Nikola Balnave

Company-Sponsored Recreation in Australia: 1890–1965

Company-sponsored recreation was an important part of industrial welfarism in Australia. This paper explores the incidence, extent and nature of recreational programs, and the managerial goals and strategies involved with the schemes. It demonstrates that recreational programs were a relatively widespread and enduring feature of labour management between 1890 and 1965, although the frequency, range and nature of activities varied between companies. While the characteristics of schemes were largely influenced by business size and workforce composition, the paper challenges the argument that recreational programs, like the broader welfare schemes of companies, were primarily targeted at female labour. Indeed, employers in a wide range of industries and workplaces introduced recreation schemes for two main reasons — to improve labour supply and to enhance managerial prerogative — although the significance placed on each goal varied between companies and overtime as a result of external pressures and influences.	1
In the period 1890–1965, company-sponsored recreation received support in all kinds of industries in Australia, and in both large and small organisations. Even a small undertaking could provide an annual picnic or Christmas party for the employees, although in many large enterprises, company-sponsored recreation incorporated a broad range of facilities and activities, and at times the wider community. The question arises as to why such employers of the early-mid twentieth century devoted so much money and effort encouraging their workers to participate in a wide variety of recreational activities. As Stuart Brandes notes, to mid-nineteenth century employers, devoted as they were to extolling the virtues of hard work, the promotion of recreational activities would have seemed illogical.¹ The reasons for this transformation in attitude have been well documented by overseas scholars of welfarism. The purpose of this paper is to examine the rationale behind company-sponsored recreation in Australia, thereby providing an alternative cultural context in which to understand its role in the management of labour.	2
The paper examines company-sponsored recreation within the broader context of industrial welfarism. Popular overseas, particularly in the USA, during the early decades of the twentieth century, welfarism was a method of securing and legitimising managerial control over the workplace. The strategy involved employers providing a wide range of welfare programs aimed at building worker consent and loyalty to managerial goals. Recreation formed a core element of many welfare programs, and remained relatively significant in the post-war period when the welfarism movement was ultimately subsumed as part of the increasing formalisation of personnel management. While never reaching the same heights as in the USA, the welfarism movement represents a key phase in the development of modern labour management practice in Australia. Thus, this paper should contribute to the growing pool of research on the development of labour management in Australia, and in some measure inform scholars on the place of sport in Australian social and labour history.	3

Industrial Welfarism
As a method of labour management, welfarism was grounded in the unitarist framework of employer thinking. Within such a framework, the enterprise is viewed as a single, homogenous entity in which employees naturally accept managerial authority and work cooperatively and harmoniously in order to increase organisational efficiency.² Welfarism did not involve a definite set of practices, but covered a wide range of programs aimed at fostering worker commitment to organisational goals. The US Department of Labour demonstrated the obscurity of the term when in 1919 it defined welfarism as '[a]nything for the comfort and improvement, intellectual or social, of the employees, over and above wages paid, which is not a necessity of industry nor required by law'.³	4
The broad and undefined nature of welfare practices has led to the inclusion and exclusion of different programs for analysis by various scholars. This confusion has been compounded by the way in which management frequently applies ideas from a number of strategies simultaneously and in an ad hoc fashion, blurring the distinction between the strategies. This has arguably been the case with welfarism and scientific management. A related point of conjecture within the literature is whether welfarism included activities that in some way modified the capitalist system, such as profit sharing and stock ownership plans, and company unions. Despite such variations, a number of practices are common in the welfarism literature, including provident and pension funds, educational services, housing and company stores, medical care, superior amenities, and the focus of this paper, recreational programs.⁴	5
As a concept, 'welfare' suggests benevolence. However, for the vast majority of employers the provision of such benefits and services had an extended role in industrial society. In providing for the welfare of workers, employers were concerned with increasing the quantity and quality of the company's labour supply. While superior wage rates could achieve this objective, as Wright notes, the competitive nature of a market economy meant that employers had a natural tendency to seek to reduce the price (or wage) paid for labour to as low a level as possible.⁵ Further, welfare benefits and services could offer more to an employee in terms of financial security and personal satisfaction than could a small increase in pay. Welfare provision was therefore designed to attract and retain quality workers. It could also increase the quality of existing employees by improving education and health levels, thereby enhancing their potential efficiency.	6
While good recruits could be attracted and retained by welfare benefits, this did not necessarily mean that they would apply themselves to achieving organisational efficiency. Indeed, the need to convert the labour power of workers (the potential to work) into labour (actual work effort) has been a perennial issue for employers in all capitalist countries in managing their workforces. Employers seek to overcome the uncertainties of labour application by maximising managerial control over the labour force. However, employees will often try to resist or mitigate the conditions under which their work effort is managed. They retain the ability to vary and restrict the level of actual work effort they apply, and can combine collectively to resist managerial control and to bargain over the terms and conditions of their employment.⁶	7
Consequently, management's need to control the labour force is tempered by the parallel need for employee cooperation and commitment. The employer cannot exercise total control in the workplace and therefore seeks to 'manufacture' the consent of the labour force to managerial authority. Welfarism helped management to achieve this consent in two main ways. Firstly, through what Craig Heron refers to as 'transparently patronizing programs aimed at boosting loyalty and morale'⁷, although the extent to which employees resented the condescending and paternalist aspects of the strategy is a hotly disputed issue within the literature. Generally speaking, welfarism sought to evoke a sense of family within the firm. This reflects an employer attempt to reproduce the close personal ties of the nineteenth-century workplace, before firms grew too large and impersonal. As Alan Fox argues, welfarism stemmed from the search for a renewal of the reciprocal, diffuse bonds of obligation and loyalty believed to characterise earlier patterns of work organisation: If the employer manifested a concern for the interests and well-being of the employee — a concern for his physical, social and cultural welfare — would not the employee reciprocate with concern for the interests of the employer.⁸ The employee, it was argued, would be convinced of the genuine concern of the employer, and respond by offering willing compliance and loyalty.⁹	8
Secondly, the provision of welfare benefits and services created a situation of dependency. This was most evident in geographically isolated areas where employers created company towns, providing for all the workers' needs, from housing to schools, churches and recreation. This reinforced the centrality of the company to workers' lives and made it more difficult for them to challenge managerial prerogative. However, the economic security provided by many welfare programs also increased worker dependence on the company in urban areas. Margaret McCallum notes that employees' gratitude for the welfare provisions grew out of their dependence on their employer for a chance to earn a living, and their fear that unemployment, illness, old age or death would leave their families in desperate poverty. Thus, if workers belonged to company insurance plans, they would identify their own and their families' interests with those of the company and would not risk their stake in its success by such behaviour as restricting work effort or going on strike. The threat to worker security was reinforced at an individual level by the eligibility clauses attached to the plans. For example, housing leases often required workers who joined strikes to vacate company housing immediately, provident scheme rules tended to reserve benefits for those workers who refused to take part in strikes, and pension schemes contained clauses making a long period of service necessary for eligibility.¹⁰	9
