The Trade Boards Act 1909 (9 Edw. 7. c. 22) was a piece of social legislation passed in the United Kingdom in 1909. It provided for the creation of boards which could set minimum wage criteria that were legally enforceable. It was expanded and updated in the Trade Boards Act 1918. The main provision was to set minimum wages in certain trades with historically low wages, often due to a surplus of available workers due to the widespread employment of workers or lack of skills needed for employment.Wrigley, Chris, Winston Churchill: A Biographical Companion, p327,
At first it applied to four industries: chain-making, ready-made tailoring, paper-box making, machine-made lace making, and finishing trades.Sheila Blackburn, "Ideology and social policy: the origins of the Trade Boards Act." The Historical Journal 34#1 (1991): 43-64. It was later expanded in 1912: mining and then to other industries with a preponderance of unskilled manual labour.
Debates Winston Churchill, MP then President of the Board of Trade, put the argument for the legislation as follows:
The effectiveness of the Trade Boards Act of 1909 can be exhibited through solving the sweating problem that it was created to address. Campaigns by workers such as the Black Country chainmakers who spent decades looking for protection from brutal conditions. These conditions led to the issue of "sweating" onto government policy regarding minimum wage boards.
See also UK labour law Trade Boards Act 1918 Wages Councils Act 1945 National Minimum Wage Act 1998 S Webb and B Webb, Industrial Democracy (1898) Liberal reforms History of the welfare state in the United Kingdom Notes
Further reading Bean, Jessica S., and George R. Boyer. "The Trade Boards Act of 1909 and the alleviation of household poverty." British journal of industrial relations 47.2 (2009): 240-264. online Blackburn, Sheila C. "Curse or cure? Why was the enactment of Britain's 1909 Trade Boards Act so controversial?." British Journal of Industrial Relations 47.2 (2009): 214-239. online Blackburn, Sheila. "Ideology and social policy: the origins of the Trade Boards Act." The Historical Journal 34#1 (1991): 43-64. S Webb and B Webb, Industrial Democracy (Longmans 1902)
External links Trade Boards Act 1909 on Wikisource