I move that the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill is described as the Workmen's Compensation (Amendment) Bill, 1952. The object of the Bill is to provide increases in the weekly compensation payable under the Workmen's Compensation Act and also to provide for an increased payment in respect of the lump sum payable to an adult dependent or to an adult dependent and children. Before proceeding further, I should perhaps explain that the Labour Party does not regard the present legislation in respect of workmen's compensation as either adequate or satisfactory to the needs of the situation.
The present workmen's compensation legislation, which was originally enacted in order to enable compensation to be secured with a minimum of complexity has, in our opinion, in fact developed to such an extent that the law governing workmen's compensation has become far too involved and far too complex, not only for those who have counsel on either side, but also exceptionally so in respect of the unfortunate injured party. Not only is the law far too complex and involved, but it has proved to be extremely costly so far as the injured party is concerned. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that, in a great many cases, the injured party, maimed in the course of his employment, without any income whatever in the form of wages and with a wife and children dependent upon him, is frequently the victim of the grip of hunger and that is often used ruthlessly against him in order to compel a settlement under the Act, a settlement which in no sense bears the hallmark of justice from the standpoint of the injured worker.
In our view the workmen's compensation code ought to form part of our general social welfare code. It should be a comprehensive piece of legislation built into the existing social welfare code and it should be administered by the State on a non-profit making basis. There should be simplification of the procedure for recovering compensation. There should be a minimum of hardship and inconvenience imposed on the injured workman in securing his rights under workmen's compensation legislation. Much, however, as we desire the complete reform of this legislation, it will be recognised by the House that complete reform would require major legislation of a kind which is beyond the power of any Opposition Party, having regard to the rules of order.
This Bill, therefore, recognises two things. First, amendment is urgently necessary and, secondly, pending the introduction of more comprehensive legislation in respect of the payment of compensation to injured workmen and their dependents we should proceed to revise the existing scales of compensation so as to ensure that they will be brought within reasonable compass of present day needs.
This Bill is limited to an amendment, or amendments of the Acts of 1934 and 1948. It might be well to explain at this stage that so far as weekly compensation is concerned the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1934 provided a weekly maximum compensation of 30/-. That was the maximum rate prevailing from 1934 until 1943 when, under stress of a substantial increase in the cost of living, an Emergency Powers Order was made which had the effect of adding 7/6 to the basic compensation of 30/- per week, making a total maximum compensation payable of 37/6 per week.
In 1948 the Workmen's Compensation (Amendment) Act was introduced. That provided, amongst other things, for raising the weekly compensation from 37/6 to 50/- per week, at the same time raising the ceiling for workmen's compensation payments to those whose salary did not exceed £500 per annum provided they were in the non-manual classes. Where the workman is in what is described as a manual class no such ceiling is enforced against him from the standpoint of his right to recover compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act.
We have the position that under the 1948 Act the maximum compensation payable was 50/- per week. Since 1948 there have been three rounds of wage increases in industry generally and, in fact, in virtually all classes of employment. In 1948 we had a general round of wage increases measured by an increase of approximately 11/- per week. In 1950-51 there was a second round of wage increases in which the increases granted varied from 10/- to £1 per week. In 1952, the present year, the pattern of increases is working out in the vicinity of 12/6 per week. In some cases it is slightly less. In others it is more. The position in relation to compensation, however, is that since the House fixed compensation at 50/- per week in 1948 we have clear and unquestionable evidence of three rounds of wage increases in relation to workers generally, but, notwithstanding the fact that workers generally have received these increases that has had no effect whatever in the determination of compensasion to which large numbers of injured workmen are entitled and they are still governed by the ceiling of 50/- per week fixed under the 1948 Act in the circumstances then prevailing.
It is proposed in this Bill to accord recognition to the fact that there has been a substantial increase in wage levels since 1948, that these increases have not been taken into consideration in determining a workman's right to increased benefit over and above the 1948 rate and that, in the circumstances of to-day, it is urgently necessary to raise the level of weekly compensation from a maximum of 50/- to a maximum of 90/- per week.
The present workmen's compensation code — that is, the 1934 Act with the 1948 Act impacted on it — provides that an insured workman, where his remuneration exceeds £1 per week, will receive workmen's compensation at the rate of 75 per cent. of his average earnings subject to a maximum of 50/-per week. This Bill proposes that he will receive 75 per cent. of his wages subject to a maximum of 90/- per week. It will be clear, therefore, to the House that in order to receive the compensation at the rate of 90/- per week in respect of injuries arising out of his employment or sustained in the course of his employment, the workman would, in fact, have to receive, prior to the accident, an average wage of not less than £6 per week. If he earned less than £6 per week he would not get a maximum of 90/- per week but a maximum of something else — the something else being determined by the fact that 75 per cent. of his earnings would not give him 90/- per week in compensation where his weekly pay was less than £6 per week. I do not think it is necessary to say to the House that 90/- per week is not excessive compensation in the circumstances of to-day. Indeed, I could make a case — and so could my colleagues and so, I am sure, could other members of the House— for the payment of a weekly rate of compensation higher than 90/- per week in the case of persons who, when injured, suffer a substantial diminution of their wages in consequence of their absence from work due to injury.