Overseas literature also stresses the importance of welfarism as a means of enhancing managerial prerogative through improved public relations. According to Brandes, a sympathetic public could help undermine political support for antitrust litigation or restrictive legislation, and could often determine the outcome of a strike, or if there would be a strike at all. If public opinion was unfavourable, the company may feel compelled to give in to union demands.¹¹ Public sympathy, however, could enable employers to approach industrial unrest with more confidence. Bradley Pragnell has reached similar conclusions in the context of the Australian retail industry. According to Pragnell, welfarism was used by management at David Jones Ltd 'to enable the firm to portray itself as a decent employer'. This helped to keep 'unions at bay' and was an attempt to forestall further government intervention by using David Jones Ltd as 'an example of a caring, decent and profitable private-sector employer'.¹² Essentially, businessmen aimed to convince both their workers and the public that the system that granted them such a large share of influence was legitimate and viable — that their hard work and dedication produced not only wealth for themselves but good for the whole community.¹³	10
Thus, welfarism could improve the quantity and quality of a company's labour supply, and simultaneously reinforce managerial prerogative. The remainder of this paper examines one form of welfarism — company-based recreation. It provides an overview of the extent, incidence and nature of recreational provisions in Australian industry between 1890 and 1965. The paper then considers the importance of recreation as a method of achieving the dual goals of welfarism. It concludes by discussing the labour response to these recreational activities	11

Company-Based Recreation

Overview
Prior to 1900, Australian industry was generally small-scale. Union coverage was limited and, apart from a few large-scale employers in the engineering and coal mining industries, and in government services, the vast majority of enterprises were small enough for the entrepreneur, or at least the foreman, to supervise staff personally. Nevertheless, some employers did experiment with more formal methods of labour management during this period. Indeed, the foundations of industrial welfarism were laid before the turn of the century, and recreation represented an early form of this strategy.¹⁴	12
The company picnic was a popular activity in Australian industry before 1900, while some employers provided more formal and organised recreational activities for their employees. The pharmaceutical manufacturers Parke, Davis & Co., for example, provided a variety of social and sporting activities, as well as a recreational hall at its Sydney factory, imitating the parent American company's policy of 'sympathetic humanitarianism'. The overseas influence was also evident in the NSW Government Railways, which drew on English railway experience to introduce an Institute in the late 1880s. Amongst other things, the Institute was concerned with providing activities such as a dramatic club, flower shows, a musical society, smoke concerts and a cricket club.¹⁵	13
The percentage of workers in large-scale enterprises increased throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, assisted by market concentration and the emergence of heavy industry. This growth in firm size, along with a number of key events, affected the way employers approached labour management during this period. The introduction of compulsory arbitration and wages boards reduced employer flexibility in managing labour, and provided impetus for management to adopt more formal strategies for increasing labour productivity. In addition, while World War I did not stimulate economic expansion in Australia, it did intensify management's labour problems through economic dislocation and industrial unrest. Strike waves occurred in 1917 and 1919–20, and the political turmoil of the period added to the industrial chaos. The Russian Revolution and the One Big Union movement created panic among conservatives over a Bolshevik challenge to Australian capitalism, and the associated need to defuse this threat by raising workers' living standards. Fears also arose over the international competitiveness of Australian industry.¹⁶	14
The state played a significant role in promoting new management ideas, including welfarism, as a means of reducing labour militancy and increasing productivity. In late 1918 and early 1919, the George Beeby, the Minister for Labour and Industry in NSW, visited the USA and Great Britain to report on the industrial conditions in those countries, and returned in strong support of welfarism. Further, in 1919 and 1920 the Commonwealth Advisory Council of Science and Industry (ACSI) published reports on industrial cooperation and welfarism, endorsing the adoption of the strategy in Australian industry. Given its dominance as a large-scale employer, the state also assumed a 'lead-by-example' role, introducing new, innovative labour management techniques as an example to private industry.¹⁷	15
As a form of welfarism, recreation received significant support from the state, and became increasingly popular in Australian industry during the early decades of the twentieth century. The range of recreational activities offered to employees of the NSW Government Railways was expanded during World War I, and the 1920s. Coverage was also extended to include rural areas. By the late 1920s the Institute had 63 tennis courts in country areas, many of which were built by Institute members' voluntary labour. Railway Institutes had been established in all of the states by 1920, except South Australia and Tasmania.¹⁸	16
The first Postal Institute in Australia was established in Melbourne in 1917, providing 'healthy recreation' in the form of a gymnasium, billiard room, and 'other innocent games'. Committees were formed to organise sports such as cricket, football, rifle shooting, and to 'cater for the amusement and entertainment' of the Institute members. Other government undertakings providing recreational facilities by 1920 include the Tasmanian Government Hydro-Electric Department, the Commonwealth Bank, and the Lithgow Small Arms Factory, while in the private sector the Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company, Australian Paper Mills, and Farmer & Co. were all active in encouraging sport and recreation. Such private firms also played an important role in the dissemination of welfarism in this period. For example, Farmers & Co. was one of the first Australian companies to appoint a 'Welfare Superintendent' in January 1919. As the variety of activities she introduced increased, a recreation social secretary was appointed, and before long a City Girls Sports Association was formed, encouraging other companies to also form sports clubs.¹⁹	17
The lead taken by retail companies such as Farmers & Co. and David Jones Ltd in the introduction of welfarism, and particularly recreation, has led some commentators to emphasise the tendency towards welfarism in predominantly female workplaces.²⁰ Survey evidence of Australian industry collected in 1931 by the social scientist F.R.E. Mauldon, seemingly supports such conclusions. While only a total of 76 private enterprises were found to have organised welfare schemes, of the larger firms (employing more than 1,000 workers), 11 were retailers and 17 clothing manufacturers, employing a large proportion of females. The ACSI in 1919 also drew a connection between welfare provision and female workers, advising employers of women to focus on organising their social life and recreation, and those with a male workforce to concentrate on improving wages and working conditions.²¹	18
However, Pragnell's research into David Jones Ltd during the first half of the twentieth century challenges feminisation as an explanation for welfarism in Australia. While Mauldon's findings indicated 'the lead taken in welfare by large-scale stores which are also their own manufacturers of wearing apparel',²² Pragnell found that welfare provision was disproportionately directed towards retail staff at David Jones Ltd, while the manufacturing staff members were less likely to be recipients of the various schemes. This is in spite of the fact that the manufacturing workforce was predominantly female, and that, even as late as 1938, a large proportion of retail staff was male. As Pragnell argues; 'Unlike sales staff, manufacturing staff were not in the public view, counted little for the firm's public image and had a far more structured labour process', indicating that it was the nature of the work, rather than any tendency towards female labour, that determined the distribution of welfare at David Jones Ltd.²³	19
Mauldon formed a similar conclusion based on his finding that in the group of enterprises employing less than 1000 (representing two thirds of the firms with welfare schemes), the workforce was predominantly male, with the ratio of welfare provision being roughly four to one in favour of males. As he argued, the 'nature of the production of the business unit, rather than any predisposition to favour women and girl workers, or rather than mere size of undertaking, thus appears to determine the distribution of welfare activities as between men and women in Australian enterprises'.²⁴ He further noted that the most extensive and elaborate single welfare schemes benefiting the largest number of employees were to be found in sugar refining, metalliferous mining and smelting, and agricultural machinery undertakings, predominantly male industries. This, coupled with evidence from the public sector such as the elaborate welfare schemes aimed at the largely male workforce of the NSW Government Railways, challenges the argument that welfarism in Australia was principally targeted at the female labour force.²⁵	20
