CHAPTER XXIX
WHERE THE WORKING MAN RULES
I HAD lost myself in Auckland. I had been visiting our American consul in one of the suburbs under the shadow of Mount Eden and had started back on foot when I met a rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, healthy-looking young man and asked him to direct me to my hotel.
“I am going that way,” said he, “and if you will walk with me I will show you.” So we went along together.
“How are times here?” said I.
“Very good,” was the reply. “We all have plenty of work and we get enough to keep us from starving.”
“What is your business?” I asked.
“I am a carpenter. I have a job building workmen’s houses for the government, and I get sixteen shillings and tenpence ($3.75) a day.”
“What hours do you work?”
“Oh!” with a laugh, “my hours are not bad. I work only forty-four hours a week and have a half holiday Saturdays.”
“But how about wages on Saturday?”
“The wages are just the same as for the other days. I suppose I should say I get one hundred and one shillings per week instead of fifteen shillings and tenpence a day.”
This conversation gives you some idea of work and wages in New Zealand. Though there is some variation among the different industries, forty-four hours is the usual working week of the labouring man, and every one has his weekly half holiday. For any work beyond the standard number of hours in a day or week the men usually get paid time and a half or even double time.
My carpenter friend is typical of the New Zealand worker, who is a well-paid, well-housed, and well-fed individual. I noticed in Wellington, as here in Auckland, a general air of well-being and prosperity. The people are polite and friendly and do not seem inclined to take things in too much of a hurry. They are proud of their town, as I think they have a right to be.
Auckland is the largest city in the Dominion and is about the size of New Haven, Connecticut. Its spacious inner harbour, which has five and a half miles of smooth deep water, is thirty miles from the open sea. There are nine wharves, swarming with business, but they are not sufficient for the fast-growing port, one of the trade centres of the South Pacific. The annual imports and exports come to more than a hundred million dollars and the figure is growing rapidly.
The city is built up and down hill. Even Queen Street, the chief retail business thoroughfare, is not entirely level. All the tram cars start from the foot of this street, serving not only Auckland itself but suburban towns within a radius of eight miles. The lines are owned by the city, and every one is divided into fare zones of two cents each. Taxicabs are very expensive here, for New Zealand has to pay around a dollar a gallon for gasoline, which is imported from the United States.
Here, as elsewhere in the Dominion, the working men are the lords and their unions have dictated many of the laws. The famous conciliation and arbitration acts not only recognize unions of workers and unions of employers, but encourage their organization. It is provided that a workmen’s union may be composed of fifteen members and any such union may come under the law by registering itself with the Department of Labour. Three or more employers may form a union and register. The Conciliation and Arbitration Act was supposed to provide for the peaceful settlement of all disputes between employers and employed. From 1894, when the first act was passed, until 1905, New Zealand had no strikes. Although this legislation has not entirely prevented strikes in the last twenty years, it has undoubtedly reduced their frequency and severity.
New Zealand is divided into eight industrial districts, each of which has its Council of Conciliation. If there is a dispute, complaint may be made to a council by either party. The council sends for persons and papers, and after examination gives a judgment, which is filed as an industrial agreement.
If either party to the dispute is not satisfied, however, an appeal can be made from a council to the Court of Arbitration of the Dominion. This consists of three members, one of whom is a judge of the Supreme Court. One of the others is nominated by the national association of employers, and the third is named by the trades unions. This court gives the case a rehearing, and its judgment is final. It can fix wages and working hours, and it can impose fines. It may assess damages upon the parties to the suit, and all the property of the loser can be taken to satisfy such claims. If the judgment is against a trades union or an industrial association without property, the individual members of the organization are liable.
The unions do not have to register, and a registered union may, after due notice, withdraw its registration, but so long as it is registered it must abide by the decisions of the Court of Arbitration. Failing to do so, it may have its charter taken away from it. The advantage of registration to the unions is that only a registered union can have an employer brought before either a council or the Court.
Whether registered or not, the employer must appear. An employer or worker bound by an award or an industrial agreement who takes part in a strike or lockout in the industry affected is subject to heavy fine. Unless fourteen days’ notice has been given, a strike or lockout in a public utility or an industry dealing in the necessities of life is considered a statutory offence, even when the party in fault is not bound by an award. A strike in the milk business or on a railroad or street-car line would fall under this provision.