I think I need do no better for the purpose of illustrating the efficacy of my argument than remind the House that it now takes 45/- to buy what £1 bought in 1939, and that it now takes 90/- to buy what £2 bought in 1939. Nobody would suggest in 1939 — particularly in that year, which is the datum year for the purpose of these calculations — that to pay an injured workman £2 per week when he sustained injury in the course of his employment is to pay an excessive rate of compensation. The basic rate provided in the 1934 Act was 30/- per week. There were wage advances between 1934 and 1939 and these would probably have brought a mathematical adjustment of the 30/- payable under the 1934 Workmen's Compensation Act to a basic maximum of approximately £2 in 1939 if wages and prices were adjusted during the intervening years. This Bill asks the House to increase the maximum compensation payable to an insured workman from 50/- per week to 90/- per week. If this figure of 90/- errs in any direction at all it errs on the side of being excessively reasonable.
The Bill deals also with the payment of lump sum compensation in the case of fatal injuries. It provides for an increase in the amount of compensation to an adult dependent in the case of fatal injuries and to an adult and other dependents where there are other dependents apart from the single dependent adult. Under the 1934 Act, the maximum compensation payable to the adult dependent of a workman who lost his life in the course of his employment was £300 — one sum of £300. If the workman had one child or ten children the maximum compensation payable was £600. That was the position which the Legislature felt was, according to its concepts, reasonable compensation in 1934. Quite clearly, if the Legislature thought £300 and £600 in these two categories of cases was reasonable compensation in the circumstances of 1934, they cannot be pleaded as constituting reasonable compensation in the circumstances of 1952 — 18 years later — when the prices of commodities have soared enormously in the meantime.
I think it is hardly necessary to emphasise in 1952 that rates of compensation fixed at £300 and £600 in 1934 represent inadequate compensation to-day. It will at once be apparent to the House that to pay £300 as a single and final payment to the adult dependent of a workman who loses his life is inadequate compensation. To imagine that £600 is adequate compensation for a widow with any number of children, where the breadwinner loses his life in the course of his employment, is to suggest something outrageously unreasonable.
I read in the newspapers last week of a case which came before the court in Cork. The next-of-kin of a workman who lost his life in the course of his employment — his widow — brought an action for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The widow went before the courts and told them that the breadwinner had been killed in the course of his employment, that she was left with nine children to rear, and that the children were all young. The court awarded the maximum compensation that it could award — £600. That was the paltry allowance which that unfortunate widow was given to try and fight a battle through life for herself and her nine young children. It needs little elaboration from me to depict the plight of that widow with nine young children, trying to feed them, to clothe them, to educate them, and to protect them against all the rigours and trials of life until they reach adolescence and manhood. All that has to be done on a paltry sum of £600 workmen's compensation originally determined in 1934.
I hope, therefore, that the House will recognise that, in seeking to increase the compensation from £300 to £900 in one instance, and to increase the overall compensation from £600 to £1,800, this Bill is seeking to do only what changes in living costs and wage and salary standards have necessitated. Even the new compensation of a maximum of £1,800 payable to a widow left in the circumstances of the Cork widow with nine children is not to put the compensation at any unreasonable figure.
The Bill makes two other amendments. It seeks to raise the present income limit for non-manual classes from £500 per annum as the salary or wage ceiling to £800 per annum. This adjustment is doing nothing more than moving the ceiling upwards in accordance with the wage and salary movements which have taken place since £500 was declared to be the new ceiling under the 1948 Act.
There is one other amendment and it is a vital amendment from the point of view of the injured workman. At this stage, perhaps I ought to explain the position under the 1934 Act. Where workmen's compensation is accepted by a workman from an employer the law, I think, says that a workman is debarred from taking an action at common law where he has accepted compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, but the whole case law which has been build up under the workmen's compensation code has been built on the basis that where the workman could show to the court that he was not aware that the claim by him to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act would debar him from making a claim at common law, the courts have always given the benefit of the doubt to the injured workman and have allowed him to make a claim at common law where it was shown that he had an action against the employer for negligence under the common law code. Recently, however, the Supreme Court decided that once a workman accepted compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, he could not sue his employer under common law no matter how negligent the employer might be. Thus you might well have a situation under which a workman met with an accident to-day and his employer might say: "All right, I shall pay you workmen's compensation next week"; and once the man received one payment of workmen's compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act, he could take no further action against the employer in common law, no matter how negligent the employer had been.
That decision by the Supreme Court is one which, if allowed to stand, will impose very great hardship on injured workmen, particularly injured workmen who are not aware of their rights in the matter, and it might well expose them to the danger that those who cover the risk of injury in respect of such workmen may seek to have workmen's compensation almost foisted on the injured workman, as the best means of stopping an action at common law, particularly if the employer is likely to be compelled to pay heavy compensation because of negligence on his part. Since the Supreme Court decision has been given, cases have come to light where action at common law could not be taken because the workmen concerned had accepted compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act. I think if the Minister makes inquiries into the matter, he will find that, among the legal profession, there is grave disquiet at this decision which, for the first time for a long period, has put the injured workman at a serious disadvantage before the courts and at a serious disadvantage as far as his rights at common law are concerned. This Bill seeks to remedy that situation by the provisions of Section 8. I would hope that the section, as now framed, would, in its obvious justice, appeal to the House sufficiently to ensure its enactment in this Bill.
Summing up on this Bill, recognising that a comprehensive remedy for the defects in the workmen's compensation code requires major legislation, and since it is only possible for an Opposition Party to introduce certain amendments, I think it will be agreed that the proposals in the Bill are reasonable and modest. I would ask all sides of the House, concerned as they must be with the well-being of the injured workman, to give the Bill a Second Reading.