With regard to company-sponsored recreation, the difference lies less in the incidence of provision between female or male dominated workforces, and more in the type of recreation encouraged. While recreation for men emphasised team spirit, for females it tended to promote their feminine nature and seldom involved competition. Firms that employed large numbers of female workers usually emphasised those types of recreational pursuits which assured the worker that she need not sacrifice her femininity when she entered the predominantly male world of work. For example, at the Bryant & May match factory management provided a dancing hall, tennis courts and a bowling green for its predominantly female workforce. Similarly, the female workers of the textile manufacturer, Bonds, were provided with swimming and tennis clubs, physical culture classes held in a gymnasium, and dancing arranged by a social club.²⁶	21
Such activities reflected society's view of masculinity and femininity. According to Adair and Vamplew, the rise of competitive women's sport trespassed on what was considered 'the male sphere'. Men who felt aggrieved or threatened by this change reacted with hostility, ridiculing female athletes as 'unladylike' and trivialising their sporting abilities. The media led this assault, 'lampooning them as straying mothers and wives, reminding them that their "proper" place was in the home, not on the playing field'. Parts of the medical profession encouraged this view, claiming that beyond a very basic level of activity sport not only placed women in 'physical peril', but also artificially placed them on a similar plane to men, effectively denuding them of femininity and 'de-sexing' them.²⁷	22
As the opportunities for women to be involved in sport increased in the early twentieth century, attitudes lagged, and at times, hardened. For example, the Surf Life Saving Association of Australia, having allowed female contests in the late 1920s, later banned women from competition and rescue work, asserting that they were to physically frail for such demanding tasks. This rule was lifted during World War II because of the shortage of male volunteers, but was imposed again in the early 1950s, despite the fact that women had shown themselves to be proficient. This rule was not abandoned again until the early 1980s, indicating the perennial nature of male discrimination against women in Australian sport, and echoing the experience of women in the workforce.²⁸	23
Despite the emphasis on femininity, recreation in predominantly female workplaces promoted the economic goals of welfarism. Dorothea Proud noted from her 1916 study of British and Australian industry that women did not apply themselves fully to their work since they ultimately expected to marry and leave the workforce. Hence, employers needed to convince them that 'efficiency is essential to their future'.²⁹ To achieve this, some employers of the 1920s promoted values based on physical and psychological efficiency, as demonstrated by a pageant written by the Welfare Secretary Eleanor Hinder and performed by the staff at the predominantly female Farmers and Co. in 1925. In order to satisfy an old shopkeeper's request to enlighten him about the 'new commerce', the Spirit of Modern Industry introduced the spirits of Health (swimming and physical culture), Knowledge (vocational training and literature), Play (basketball, dancing, Junior Club) and Citizenship. The focus on 'female' forms of recreation indicates the need to balance the accepted role of women and the pursuit of efficiency in industry.³⁰	24
Company-sponsored recreation continued to spread through Australian industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Mauldon's 1931 survey found that of the 76 private establishments in Australia with organised welfare schemes, 34 had subsidised clubs and/or institutes and five had holiday resorts and schemes. The expansion into the wider community is also evident from Mauldon's findings — 11 had erected parks, recreation grounds and playgrounds, and three had built community centres. Further, while the need to attract labour was of little or no concern for management during the 1930s depression, evidence does not suggest that recreational provisions were curtailed. This indicates that while company-sponsored recreation was a method to improve labour supply, it was also important as a means to enhance managerial prerogative, particularly in periods of heightened industrial tension such as the depression years.³¹	25
The need to attract and retain labour became more pronounced during the period 1939–65. Labour shortages in traditionally male occupations during World War II meant that new strategies were required to attract or direct women from employment in the better conditions of shops and offices, as well as from the private sphere of unpaid domestic work. The associated need to improve morale and reduce absenteeism amongst this largely inexperienced and female workforce was of equal importance to the war effort.³²	26
The state played an active role in promoting welfarism as a means to achieve these objectives, and in 1941 the Commonwealth Department of Labour and National Service (DLNS) initiated systematic industrial welfare work under the Industrial Welfare Division (IWD). A key element of the IWD's role was the establishment of an emergency training scheme for industrial welfare and personnel officers in 1941, and by mid-1945 more than 100 welfare officers were employed in Australian industry, 30 per cent of these in the private sector. Recreation was emphasised in the curriculum of these schemes, and continued as a key element of the post-war Industrial Welfare Training courses. A variety of government publications were also used during the war and post-war period to disseminate research findings on the benefits of welfarism, with significant focus directed to the value of recreation as a method of improving productivity and industrial relations, and of attracting and retaining labour.³³	27
The rapid growth of industry during the war, combined with the post-war economic boom, led to an increasing demand for labour in the years following the war's end, and ultimately to labour shortages. This problem was exacerbated by a high rate of labour turnover. The high rate of immigration during the post-war period also brought about a change in workforce composition and presented a further challenge to labour management strategy. Net migration constituted one-third of Australia's population gain between 1947 and 1966, and a large number of these migrants did not come from the UK, the traditional source of migrants to Australia. Of further significance was the growth in firm size. Although a substantial number of workers continued to be employed by small enterprises, large-scale corporations became more common in this period, presenting the need for a more systematic approach to the management of labour.³⁴	28
For some companies such as Tooth & Co., the loss of participants through enlistment led to the postponement of sporting and recreational activities until after the war. Others introduced recreational programs during the war years, although surveys conducted by the IWD suggest that the labour shortages of the post-war period provided the impetus for a significant number of employers. The popularity of such schemes in the post-war period is indicated by the DLNS estimate that between 1948 and 1956, 42 per cent of Australian companies provided social and/ or recreational facilities.³⁵	29
The IWD surveys also demonstrate the wide range of activities provided by the clubs. Common social activities included the Christmas party, theatre nights, the Annual Ball, picnics and dinner dances. The sporting and recreational activities organised or sponsored by the clubs also form a substantial list. Cricket was the most popular activity, followed by golf, football, and table tennis. However, the incidence and variety of social and sporting activities sponsored by company clubs varied widely, as did the frequency with which events were held. Business size played a significant role, with the clubs of the larger companies succeeding in introducing a wider range of activities than those of the smaller companies, which usually lacked sufficient numbers to make a wide range of activities worthwhile.³⁶	30
Workforce composition also had great bearing on the type and range of recreational activities provided. Apart from gender, differences emerged in terms of age, marital status, class, and ethnicity. For example, one engineering firm with a completely male staff of mostly married men found it possible to run only two successful functions a year: a smoke night and a Christmas tree. Further, Christmas parties were generally attended by married members and their families while dances, apart from the annual ball and cabarets, were more popular among younger members than older ones, and were particularly patronised by single members of the social clubs. One company with a largely unskilled workforce found that no function was successful unless a liberal quantity of liquor was provided. In addition, this company emphasised competitive events 'that appeal to the manual worker's pride in his physical strength'.³⁷ The surveys also found that soccer was often introduced to encourage migrants to participate, and that young men tended to participate in club sporting activities more than older men, and women tended to have less interest in sports than men.³⁸	31
