scheme, and I think we will have a splendid growing and developing feeling among the workers themselves. these will all be forces working for at any rate the diminution of the possibility of evasion.’ (400-401) Churchill concurred: ‘But most of all I put my faith in the powerful band of employers, perhaps the majority, who from high motives or self-interest, or from a combination of the two - a not necessarily incompatible idea at all- would form a vigilant and instructive police, knowing every twist and turn of the trade, and who will labour, and must labour, to protect themselves from being undercut by the illegal competition of unscrupulous rivals.’ (392) By 1997 the references to the Good Employer are implicit rather than explicit and the only time the term is mentioned is when Churchill is quoted. Otherwise the only mentions are to the effects of allowing undercutting by unscrupulous or ‘cowboy’ 11 firms. The argument is present but appears as a disguised utilitarianism, hence Ian McCartney’s citing of the effects of ‘good employment: Yesterday, I received a letter from the head of Bass, which stated: "Bass supports the principle of a minimum wage". It is interesting to note why it says that. It has admitted that in certain parts of its business it has a staff turnover of 100 per cent. a year. That means that 50,000 people a year leave the company's employment. The purpose of the national minimum wage is to ensure quality investment in training and education and the ability for people to earn a good wage so that they can remain in employment. The Rank organisation wrote to me yesterday and said: "Rank are responsible employers and, in principle, are not opposed to a national minimum wage". Tesco wrote to me this morning and said: "Tesco has stated for several years that it does not see any problems with a National Minimum Wage." As an example of good employment, employers and trade unions can work together in a modern, progressive and evolving way to further the interests of staff and shareholders(234) The notion of the Good Employer rests on the idea that employers have a choice as to the extent of their benevolence. That this is not possible is clear in 1997 to Theresa Gorman: I asked two businessmen in my constituency--real employers who provide real jobs--about the implications of the Bill. One of them is a respectable local builder who does lots of work for the local council, who has been a member of the council and who does splendid work. I asked him about wages in his industry, which is still controlled by the Construction Industry Training Board. I asked what would persuade him to pay higher wages and he told me that, to begin with, it was a matter of what the contractor would pay him. His contractors include the local council, which asks him to submit bids for jobs. He has to be competitive in the wages he can offer, because 90 per cent. of his outgoings are wages. To get work for his employees, he has to be competitive. It is not a question of whether he wants to be benevolent and double his employees' wages overnight--any employer would like to be able to do that--but in the real world employers have to compete for jobs. (214) By 1997 the good employer is either dead or impossible. Arguments from Nationhood Churchill began his 1909 speech linking an argument around nation to an argument around fairness: ‘it is a serious national evil that any class of His majesty’s subjects should receive less than a living wage in return for their utmost exertions. (388) Apart from occasional comparisons with labour statistics of competitors, the idea of the nation had become irrelevant to the debate in 1997. As we have seen however, things were much different in 1909. AJ Tennant spoke through the metaphor and the same speech continued: ‘’If I am told capital will not stand for it, I answer there is another and greater capital with greater claims upon us. It is against the drain upon this capital that this effort we are making today is directed, against this waste we protest - I mean the life capital of the nation (351) 12 Churchill applies the organic metaphor to trades themselves: The first clear division which we make on the question today is between healthy and unhealthy conditions of bargaining.’ (388) ‘We must not regard these trades as if they were inanimate abstractions. They are living, I had almost said, sentient, organisms, and each trade will require to be studied separately. No general rule can be applied. There is no regulation dose with which you can treat the disease.’ (389-90) Its centrality to the language suggests more than a metaphor, but rather a notion of social identity related to that which Hobson proposed. A sense of identity which has ceased to exist. Arguments from Rights Finally we turn to rights. By 1997 the notion of human rights was available in a way not apparent in 1909 and yet its only mention was made by the former Director of the Low Pay Unit, Chris Pond. He states: Since the previous Government abolished wages councils in 1993, no UK citizen, with the exception of those working in agriculture, has been entitled to any basic pay level. That is in contravention of the universal declaration of human rights, which states: "Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring . . . an existence worthy of human dignity". Too many of our citizens are denied that basic human right and dignity. It is a matter of basic social justice (202) Not a single member opposed the minimum wage in 1997 on the basis of negative liberties. This was not the case in 