The Harvester judgement : an historical assessment

Abstract

The Basic Wage is considered to be the ethical element in Australia's complex and legalistic system of wage determination; the application of the philosophy of a 'fair go' to the lowest paid adult male worker. More than any other moment in time, November 1907 is seen as the occasion when society acknowledged its obligation to guarantee the unskilled man a definite minimum standard of living. Higgins spelled out carefully yet categorically the imperative of the Living Wage; and by erecting thereon an hierarchy of 'customary' margins for skill made it 'basic' to the entire wage structure. This thesis accepts that the personality of Higgins was important in the development of the concept and practice of the Living Wage. Yet more fundamental were the economic 1 social and political factors which. influenced attitudes of important interest groups to problems of wage determination. The sequence of study then is to first sketch the character of Higgins in the Introduction, and turn next in the first chapter to summarise the nature of Australian economic development: from prosperity, high wages and full employment, 1860-1890, to depression, reduced wages and persistent unemployment for most of the nineties and again from 1902~1905. Money wages, effective wages, and unemployment estimates are presented to illustrate the pace and direction of change. Chapter Two directs attention to the wage experience of unskilled wage earners. The wage indices presented suggest that in the 1900s, most of the unskilled earned substantially less than the Harvester wage of 7/- a day. Together, the continuing abundance of this grade of labour, price inflation, and the war held their average wage to approximately four fifths of this 1 ideal' wage - until 1921. Responses to changed conditions by labour, employers and government over the decades 1890-1910 are discussed in Chapters Three, Four and Five, with the intention of tracing changing attitudes to wage determining processes. Particularly stressed is the shift of power in wage bargaining against labour, both in the 1890s and 1900s, and the unions' attempts to manipulate state power in the interests of wage earners. Similarly, employers' responses to changed conditions are considered to point out resistances to the growth of quasi-legislative wage determining tribunals. In these chapters, emphasis is laid on labour and employer concern for protection - this as the main basis for interest reconciliation and ultimately for the provision of industrial tribunals, It is further suggested that government policy mostly reflected the outcome of influences exerted by the major interest groups. The result, as shown in Chapter Five, was the imposition of the 7/- a day Living Wage for public works and the emergence of specialised institutions to guarantee 'fair and reasonable' wages in the private sector. Chapter Six surveys attitudes to wage principles insofar as they were relevant to the growth of the Living Wage concept, whilst Chapter Seven discusses the development and importance of wages boards in Victoria and the Arbitration Court in New South Wales. The chapter entitled 'The Harvester Judgment' describes the attitudes of labour and employers in 1907, outlines Higgins' ideas on industrial dispute settlement, and suggests the Living Wage of 7/- a day was his attempt to raise wages paid for unskilled work to pre-depression standards. Finally, chapter nine attempts to indicate some of the institutional difficulties of establishing a national minimum wage and to state the importance of Harvester in the process.