However, while recreation formed a core element of many welfare schemes in Australian industry, social changes in the post-war period gradually reduced the popularity of many traditional social activities. The IWD surveys discovered a distinct trend of falling attendances at dances, smoke socials and card parties, once the mainstay of club activities. The major influences in this trend were claimed to be a general decline in interest in conventional ballroom dancing and balls, and the disinclination of members to return, sometimes long distances, to a central location after work. The traditional company picnic was also reported to have lost much of its old-time fervour. It was found that the 'excitement and gaiety associated with a group travel to picnic sites by special train, ferries or buses is said to be losing appeal in the face of growing preference by families for travel in their own cars and in their own time'.³⁹	32
Club officers involved in the surveys generally concluded that declining support for social functions was related to changing tastes and interests in the community, and to the advent of television. Also of note was the progressive introduction of non-British migrants into the workforce, and the 'tendency for them to remain aloof from voluntary club membership' due to 'language difficulties and cultural differences'.⁴⁰ While this suggests that the migrants were to blame for not assimilating to the Australian way of life (society's expectation of migrants in this period), it is equally as likely that they were shunned in their attempts to participate in club activities. Nevertheless, some clubs reportedly did make special efforts to encourage these migrants to participate in social events and met with slow but steady success.⁴¹	33
While interest in social activities was declining, the 1959 survey found a steady increase in recreational and sporting activities, and in the range of such activities requested by club members. Nevertheless, many executives involved in the 1953 survey expressed disappointment that club members did not make full use of the sporting facilities provided for them. While workers patronised fully any facility that could be utilised during lunch-breaks, as with social events, there was a reluctance to participate in activities that required workers to return to the factory area after hours or at weekends. Over the next decade, the expansion in the public provision of sporting and recreational facilities and the increasing mobility of workers through private car ownership continued to weaken the importance of company-based recreation as a labour management tool.⁴²	34

Labour Supply
In isolated areas, meeting the recreational requirements of workers was crucial in terms of recruiting and retaining labour. As the manager of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, situated near the remote west coast of Tasmania, recognised, '[w]ithout better sporting facilities, lively entertainment and cheaper cost of living, nomadic miners would remain just long enough to earn their fare back to the mainland.'⁴³ The company subsequently subsidised three social clubs each with library, a billiard table and buffet, and holiday cottages at Strahan. It also financed the merging of the brass bands of the local towns of Gormanston and Linda into one large band 'to liven up the streets on pay night'. Similarly, the Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company of Australia (ER&S) provided financial assistance for the creation of a recreation reserve and town band at Port Kembla.⁴⁴	35
As Erik Eklund has shown, the efforts of the Broken Hill Associated Smelters (BHAS) to provide employees with 'respectable forms of leisure and recreation' at Port Pirie was a strategy to attract and retain a particular quality and kind of worker — married males of British origin. Such workers were deemed by management to be less prone to alcoholism, and more likely to become permanent members of the workforce. A key element of BHAS's strategy was the Weeroona Holiday camp, opened on Christmas Day 1918. The well-structured camp was large enough to house 600 people, and was built in three weeks by a large gang of men from the smelters works, assisted by many other BHAS employees who volunteered their labour at weekends. As Eklund notes, the purpose of the holiday camp was twofold. Firstly, it was designed to reduce fluctuations in daily workforce numbers since eligibility was linked to attendance at work. Secondly, it was a family-based initiative intended to attract married workers to Port Pirie.⁴⁵	36
The broader recreation program of BHAS included the construction of a children's playground at Port Pirie. The company provided the money and materials, and BHAS workers volunteered their labour. A quoit pitch and bowling greens were subsequently laid, tennis and croquet lawns were added, and an open-air picture theatre was built, transforming it into a family playground. The playground was sited within the Memorial Park, also the initiative of BHAS. Both projects were designed to encourage married men to settle in Port Pirie thereby providing the company with a reliable and high quality labour force.⁴⁶	37
Where there was relatively intense competition for labour, as in the cities, company-sponsored recreation was also of value. Some companies were convinced that well-organised sporting and social activities reduced labour turnover because 'leaving the job means an employee has to leave his team mates or club'.⁴⁷ Further, the provision of recreational activities and facilities, particularly if alternatives were scarce or expensive, could attract prospective recruits to a firm. Brandes notes that, in the USA, recruitment programs were very much like those in universities. As pointed out by the director of the Wagner Electric Manufacturing Company in St Louis, 'if athletic programs could make colleges famous and attract students, they could work similarly for business'. According to Brandes, such recruitment programs were often not so much designed to attract and retain good workers as to get and hold good athletes and musicians. Several US companies paid full-time music directors, and such professionalism extended to athletic teams.⁴⁸	38
In Australia, this most clearly manifested itself in terms of professionalism. For example, the Bank of NSW had a choir instructor, and a professional speaking and debating tutor. Moreover, a 1955 publication by the Bank emphasised that in terms of qualifications, recruits were welcomed who were 'alert and well spoken, with wide interests, and who, preferably, are reasonably good at some form of sport'.⁴⁹ Similarly, the swimming club of W.D. & H.O. Wills employed its own professional swimming coach, and the textile and plastic manufactures Cuckson & Son held ballet classes conducted by professional teachers, assisted by Mr Cuckson's wife. While a method of advertising a company's products, this could also act as a method of attracting labour to the company.⁵⁰	39
Many employers also encouraged worker participation in recreational activities with the aim of improving the quality of their labour force. On one level, without alternative sources of entertainment during leisure hours workers could pursue unhealthy activities such as alcohol consumption, adversely affecting their productivity. In a more proactive sense, recreation could enhance the physical and also the mental health of the workforce. As emphasised by the Medical Research Council in its 1948 report, 'The Incidence of Neurosis Amongst Factory Workers', A decrease in social contacts was the circumstance most commonly associated with neurosis. Those whose leisure was usually spent alone or only with their immediate family suffered more than average neurosis whether their contacts were reduced because of solidarity interests, restrictions imposed by home duties, or other reasons. To a lesser degree those with diminished recreation and leisure interests also suffered from a higher incidence of neurosis than the average.⁵¹ The preface to this report stated that the main findings of the survey afford striking confirmation of the importance of psychological factors in obtaining industrial efficiency. Over 25 per cent of all sickness absence was due to neurosis and 10 per cent of the workers examined had suffered from disabling neurosis during the six months under review.⁵² The Personnel Practice Branch of the DLNS considered this compelling evidence of the need for a project on industrial recreation in Australian industry.⁵³	40

Managerial Prerogative
As a form of advertisement, recreation enhanced management's ability to attract and retain quality employees, but also assisted in the improvement of public relations. Many company teams performed throughout the region, or even nationally and internationally, gaining widespread publicity for the company, its welfare program, and its benevolent approach to the workforce. Such publicity was not limited to sporting events, but extended to a variety of company-organised activities. For example, the Bank of NSW had a Horticultural Group, a Dramatic Group, and a Dance Group of 'ballet girls', all of which held and competed in outside concerts and shows.⁵⁴ Companies such as Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Co., Telephone and Electrical Industries (TEI), and the British Motor Company had musical societies that staged reviews in public halls and auditoriums. As a management magazine noted in 1960, 'Stage shows and sporting victories get Press mention and club members often make TV and radio appearances as well as tours'.⁵⁵ While the publicity value of such activities was designed to increase interest in a company's products, it could also cultivate favourable public opinion, and therefore influence the outcome or likelihood of a strike.	41