I have before me the official reports of a number of industrial cases. Here is one that came before the Council of Conciliation in Dunedin at the instance of the Dunedin Painters’ Union. The Council decided that the painters should work from eight o’clock until five on five days of the week, and from eight until twelve on Saturday, one hour being allowed each day, except Saturday, for dinner. The decision fixed the number of apprentices, and it provided that employers should hire members of the union in preference to non-union painters.
In the case of the Bakers’ Union of Christchurch the Court of Arbitration decided that overtime must be paid at the rate of time and a quarter for the first four hours and at the rate of time and a half for every hour thereafter. The decision limited each journeyman to but one apprentice, and fixed the term of apprenticeship to four years. It provided that no carter could be employed in a bakehouse, but that a baker might send out his employees to deliver bread, provided they were not required to work overtime.
Decisions of the councils and the Court may establish the rate of wages not only for the parties to the dispute, but for others in the same industry, although local and trade conditions are always taken into consideration. For instance, if the Court fixes the wages of the bookbinders in one district at so much a month the bookbinders in other districts will at once demand the same and most likely get it. Not all the cases are decided in favour of the unions, however. In determining fair rates, the Court of Arbitration has tried to find out the minimum on which a worker can live in decent comfort and also what wages each employer can give and still make a profit. Awards run for three years, when a revision may be asked. At the expiration of the first three-year period after the arbitration law went into effect the unions entered the Court with new demands for higher wages, but in many cases the increases were denied.
The Christmas holidays come in New Zealand’s summer, and roses and sweet peas take the place of holly and mistletoe. Nevertheless, the people stick to home customs and eat the plum puddings of the British season.
Most of the land requires expensive fertilizers to produce grain. Therefore New Zealand raises wheat only for her own use and depends on sheep and dairy products as money makers.
Put a New Zealander near water and he will get into it. Many great swimmers have been developed, but accidents are so frequent that drowning is sometimes called “the New Zealand death.”
To an American, the Dominion laws fixing hours and wages and regulating relations between workmen and employers seem radical, but the New Zealanders do not think them so. They claim that as a people they are, like their British ancestors, naturally conservative. Their government, they say, has been compelled by force of circumstances to go into all sorts of things, and reforms have come about in a natural and orderly way. For example, it was essential that farmers should get their produce to market. There were no big capitalists ready to finance railroad building, so means of transportation had to be provided by the government. The insurance companies did not adapt their rates to the conditions of the country; so the government went into competition. Twenty-odd years ago the New Zealand coal-mine operators took advantage of a diminished coal importation from Australia to put up prices for fuel. The government met this situation by working the coal beds of the public lands on the west coast. This it has continued to do, supplying its own railways and competing in the open markets with the private mine owners. The latter say they can stand the competition quite well, since the government mines are worked at a higher cost, not because of a difference in wages, for wages are regulated by law, but because the state miners take things easier and produce less. The “government stroke” is a common expression here for the way state employees do their work.
Again, take the story of how the Court of Arbitration came to be. It was told me by one of the officials of the Labour Department. Said he:
“The workingmen won their power in New Zealand through a strike that failed. At that time the unions controlled many branches of trade and they were fairly well united. The Maritime Union, whose members handled all the freight at the wharves, was an old organization, with plenty of money in its treasury from assessments throughout a long period of years. As the funds increased, it was decided that all new members should pay an initiation fee proportionate to the share each would have in the assets of the treasury. There were but few labouring men who could do this, and the number of new members fell off. Although it could not handle all the freight, the union would not permit non-union men to work. The ship owners would not stand this. They took on extra men and defied the union. The union men struck, and through their relations with the other unions brought about a general strike all over New Zealand. Their demands were unreasonable, and the sympathy of the people was with the non-unionists and the ship owners. Men came in from Australia and elsewhere to help break the strike. The feeling was so great that even clerks in the stores asked for vacations, put on overalls, and worked for a time as stevedores. The result was that the strikers were badly beaten, and they knew it.
“Then they reconsidered the situation and decided that their only chance for a fair show in the future was in electing working men to Parliament. They began their campaign at once, adopting the rule that every candidate of their party must be a working man. They argued the question of their rights in the shops, on the streets, and on the stump. The people outside the labouring classes became interested in the struggle. Public sentiment changed. It was seen that there were two sides to the question, and enough working men were elected to Parliament to give the unions the balance of power. Organized labour in New Zealand has never had a majority in Parliament but it sent up enough of its own men to be a powerful factor in shaping the laws of the Dominion.”