1909. Most arguments made on this issue were from Conservatives such as Balfour arguing in the quote above why this Bill was not a restraint on fair trade. One or two Conservatives broke ranks on the issue and these included Banbury whose outrage is clear: I believe it is the first time and I am very sorry to say it, that in any civilised country any statesman has accepted the view that exchange is robbery (404). Once again the narrowing of the issues considered in the debate from 1909 to 1997 is clear. Discussion These findings concur with Himmelfarb’s case that moral reasoning has shifted from notions of virtue to notions of value maximisation though the start of that process is clearly evident in 1909 The idea of the good employer is found to have been a central construct used to justify state intervention in wage setting at the start of the century. By 1999 the term and its concomitant language of employment as a telos has been abandoned. Linked to this earlier language are the common use of organismic metaphors to describe the relationship between employment practices and the health of the nation. These too have disappeared, replaced by a language dominated by utilitarian judgement making common to both sides of the debate. 13 A series of arguments may be made to explain this change of language and criteria of justification. The first would be Himmelfarb’s - highlighting the transition from virtues to values in the moral language of both periods as a whole. We could not anticipate the language of the good to be applied to the practice of employment when pejorative statements are resisted in contemporary culture generally. A second argument would involve the idea of conceptual habitats16 to show how the range of concepts available for deployment in these debates had expanded over the intervening period to such a point where no single construct could be as dominant as that of the ‘good employer’ had been. A third (historic materialist) argument might suggest that the social agreement as to the obligations contained within the idea of the good employer (i.e. its referents) and which had therefore enabled its use in 1909 had disappeared by 1999. As Purcell writes ‘the definition of the good employer changes from one generation to another and often reflects how far the dominant coalition in society at any one time expresses concern for the relatively disadvantaged.’17 By 1999 perhaps the term had become essentially contested and therefore useless – its role in legitimation lost. Why should we be interested? This paper began by quoting moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. Part of the answer comes from his extended critique of modernism and its typical evaluative methods18. Its relevance to the employment relationship is its insistence that morality is best understood as being rooted in particular types of social practice. This may explain findings on the psychological contract, which highlight perceptions of fairness and justice in explaining phenomena as diverse job satisfaction and motivation19, unionisation and militancy20. Such an explanation would hold that the psychological contract is yet another value free modernist construct for understanding the virtues defining a good employer and good employee. This type of understanding has however little resonance with the ways in which employment is discussed at the turn of the twenty-first century, at least if Parliamentary debate is in any way reflective of wider narratives. 16 Whetton, D.A. & Godfrey, P.A.(eds).(1998).Identity in Organisations – Building theory through Conversations. Calif: Sage. Pp1-13. 17 Purcell, J. (1998). In Search of the Good Employer. Inaugural Professorial Lecture delivered at the University of Bath. 18 See for an introduction Knight, K. (1999). A MacIntyre Reader. Polity Press: London. 19 See Guest, D & Conway, N. (1999). ‘Peering into the black hole: The downside of the New Employment Relations in the UK.’ British Journal of Industrial Relations, September. 00070080 pp.367-389. The authors conclude: ‘It appears to be fairness of treatment by management and related features of the psychological contract that differentiate those within black holes who are more or less satisfied. In other words, even with limited adoption of innovative human resource practices, and without the pressure or support of a trade union, some organisations are getting it right as far as their employees are concerned.’ (ibid. pp 3867). 20 See Kelly, J.(1998). Rethinking Industrial Relations – Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves. London: Routeledge. passim. 14 Appendix A – Use of arguments in Members’ Speeches 1909 Utility Dilke Balfour Churchill Tennant Banbury Lyttleton Black Marks Bull Hooper Richardson Parkes* Hayden* Richards Nanetti Cox* Gooch Banbury* Clynes TOTAL X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 18 Fairness/ Justice X X X X X X Removal of Ills X X X X X X X X Nation Rights Good Employer X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 12 X X X 5 X X 8 6 4 * Members Opposing Bill 15 Appendix B – Use of Arguments in Members’ Speeches 1997 Utility Beckett Redwood* Pendry Chidgey Pike Willetts* Naysmith Morgan Pond Hammond* Godsiff MacLean* Atherton Gorman* Alexander Woodward* Mallaber Prior* Lepper Green* Brown Fallon McCartney TOTAL X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Fairness /Justice X X X X X X X X Removal Of Ills X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Nation Rights Good Employer Args X X X X X X X X X X X X * Members opposing Bill 16