Some companies enhanced public relations by directly involving the community in their recreational programs. This was most pronounced in isolated areas where company welfare programs often involved making, or remaking, local society. For example, the BHAS program of upgrading the town's facilities and opportunities for 'respectable' recreation not only assisted in the attraction and retention of labour, but was also aimed at influencing the allegiances of local community residents and at cultivating good relations with town and State Governments. The Wallaroo and Moonta Mining and Smelting Company also developed recreational facilities for the community during the early decades of the century including recreation halls, football, cricket, croquet, and hockey grounds, bowling greens and tennis courts, and playgrounds for children. At Wallaroo the company built a gymnasium for the local boy scouts and quarters for a girls' club at the main recreation hall.⁵⁶	42
In suburban areas, companies could also directly influence the public by extending welfare to the wider community. For example, Cuckson and Son of St Marys, near Sydney, gave the Education Department the use of the company pool for learn-to-swim classes, and the local schools had free access to it for their swimming carnivals. To the company this meant that the children of our employees and their friends are enjoying the facilities of the pool, as most of our employees live within easy reach of the factory and send their children to the local schools. This brings us into friendly and active relations with the schools of the district, too, with the result that we feel that they are 'our' schools, and they feel that we are their friends.⁵⁷ In addition, children's paintings, the result of the contact with the local schools, decorated the factory walls — the company offered annual prizes for the best work, and the winning art was displayed. However, despite the public relations benefits of such schemes, a 1964 survey found that, in general, social clubs did not contribute to recreational and social activities within the local community. While many of the clubs had large charity interests, contributions were seldom made on a locality basis.⁵⁸	43
While important as a public relations device, recreation was also a means of securing the cooperation and loyalty of workers. As Joan Sangster notes, the promotion of team sports was designed to reinforce values congruent with capitalism such as competition, discipline, and teamwork.⁵⁹ Richard Cashman suggests that central to the concept of athleticism was 'the belief that sport should serve a moral purpose: to build character and to encourage individuals to consider the interests of the team first'. As such, during the second half of the nineteenth century sport became an integral part in the Australian school curriculum because it was believed that it 'enhanced discipline and fostered a sense of co-operation'.⁶⁰ This idea was transferred to the work environment. Team sports, it was believed, would foster loyalty to the firm and minimise industrial conflict. As a spokesman for one of Australia's biggest companies stated, '[t]he whole idea is to weld the team together. If employees play together outside working hours there is less chance of industrial discord in the factory'.⁶¹ Further, Sangster notes that sports promoted competition with the outside, but team spirit inside. They were thus 'supposed to create a loyal, disciplined, and committed workforce that strove to give its best performance on and off the job'.⁶²	44
On another level, social and sporting activities could create a sense of pride and unity in the 'company team'. Superior performances in the sporting and social arenas were a great source of advertisement for the company. However, they could also create a sense of pride in connection even for those not directly involved.⁶³ As the Managing Director of Cuckson & Son reported, involving the public could also foster a sense of pride in the workers: Concerts, classes in modern expressive ballet, and certain of the social functions are open to the general public. This gives members a chance to share their activities with their friends, and tends to promote a cultural contribution to the life of the district. Thus, the members and employees of the company feel they belong to a community in which they can take a personal pride.⁶⁴	45
Social outings could also create a sense of unity in the company 'family' or 'team' — everyone could interact together regardless of class and ethnic loyalties.⁶⁵ As the Managing Director of Shell commented, [The Shell Club] fosters the mixing of people from different departments and different backgrounds, and it brings about a greater understanding of the other person. One can never know what goes on in another man's mind if one only knows him in business hours. Shell clubs, and clubs similar to them, together with other social activities, do more than just ensure that members have a good time. A well organized social club can bring the intangible assets of loyalty, comradeship and a sense of belonging and understanding, which in the long run benefit staff themselves, and the company.⁶⁶ Loyalty, comradeship and a sense of belonging were the ultimate goals of company-based recreation. If workers were convinced that they belonged to a 'company team' they would work hard, cooperatively and harmoniously for the overall good of the team. In the creation of such a unitarist culture, mutual respect and understanding between workers is paramount. However, the employer-employee relationship is equally as significant. Indeed, during the late 1940s, the US National Industrial Conference Board approved the practice of including recreation as a specific section of industrial relations. This, according to the Personnel Practice Branch in Australia, 'further fortifies the viewpoint that recreation is a means of integrating the employer-employee relationship'. The document continues: The minimising of personal contacts between the administrative officers and the employee and the tendency to judge the individual employee by statistical standards alone as shown by the use of time and motion study methods, incentive payments, merit rating charts and similar tools of scientific management, leads often to violent disagreement especially when such procedures have been attempted without mutual understanding between the two groups.⁶⁷	46
Thus, recreation provided the opportunity for workers and management to interact on a personal level, thereby developing in the social setting good relations and a mutual understanding that would transmit to the work setting. The Managing Director of a large Australian company stated that staff activities which gave executives and employees a chance to meet on common ground 'definitely engender friendly relations which promote industrial peace'.⁶⁸ A 1960 report in an Australian management journal noted that most managers made a point of joining in employee activities. This was particularly pronounced in the case of bowls where executives frequently competed in matches with workers. 'On the green — in bowls tradition — Managing Director and shop employee become plain "John" and "Bill" to each other.'⁶⁹	47
However, friendly relations were not easily achievable. Indeed, the 1953 IWD survey found that, while some managements expressed the opinion that social functions provided an opportunity for executives to 'let their hair down', and demonstrated that perhaps they 'have some human qualities after all', this attitude 'should not be accepted uncritically'. The survey concluded that it is unlikely that any lasting impact would be made unless the sorts of attitudes that exist in the job were in harmony with those demonstrated in the social setting. In fact, a marked unbending at social activity by a usually stern executive may be interpreted as patronage, and do more harm than good.⁷⁰	48
Recreation did not always involve direct worker-management contact. Nevertheless, by providing for the social and sporting needs of workers, employers demonstrated their concern for employee welfare beyond the workplace. Such sentiments were directed to the employee as a person, not just as a worker. As the Managing Director of Shell noted, the company sports and social clubs 'provide further tangible evidence of management's interest in its staff members as individuals'.⁷¹ It was hoped that the workers would reciprocate with concern for the interests of the employer. Recreation also increased worker commitment by developing interest in and identification with the company among employees' families. As noted by the Managing Director of the Cyclone Company, [t]hrough the work of the social committees many of the employees' recreational activities are directly related to the work situation, and employees' families through visiting the plants and enjoying the social events, have a personal relationship with the company.⁷² Thus, family involvement in recreation reinforced the loyalty of workers to the company and to its success.	49
Many recreational schemes encouraged friendly, social contact between the families of workers. Holiday camps provided by metal mining and smelting companies such as BHAS and the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co., and in later years by the Zinc Corporation and New Broken Hill Consolidated, were designed to give workers and their families an opportunity to mix socially during holiday time in a clean healthy site away from the industrial town. Company picnics, annual balls, Christmas parties and other various other 'family-friendly' schemes had a similar purpose. Cuckson and Son held several annual children's functions including a fancy dress ball, field sports, a bonfire and barbecue, and a Christmas party. Further, the company noted that [t]he recreational facilities provided by our concern have the family in mind ... To the rear of the factory there are tennis courts, a tiled swimming pool ... people meet after work and during the week-end together with their families in an atmosphere of informality and friendliness.⁷³	50