After the end of that great strike one of the first questions Parliament considered was how to avoid such conflicts in the future. How could it best look after the interests of the three parties to labour disputes—the employers, the employees, and the public? The conciliation councils and the Court of Arbitration for industrial disputes were the answer the legislators found to their problem.
The workman’s grievance against the “company store” and the “company house” does not exist in New Zealand, where payment for labour in goods is illegal. In any action for wages, any goods or articles furnished by the employer or supplied on his premises cannot be brought forward as an offset, nor can the employer sue his clerks for things so bought. Workmen must be paid in money, and at least once a month, if they so desire. In absence of written agreements those engaged in manual labour must be paid weekly, and if not so paid they can attach all money due or thereafter to become due to the employer on the work. The wages of those who receive less than ten dollars per week cannot be touched for debt and where a man goes bankrupt the unpaid wages of his clerks and workmen for four months preceding are preferential claims on the estate.
For many years the government built workmen’s houses, which might be leased or purchased on the instalment plan by wage-earners. In the serious shortage of houses after the World War these operations were extended. Parliament appropriated about five millions of dollars to be lent to employers and corporations for building workmen’s houses and apartments. The law allows borrowers from the government’s fund to erect workers’ houses costing up to thirty-four hundred dollars, and the money is advanced on five-per-cent. interest. The workmen get title to the houses by paying each week a little more than the ordinary rental charge for such homes.
As in Australia, the weekly half holiday is compulsory and the factory owner or merchant who keeps his place open after the hour for closing is fined for doing so, whether he requires his employees to work or not. I find a record of a man in Foxton who kept two boys under eighteen years of age at work on Saturday afternoon. He was called up by the Court and heavily fined. Another man employed a carter to work on a half holiday. He paid five dollars and costs for so doing. It is the same with all classes of clerks and it is the same in the factories.
The day for the weekly afternoon off is not specified by law, but is usually fixed every January by the authorities. In some towns it comes on Tuesday, in some Wednesday, in some Thursday, and in many Saturday. Saturday is the day usually chosen by the factories, even though the stores in the same town may close on another day. If Saturday is the day fixed there are certain classes of storekeepers such as grocers, butchers, and market men, who may choose another day for their weekly half holiday.
On half holidays the streets of Auckland and the other towns in the Dominion are as deserted as on Sunday. The hotels are usually open, but as far as I can see, there is much less drinking at such times than one would expect, and nothing like that on Saturday afternoons in the cities of Scotland, or even in our own towns before prohibition. Most of the people here go to the parks or out into the country. There are cricket matches, golf tournaments, and outdoor games of all kinds.
As a people, the New Zealanders are devoted to sports. In football, the national winter sport, New Zealand has held the world championship. Everyone, men and women, boys and girls, seems to play games of one sort or another. They go in for tennis, golf, hockey, polo, and all kinds of water sports. Owing to the great numbers who swim in the lakes, the rivers, and the surf, there are many fatalities every year, and drowning is sometimes called the “New Zealand death.”
Like the Australians, the New Zealanders love nothing so well as gambling on horse races. But here the betting is regulated by the government and one seldom hears talk of crooked methods. Betting is done through a machine, the invention of a New Zealander, called a totalisator. Only those actually present at the track are allowed to bet, so there are no poolrooms such as have caused so much scandal in the United States, and there is no gambling by telegraph or telephone. All but ten per cent. of the money placed on each race is divided among the winners. The tenth held out goes to the government and the club that stages the event, the club taking three fourths of the amount, and the government the rest. At the meets the horses are all on view for at least half an hour before each race. After a spectator has satisfied himself as to how he wants to place his bets, he goes to the betting machine, gives the number of the horse on which he wishes to invest, and purchases tickets stamped with that number. The lowest price for a betting slip is two dollars and a half, but tickets at ten times that amount may be had.
The totalisator, or the “tote,” as it is always called, is a score board with slots in its face. Under each slot is the number of a horse, and above each number is the amount bet on him. Another window gives the total amount put up on the race, and at the left is a board showing the dividends that the winner will pay. The “tote” pays only on the horses that win first and second places. Two thirds of the money on each race, minus the ten per cent. for the club and the government, is paid those betting on the winner, and the other third is divided among the backers of the second horse.
Seeing the throngs at the races, at football matches, and on the beaches, one feels sure that in New Zealand Jack will never be a dull boy on account of all work and no play.