ABSTRACT
the recognition of workshop bargaining in connexion with dilution has become rather more distinct; but there is still no explicit reference to shop stewards or shop committees, and the whole of the procedure is defined in essentially pre-war terms. There was, before the war, no formal provision for the ‘recognition’ of shop stewards by the employers. The Central Labour Supply Committee, appointed as an advisory body to the Ministry of Munitions in September 1915, and consisting of Government representatives, employers, and Trade Unionists, was entrusted with the drafting of the Dilution Scheme. The pre-war method of ad hoc deputations was already, at the end of 1915, falling into disuse, and being replaced by the method of continuous workshop organization. The largest Trade Union, however, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and one or two of the smaller Societies, refused to sign the agreement, on the ground that the measure of recognition accorded was inadequate.