By providing the venue for the social interaction of its workers and their families, a company became more central to the lives of its employees. The recreational initiatives of BHAS demonstrate this potential in an isolated community, and the example of Cuckson and Son, situated near Sydney, suggests a similar attempt in a suburban area. Indeed, the company deliberately chose St Marys as the site for its factory because of its distance from densely populated areas and its 'air of a country town' in the immediate post-war period.⁷⁴ Thus, when alternatives were limited, recreational facilities not only enhanced worker identity with the company and promoted sentiments of appreciation and loyalty in the employees, but as McCallum notes, it also 'reinforced the company's dominance, making it more difficult for workers to challenge unilateral management decisions'.⁷⁵	51
In his analysis of US industry, Brandes emphasises the patriotic benefits of recreation in industry. The most prevalent kinds of patriotic recreation were military drill classes, most of them involving younger workers and children, and rifle clubs. Such activities were advantageous in terms of the patriotic public image of the company. However, more important was the effect they had on the employees of the company. Just as identification with a team could promote discipline and loyalty, so too could identification with the nation. As Brandes notes, if a company was helping to train its army in defence of the country, then the company could surely be viewed as a complement to the country's armed forces and disloyalty to the company may become a disloyalty to the country.⁷⁶	52
The links between recreation, patriotism, and company loyalty are evident in a number of Australian firms. Several companies established patriotic funds, and the company-based military band was relatively common. Rifle clubs were also popular during the early part of the century. The NSW Railways provides a prominent example of an enterprise using recreation to promote patriotism and loyalty. According to Greg Patmore, 'rifle companies were a positive though minor element in the development of labour control through cultivating a general respect for authority and fostering loyalty to managerial goals'.⁷⁷ Railway management first established a Reserve Railway Rifle Company in 1888. This club was succeeded by various others, culminating together as the nation-wide Railway and Tramway Reserve Rifle Clubs Association in 1914 with the expressed aim of 'encouraging and consolidating a spirit of active patriotism to the Commonwealth of Australia amongst the Government Railway and Tramway staffs of the six States'.⁷⁸	53
Apart from the undertaking of military duties, the Association was encouraged from a social point of view. As stated in The Budget, the house journal of the NSW Railways: We have annual interstate cricket, football and other sporting fixtures, for which it is claimed that much good is derived by the provision of the social element connected with and following upon such meetings. How much more so when the members of the opposing teams represent the patriotic element of the Railway and Tramway staffs, and fully recognise that the experience and skill required in friendly rivalry have really for its ultimate objective that of the defence of our home land.⁷⁹	54
The erection of Memorial Park for employees and the general community by BHAS at Port Pirie was also an effort to promote patriotism and reduce militancy in the workforce. According to Eklund, the park was designed as a memorial to the men who had lost their lives during World War I. The idea for the park was put forward in 1917, a time when emotions were high over the issue of conscription. As Eklund argues, it was thus a 'politically-charged decision' to have the focus of the park as a war memorial: This new public space at Port Pirie was to extol the virtues of sacrifice and allegiance to empire, the very values that company management, and other town-based conservatives such as Mayor Geddes, claimed the radicals in the labour movement lacked.⁸⁰ Thus, as with the promotion of team spirit and cooperation, patriotic recreation was designed to 'imbue the worker with the right attitude, to help build and strengthen "character"'.⁸¹	55

Labour Response
Evidence suggests that, particularly in the pre-war years, many employees were enthusiastic about the social and sporting activities organised by the company. Volunteer labour constructed much of the holiday camp and park at Port Pirie, and built the tennis courts for the NSW Railways. In later years, many management and club officials reported that organised social, recreational and sporting activities continued to be of value to both the company and the employees. The general feeling was that these activities made a positive contribution to morale and friendly working relationships, and, consequently, to improved industrial relations.⁸² The 1964 survey found that people from different departments and shifts were enabled to become better acquainted; there was better understanding between management and employees through breaking down of social barriers; company spirit was fostered; and migrants were more quickly assimilated.⁸³	56
While company-based recreation was designed to create a unitarist culture, and therefore minimise both internal and external challenges to managerial prerogative, there is limited evidence of overt union opposition to its provision, and indeed to welfarism in general in Australia. A key factor relating to the acceptance or tolerance of welfarism by the majority of unionists was the administrative arrangements governing the schemes. The majority of welfare schemes were administered by joint-committees or cooperative councils composed of both workers and management. While in few instances union officials were members of these councils, more frequently it was shop-floor unionists that provided the avenue for union involvement. The councils were set up for the administration of the welfare schemes alone and did not offer workers or their unions any additional control over wages and working conditions. As Eklund notes, they gave workers a sense of participation without significantly altering management authority — they represented a 'facade of consultation'.⁸⁴ However, in doing so, management reportedly forged a better relationship with workers and unions.	57
In the majority of recreation clubs, the committee or council was elected annually by club members, although the nature of managerial control varied. The 1953 survey found that, of the 22 clubs included in the data, three companies either explicitly or implicitly stipulated that no executive should accept nomination. On the other hand, four companies insisted that a senior executive should occupy the position of president or secretary of the club. The remaining clubs had no barrier in terms of status. Findings from the 1959 survey indicate that six of the 24 clubs provided in their constitution for management to be represented directly on the club committee. The majority of other clubs had members of management elected to the committee 'in their personal capacities'. In the few cases of no management representation, the personnel officer had the right to veto club decisions. Thus, while direct management interest or control varied, in all cases management maintained authority over the decisions and activities of the club.⁸⁵	58
Despite such administrative arrangements, there is evidence of opposition by some unions to company-based recreation. While originally offering lukewarm support for the Railway Institute, the May 1929 Annual General Meeting of the NSW Branch of the Australian Railways Union (ARU) proposed to reduce the Institute's influence by competing with it.⁸⁶ The State Secretary of the ARU, Arthur Chapman, was concerned with management influence in sport and cultural areas, stating that management used the institute 'to maintain allegiance' in railway towns. He further asserted that the very life of the worker is bound up with the administration. He becomes thoroughly 'departmentalised' ... the union must assume the lead in these matters, and form its own sports organisation, bands, orchestras and holiday camps, even its motor clubs.⁸⁷	59
In 1932 the ARU Football Club was launched, followed by an ARU Cricket Association in 1933. According to Mark Hearn, both activities proved popular. In addition, the ARU sponsored its own 28-piece band in 1934, although this relationship had severed by 1939. The union also sponsored drama groups. One of the plays organised was a dramatisation of John Reed's celebration of the Bolshevik uprising, 'Ten Days that Shook the World', demonstrating that union officials also recognised the importance of drama in stirring allegiance to a common cause. Similarly, the ARU program included the families of members. Indeed, the ARU Women's Auxiliary, designed to encourage the participation of 'the women-folk' of members, was established in 1934. While waning in the late 1940s, as noted by Hearn, 'the Women's Auxiliary demonstrated the potential of involving families in workplace issues, and encouraging a sense of community'.⁸⁸ Also involving families, the ARU established the first trade union holiday camp in August 1948. Situated at Sussex Inlet on the NSW South Coast, this camp was designed to provide cheap holidays for the Union's members. On site, seven five-person cabins and a store were erected and, by September 1949, a children's playground and two tennis courts had been built by the voluntary labour of union members.⁸⁹	60
