Book Review

Students of labour history and industrial relations have long remarked upon the singularity of the stevedoring industry—particularly its casual workforce—in the days before container ships. This book helps fill in the picture for Aotearoa/New Zealand in the early mid-twentieth century and represents an interesting contribution to the sizeable international literature. The analysis in the book rests solidly on the first three chapters which constitute approximately one-third of the text. These set out in turn the composition and outlook of the employers, the nature and singularity of the work and the organization and attitude of employees. Chapter 2, 'Loading and Discharging the Cargo', uses photos to excellent effect in illustrating the work process. Here Green's succinct description of the difficulties and alarming dangers daily faced by wharfies is as good as any I have seen. It can be strongly recommended to undergraduate students as part of any introduction to the nature of work. Chapters 4-7, while making reference back to precursory experience, concentrate on the industrial relations story from 1937 to 1951, in which year the union was crushed by the conservative Holland Government after a 151 day stoppage. In place of a strong national body, separate single-port unions were created from which all known militants were excluded. The rout was facilitated by the animosity existing between the industrially aggressive leadership of the national union and the majority of officials in both the industrial and political arms of the New Zealand labour movement. Green, however, does not seek to rake over the ashes of these bitter five months or their aftermath. Her aim and thesis is to place the climactic confrontation in its long run context of the nature of stevedoring and the divergent aims and requirements of shipowners, government, wharfies and union.	1
For a student of the mid-twentieth century Australian waterfront, the similarities and contrasts of the New Zealand case are of great interest, particularly the differences. As was the case in the rest of the world, New Zealand suffered the abuses of an 'auction block' system of hiring (the 'bull' system in Australia) virtually until the outbreak of World War II. Casual labour and the singular nature of the work gave rise to employee traits common to dockers the world over. R.C. Miller conveniently summarised these as including: extraordinary solidarity and undiffused loyalty to fellow workers; suspicion of management; militant unionism; liberal political philosophy but conservative views of change in work practices; and a 'casual frame of mind' making them seem free men or irresponsible opportunists depending on one's viewpoint. As in Australia, the port facilities and level of mechanisation were extremely backward until the USA military machine demonstrated the first vestiges of modern techniques from 1942 onwards. Always, the workers' bargaining power rested in their on-the-job ability to impose costs on shipowners by holding up shipping movements. Finally, New Zealand wharfies were subject to a constant barrage of adverse publicity which painted them as lazy, greedy parasites who were seriously hampering national growth and prosperity.	2
The contrasts with Australia may be grouped under four broad headings: employers: hiring control; hours; and 'cooperative stevedoring'. While there was considerable overlap between the shipowners who controlled the bulk of the two countries' stevedoring firms, Green reports significant policy differences. Most notably, the overseas lines called the shots vis-à-vis the coastal owners who, in even greater contrast to Australia, were the more likely of the two groups to compromise in industrial disputes. Second, New Zealand employers lost hiring control before the arrival of full employment in World War II. The agent of change was the election of the first Labour government in 1935 which, in 1937, brokered a deal equalising hours worked by employees who were allocated to jobs by labour bureaux in the four main ports. Thirdly, hours of work were very different. In New Zealand, employees at pick up were only guaranteed a two hours minimum spell until World War II—and even then the change was to a mere four hours guarantee. The advent of a full employment economy in the early 1940s saw hours of work soar in the major ports, but the excessive weighting given to small ports' representation within the union meant that it was unable to reduce the onerous time demands which thus became the major cause of postwar industrial disputes. Finally, a consistent aim of New Zealand wharfies was to gain a share of the industry's handsome profits by means of 'cooperative' stevedoring. Initially, this involved groups of wharfies banding together and outbidding established firms for particular stevedoring contracts. Such a notion surfaced in Australia, but never took off apart from among a group of returned servicemen wharfies in Melbourne in the 1920s. In the post-1945 period, it was seen as an industrial relations palliative only among 'groupers' and NCC supporters.	3
In New Zealand, however, the boom immediately after World War I saw union and shipowners discussing their respective cooperative formulae, with the latter favouring equal control and profit sharing. These negotiations collapsed, but the union resurrected the ideas in the depths of the 1930s Depression and its 1935 delegate conference enthusiastically endorsed it. The Labour government lent its broad support, and a government contract to stevedore one vessel was secured with the twin effects of a drastic improvement in the handling rate and general amazement among wharfies at the size of the profits that could be made. Negotiations on further advances in co-operative stevedoring ran aground because of several factors, not least that neither shipowners nor, in tightening labour markets, wharfies were internally united in their acceptance of the principle. The impasse was eventually ended by the government. As in Australia, a new state agency was created to control the wartime industry. The form of cooperative contracting which it introduced into the main ports in 1940 saw the agency setting stevedoring rates and, after payment of wages and other costs, giving what remained to the local union branch. The tensions that arose within the union between those happy with rising income derived from improved handling rates and those urging a more militant industrial policy rested on opposing definitions of what constituted 'workers' control'. The militants, centred in Auckland, soon rose to leading roles in the national union. After the war, the Labour government came to see an extension of cooperative contracting as the central means of improving workforce discipline but negotiations broke down in 1947 over the issue of levels of representations on the proposed new control agency. At least this was the outward reason for acrimonious exchanges between the Labour Minister and the militant union leadership. Green clearly feels that the fundamental problem was disagreement about whether wharfies should wield any effective control of the work process on the job. Given the intrinsic interest of this issue I wish, for non-Kiwis' sakes, that she had been able to spend a little more time filling in some of the detailed evidence of this part of her thesis. As it stands, however, this book is warmly recommended to labour historians and to all scholars of industrial relations, sociology and organisational behaviour.	4
University of Adelaide TOM SHERIDAN

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