Commencing at 18 years of age, 17s. 6d.; with one year’s experience, 20s.; with two years’ experience, 22s. 6d.; with three years’ experience, 25s.
Commencing at 19 years of age, 20s.; with one year’s experience, 22s. 6d.; with two years’ experience, 25s.; with three years’ experience, 27s. 6d.; with four years’ experience, 30s.
Commencing at 20 years of age, 25s.; with one year’s experience, 27s. 6d.; with two years’ experience, 30s.; with three years’ experience, 32s. 6d.; with four years’ experience, 35s.; with five years’ experience, 40s.; and thereafter the minimum wage.
The principle has also been established of equal pay for both sexes. Now, this sounds magnificent on paper. But the question is, will it finally work? This rate, however, may be compared with the rate of pay for labourers, who get as much as 9s. per day as Government servants.
Another interesting thing concerns seamen. The eight hours’ day is in operation throughout the Commonwealth in nearly all departments of labour. But until recently seamen have not come within its provisions. For some time there had been an agitation amongst them, and as a result of conferences between the masters and the men, the matter was submitted to the decision of the Arbitration Court, with the result that seamen on the Australian coast were placed on an equality with the workers on land. The judge, in giving his decision, referred to the “meagre pittance” received at present by able-bodied seamen. The award has restricted the hours of labour in port for seamen to eight hours, and in daylight, excepting on days of departure. At sea, stokehold men and deck hands are also placed upon the eight hours’ footing. The week consists of six working days. If a ship remains in port on Sundays or holidays, the seamen are to be free from labour. When a ship departs from a main port on a Sunday or holiday each seaman is entitled to an extra day’s pay. If Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, or Easter Monday be spent at sea, the seaman is to be compensated by receiving either an extra day’s pay for each holiday so spent at sea or an extra day off on shore. Overtime is to be paid for at the rate of 1s. 3d. or 1s. 6d. per hour. The new rates of pay are fixed as follows: Boatswain, £9 per month; lamp-trimmer, £9; A.B., £8; ordinary seaman under eighteen, £5; over eighteen, £6; donkeyman, £11; fireman, £10—all per month, plus food.
British seamen will rub their eyes at this list. Few in Australia regard it as other than just. The lot of the seaman was, not so many years ago, hard and inhuman. It has gradually been ameliorated. In the Old Land there is still abundant room for improvement, both in the matter of hours and wages. Australia is certainly setting a fine fashion and a fair pace in these things.
But with all these privileges there is a good deal of discontent in the labour world. There are too many strikes, some of which seem to the ordinary beholder to be stupid. It is serious when a thousand men strike because one of their number has been dismissed for a violation of the rules of the establishment. And there is a good deal of friction between Union and non-Union men. The goal of many of the foremost Labour men is avowed State Socialism.
Christmas is a favourable opportunity for observing the working of the Labour Laws in the colony. In the Old Land, the fortnight before Christmas Day is a period of rush and pressure and working overtime. On Christmas Eve, in particular, the shops are open until midnight, and even beyond. In Australia matters are very different. Two years ago Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. In the previous week the shops closed as usual each evening at six o’clock, and on Christmas Eve, being a Saturday, the shops were all closed at one o’clock midday. Is it not enough to make the average English shopkeeper gasp with astonishment and envy? Festival or no festival, the Australian workman observes the law as to hours of work; and he does not exceed his measure. On Christmas Eve of that year the final postal delivery was, as usual on a Saturday, at noon. Boxing Day being a general holiday, it was a holiday also for the postmen. Thus no letters were delivered for three days. Australia is called the “Workers’ Paradise,” and the name is well merited.