While the ARU efforts were a response to management initiatives, it remains that a number of the recreational activities organised by companies actually intruded into traditional forms of working class culture. Brass bands were important cultural expressions of working class identity, and union picnics were a traditional labour movement ritual. At Port Pirie the introduction of the BHAS picnic created competition for workers' loyalties between the company and the Waterside Workers' Federation (WWF), particularly since the timing and location of the picnic coincided with the traditional Labour Day picnic celebrations of the local labour movement. As Eklund notes, the two types of picnics are indicative of a clash over the control and organisation of public forms of recreation, and highlight the way in which the industrial struggle between labour and capital at the point of production spilled over onto a broader cultural/political canvas of local forms of recreation and ritual.⁹⁰	61
The broader recreational program of BHAS did not attract significant opposition from organised labour, although this should not be construed as evidence of complete support for the company's initiatives. According to Eklund, while workers showed enthusiasm in helping to construct Memorial Park and the children's playground, they were less interested in using its facilities. In 1922, the Mayor of Port Pirie noted that young children continue to make good use of the Children's Playground, but there is very little evidence of any appreciation by the parents of the facilities provided, at great cost to their Council, for the welfare of their little ones.⁹¹ As Eklund argues, this is 'evidence of cultural resistance to company-sponsored recreation and leisure'.⁹²	62
In many cases, company attempts to bond the workforce through recreation were met with resistance. Indeed, a number of clubs involved in the 1953 survey found difficulty uniting the factory workers and office staff in the same social setting, and also expressed a doubt whether the recreational clubs brought sections and departments closer together. There was a tendency for the same work groupings to gather in the social setting and many workers were reluctant to mix with those that they did not know well. On the flip side, as Brandes notes in relation to the US welfare movement, if employees could learn to cooperate in sporting and social activities, they could also cooperate in forming a union. Indeed, habit of association was the primary reason for the formation of unions. In the Australian context, in which a strong feeling of 'mateship' and working class identity already existed, sporting and social activities could compound the tendency of workers to identify with each other rather than with the company.⁹³	63
Social club membership may provide some indication of labour support for company-sponsored recreation. The 1959 survey of clubs found that the average membership was 75 per cent of employees. However, this figure is inflated since, in all five of the clubs claiming 100 per cent membership, employees were automatically enrolled as members. Excluding this group, the average of paying members was 69 per cent. Thirteen of the 24 social clubs included in the 1964 survey had as members 90 and 100 per cent of eligible employees, but this included two that automatically enrolled employees. Two clubs had between 80 and 89 per cent membership, five had between 70 to 79 per cent and four had between 20 and 69 per cent.⁹⁴	64
However, again this cannot be accepted as evidence of support for and participation in the events organised by the clubs. Indeed, as noted in the overview, by the 1950s many of the traditional social and sporting activities were losing their appeal. In addition, apart from special functions such as carnivals, annual sports days, and social evenings, sporting activities drew few spectators, demonstrating a general lack of interest by workers. Consequently, many clubs confined their efforts to three or four main functions in the year, and to activities that could be conducted during lunch-breaks. In urban areas alternative sources of entertainment were increasingly common. Some executives interviewed in 1953 doubted any need to provide social entertainment at all, their opinion being that people preferred to seek social enjoyment and satisfaction in the community in which they lived. This trend intensified during the 1960s due to an expansion in the public provision of sporting and recreational facilities. Increasing levels of private car ownership also broadened the leisure options of workers. In addition, given the increasing diversity of the workforce in terms of age, gender and ethnicity, only a very large organisation could be expected to cater for the wide variety of interests to be found.⁹⁵	65

Conclusion
This paper has examined company-sponsored recreation in Australia within the context of industrial welfarism. It has demonstrated that recreational programs were a relatively widespread and enduring feature of labour management between 1890 and 1965. The frequency, range and nature of social and sporting activities varied between companies, determined largely by business size and workforce composition. However, while the nature of recreation was influenced by the gender composition of the workforce, the evidence does not support feminisation as an adequate explanation for the introduction and incidence of welfarism in Australia, particularly given the elaborate recreational schemes introduced in predominantly male workplaces.	66
As with their broader welfare schemes, employers had two goals when introducing recreational programs — an improvement in the quantity and quality of labour supply, and the reinforcement of managerial prerogative. With respect to labour supply, in isolated areas recreational facilities were used to attract and retain high quality workers, although these facilities could similarly provide city-based companies with an edge over their competitors. Sporting and social activities could also reduce the tendency for unhealthy leisure pursuits, and improve physical and mental health, increasing the quality and potential efficiency of the existing labour force.	67
In terms of managerial prerogative, company-sponsored recreation was an exercise in good public relations. Through sporting and social activities, employers publicised their generous posture, and the idea that their hard work and dedication produced not only wealth for themselves but good for the whole community. They thus hoped to reassure society at large of the legitimacy of managerial authority. Further, recreation helped to build a unitarist workplace culture, in which employees accepted management's authority and worked cooperatively and harmoniously in order to increase organisational efficiency. Indeed, the values promoted by recreational programs, such as team spirit, pride in connection, mutual trust and cooperation, were those that led to loyalty to the company. That many company-sponsored initiatives intruded into traditional forms of working-class culture further fortifies the significance of recreation in fostering allegiance to a common cause.	68
This paper has demonstrated that labour supply and managerial prerogative were key concerns of Australian employers in the provision of recreational programs, although the significance placed on each goal varied between companies and overtime as a result of external pressures and influences. The original wave in popularity occurred during the late nineteenth century, a time of high industrial tension fuelled by depressed economic conditions. Another surge of interest occurred between 1906 to 1914, a period in which employers were trying to increase productivity and control in the context of early compulsory arbitration and high labour turnover. Against the background of industrial tension in 1917 and again in 1919–20, a number of employers introduced recreation programs or expanded existing ones in an attempt to reduce labour militancy and increase worker loyalty and dependence. A renewed focus on recreation occurred during World War II and escalated in the post-war period. The state played a crucial role in promoting the benefits of recreation during this period, although ultimately it was the need to attract and retain scarce workers and to reduce labour militancy in the context of a full employment economy that encouraged a wider range of employers to provide recreational programs in the post-war period.	69
It was during the post-war period that the welfarism movement was subsumed by the increasing formalisation of personnel management. Recreation remained a key feature of this approach to labour management, although broader social changes had begun to reduce the popularity of many of its traditional forms. The recreational programs of many employers received considerable support in pre-war years when alternative sources of entertainment were limited. During the post-war period, when faced with increased choices of leisure and greater mobility, many workers opted to claim their independence rather than rely on the welfare of the company.	70
