‹вЂ‹a family wage in Britain. In August 1989, I wrote: В«the family wage helped establish the connection between sex stereotypes and the workplace. В»And theВ« gender divisions ... in the Australian workforce ... were codified and legitimised by the Harvester Judgement of 1907. В» I am now much more sceptical about this argument. p> Most feminist historians hold up the Harvester Judgement of 1907 as decisive in institutionalising the family wage and low wages for women in Australia. They argue it was a turning point in establishing the gender division in the work force and the idea that women don't need to work, because they should have a breadwinner. Justice HB Higgins, as President of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, heard a test case involving H.V. McKay, proprietor of the Sunshine Harvester works in Victoria. Higgins awarded what he called a В«living wageВ» based on what a male worker with a wife and В«about three childrenВ» needed to live on. He awarded 7s a day plus 3s for skill. Women's wages were set at 54% of the male rate. p> It may have been used as the rationale for lower wages for women, but it certainly did not instigate the concept. Nor did it initiate the gender divisions in the workplace. To prove that this judgement was decisive in establishing women's position in the home and at work, it would have to be shown that it established lower pay for women than before and drove women out of the workforce. Neither is the case.
It is well known that convict women in the early years of settlement were always regarded as cheap labour. And as Connell and Irving point out, В«a sex-segregated labour market was established В»by 1810. In that year, of about 190 jobs advertised in the Sydney Gazette, only seven were for women. Of those, six were for positions as household servants. Most of the women immigrants brought to Australia by the efforts of Caroline Chisholm in the 1840s were employed as housekeepers and maids. By and large, women's wages were lower than men's from the earliest development of industry. In the 1860s, in the Victorian Woollen Mills, men earned 35s a week while women received 10s and girls 4s. In 1896, the Clothing Trades Wages Board in Melbourne fixed women's wages at 44% of men's - 3s 4d against 7s 6d for men. New South Wales didn't even introduce a minimum wage until 1907. Its aim was В«to prevent employment of young girls in millinery and dressmaking for nothing for periods of six months to two years В»!
Any agitation for a family wage has to be seen in the context of the ruling class's push to establish the family. Again and again, the ruling class has had to campaign around these ideas, partly because workers have not taken them up with the enthusiasm they wanted, but also because capitalism itself continually undermines the family. The slump of the 1890s disrupted family life, with men travelling around the country looking for work, or simply deserting their families in despair. By the early 1900s, birth rates had fallen to the lowest in the world. So it is not accidental that the ruling class looked for ways to strengthen the family and the ideas associated with it. It is in this light that we have to view the Harvester judgement and the general climate at the time which has led many feminists to identify this as the turning point for the position of women in Australia.
The feminist argument that decisions such as the Harvester judgement are the decisions of patriarchy, an alliance between male workers and male bosses, does not stand up any better. Leave aside that it made no appreciable difference to the material conditions of women, it certainly cannot be shown to have brought any great boon to male workers. The amount of 7s a week was not a living wage for a family of five. Higgins said he wanted to award В«merely enough to keep body and soul together. В»In fact, he left out any consideration of lighting, clothing, boots, furniture, utensils, rates, life insurance, unemployment, union dues, books and newspapers, tram and train fares, school requisites, leisure of any kind, intoxicating liquors, tobacco, sickness, religion or expenditure for contingencies. A confusion in the hearing resulted in the allowance for skill of 3s, one shilling less than members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers got for the same work.
In the end, the decision was overturned a year later. But Higgins was still awarding 7s many years later, in spite of 27% inflation. No wonder Buckley and Wheelwright point out dryly that В«trade unionists at the time (Unlike historians later) showed little interest in the Harvester judgement. В» If male workers were involved in some alliance with capital, they certainly got very little monetary reward for their part in it.
The idea that the capitalists were in some kind of alliance with working class men to get women into the home is ludicrous w...