Endnotes ^1.� S. Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1940, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1976, p. 75. ^2.� C. Wright, Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 5. ^3.� S. Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions and the Transformation of Work in American Industry, 1900–1945, Colombia University Press, New York, 1985, p. 49. ^4.� Edwards asserts that the Scientific Management movement has been confused with the broader reorientation of management that occurred during the transition period, even though many parts of this reorientation, such as welfarism, had little or nothing to do with scientific management (R. Edwards, Contested Terrain. The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century, Basic Books, New York, 1979, p. 98). The absence of efforts to reorganise existing power relations at the workplace is noted by D. Proud (Welfare Work. Employers' Experiments for Improving Working Conditions in Factories, G. Bell & Sons, London, 1916) and by Edwards (Contested Terrain). While Brandes includes company unions in his analysis of US welfarism, Jacoby treats this as a distinctly separate management strategy (Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism; Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy). ^5.� Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 3. ^6.�Ibid., pp. 3–4; H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, Monthly Review Press, New York and London, 1974, ch. 1; Edwards, Contested Terrain. ^7.� C. Heron, Working in Steel, McClelland and Stewart, Toronto, 1985, p. 109. ^8.� A. Fox, Man Mismanagement, Hutchinson & Co., London, 1974, p. 57. ^9.�Ibid., p. 57; Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy, p. 50. In respect of the debate over the success of welfarism, Brody argues that evidence suggests that in the 1920s welfarism had succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the majority of workers, and that, if not for the effects of the Great Depression, welfarism would have continued to characterise labour management in the USA indefinitely (Brody, Workers in Industrial America. Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 1980, ch. 2). Critical of this view, Brandes suggests that, in general, workers did not 'genuinely embrace' welfarism and, due to the condescending and paternalist aspects of the strategy, its demise was inevitable as worker consciousness progressed in the USA (Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, ch. 14.) Zahavi has criticised both these views as missing the 'complex ways in which workers translated and transformed managerial projections, in the form of welfare ideology and practices, for their own ends.' He argues that welfarism reflected a system of 'negotiated loyalty' (G. Zahavi, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1988, p. 103). ^10.� M. McCallum, 'Corporate Welfarism in Canada, 1919–39', The Canadian Historical Review, vol. LXXI, no. 1, March 1990, p. 49; Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy, p. 54; T. Kemp, The Climax of Capitalism: The US Economy in the Twentieth Century, Longman, New York, 1990, p. 32; Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, pp. 48–49 and p. 105. ^11.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, pp. 31–32. ^12.� B. Pragnell, 'Selling Consent': From Authoritarianism to Welfarism at David Jones, 1838–1958, PhD thesis, School of Industrial Relations and Organisation Behaviour, University of NSW, 2001, pp. 293–294. ^13.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, pp. 31–32; McCallum, 'Corporate Welfarism in Canada, 1919–1939', p. 74. ^14.� G. Patmore, Australian Labour History, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 138–145. ^15.� Wright, Management of Labour, p. 23; Records of the New South Wales Government Railways (private collection of Greg Patmore). ^16.� Wright, Management of Labour, p. 18; Patmore, Australian Labour History, pp. 120–126, 140, 146. ^17.� G.S. Beeby, 'Industrial Conditions in Great Britain and the United States of American', NSW Industrial Gazette, vol. XVI, no. 2, August 1919, Special Supplement, pp. 85A-90A; ACSI, Welfare Work, Bulletin no. 15, Melbourne, 1919; ACSI, Industrial Cooperation in Australia, Bulletin no. 17, Melbourne, 1920. ^18.�The Staff, 22 March 1928, 22 March 1929; G. Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations in the NSW Government Railways, PhD thesis, Department of Industrial Relations, University of Sydney, November 1985, p. 396; ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, p. 56. ^19.� ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, pp. 20, 28–29, 50–51, 54–56; F. Wheelhouse, Eleanor Mary Hinder: An Australian Woman's Social Welfare Work in China Between the Wars, Wentworth Books, Sydney, 1978, p. 8. ^20.� See, for example, G. Reekie, '"Humanising Industry": Paternalism, Welfarism and Labour Control in Sydney's Big Stores 1890–1930', Labour History, no. 53, November 1987, p. 16; and Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 22. ^21.� F.R.E. Mauldon, 'Cooperation and Welfare in Industry', in D. Copland (ed.), 'An Economic Survey of Australia', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1931, p. 185; ACSI, Welfare Work, Bulletin no. 15, Melbourne, 1919, p. 21. ^22.� Mauldon, 'Cooperation and Welfare in Industry', p. 185. ^23.� Pragnall, 'Selling Consent', p. 152 and p. 234. ^24.� Mauldon, 'Cooperation and Welfare in Industry', p. 185. ^25.�Ibid., p. 185. ^26.� Wright, Management of Labour, p. 22. ^27.� D. Adair and W. Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997, p. 51. ^28.�Ibid., pp. 52–53. ^29.� D. Proud, Welfare Work, p. 81. ^30.� Eleanor Hinder Papers, State Library of New South Wales, Mitchell Library, ML MSS 770/2/1, 1925. ^31.� Mauldon, 'Cooperation and Welfare in Industry', p. 186. ^32.� Memorandum to the Director-General, Dept. War Organisation of Industry, Melbourne, from Deputy Director, Department of Labour and National Service, Sydney, 13/1/44, series SP113/1, file 560/2/1, Australian Archives, Sydney, (hereafter AA); Memorandum for The Director-General, Dept. War Organisation of Industry, Melbourne, 13/1/44, series SP113/1, file 560/2/1, AA. ^33.� Wright, The Management of Labour, p. 45; for an example of government publications, see the Personnel Practice Bulletin (formerly The Bulletin of Industrial Psychology and Personnel Practice.) ^34.� Patmore, Australian Labour History, p. 150 and p. 200. ^35.�Tooth's K.B. Chronicle, March 1946, p. 24; L.R. Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', Personnel Practice Bulletin (hereafter PPB), vol. 11, no. 1, March 1955; S.E.G. Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in New South Wales', PPB, vol. 15, no. 3, September 1959; S. Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', PPB, vol. 20, no. 1, March 1964; Wright, Management of Labour, p. 64. ^36.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 44. ^37.�Ibid., p. 49. ^38.�Ibid., p. 49; Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in N.S.W', p. 13; Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', p. 42. ^39.� Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in N.S.W.', p. 11. ^40.�Ibid., p. 12. ^41.�Ibid., pp. 11–12; Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 44. ^42.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry'; Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in NSW, p. 13; Wright, Management of Labour, pp. 63–64. ^43.� G. Blainey, The Peaks of Lyell, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1954, p. 224. ^44.�Ibid., p. 224; ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, p. 21; Wright, Management of Labour, p. 23. ^45.� E. Eklund, '"Intelligently Directed Welfare Work"?: Labour Management Strategies in Local Context: Port Pirie, 1915–29', Labour History, no. 76, May 1999, pp. 135–140; ACSI, Industrial Cooperation in Australia, pp. 14–15. ^46.� ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, pp. 12–13; Eklund, 'Intelligently Directed Welfare Work?', 1999, pp. 136–137. ^47.� Anon, 'For Harmony in Industry', Australian Factory, 1 January 1960, p. 39. ^48.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 78. ^49.� Bank of NSW Archives, A Career in the Bank of New South Wales, 1955, p. 8. ^50.� Anon, 'For Harmony in Industry, pp. 42–43. ^51.� Suggested Project on Industrial Recreation, 22 January 1948, series SP146/1, file 575/5/5, AA. ^52.�Ibid. ^53.�Ibid. ^54.�The Etruscan, multiple issues 1951–1965. ^55.� Anon, 'For Harmony in Industry', pp. 39–40. ^56.� Eklund, 'Intelligently Directed Welfare Work?', 1999, p. 135; ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, pp. 19–20. ^57.� W.E. Cuxton, 'The Factory and the Community', PPB, vol. 15, no. 2, June 1959, p. 28. ^58.� Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', p. 42. ^59.� J. Sangster, 'The Softball Solution: Female Workers, Male Managers and the Operation of Paternalism at Westclox, 1923–60', Labour/Le Travail, vol. 32, Fall 1993, p. 191. ^60.� Cashman, Paradise of Sport, p. 55. ^61.� Anon, 'For Harmony in Industry,' pp. 38–39. ^62.� Sangster, 'The Softball Solution', pp. 190–191. ^63.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 81. ^64.� Cuckson, 'The Factory and the Community', p. 29. ^65.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 80. ^66.� L. Luxton, 'Social and Recreational Activities in the Shell Group of Companies in Australia', PPB, vol. 16, no. 2, June 1960, p. 60. ^67.� 'Suggested Project on Industrial Recreation', 22 January 1948, series SP146/1, file 575/5/5, AA. ^68.� Anon, 'For Harmony in Industry', p. 43. ^69.�Ibid., p. 43. ^70.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 48. ^71.� Luxton, 'Social and Recreational Activities in the Shell Group of Companies in Australia', p. 55. ^72.� R.S. Chambers, 'Employee Benefits and Amenities at Cyclone', PPB, vol. 15, no. 2, June 1959, p. 46. ^73.� Cuckson, 'The Factory and the Community', p. 28; E. Eklund, 'Intelligently directed welfare work'?, Broken Hill Associated Smelters and attempts to create company loyalty at Port Pirie, 1915–1925, unpublished paper presented to the Fifth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, October 1997, p. 12. While prior to the 1930s the mining companies at Broken Hill were critical of the welfare schemes at other mining sites, the directors of Zinc Corporation and New Broken Hill Consolidated, a company created by Zinc Corporation in 1936, introduced a number of welfare schemes in the post-war period. W.S. Robinson, Managing Director of the Zinc Corporation, also instigated the BHAS welfare scheme at Port Pirie (I.M. Hardy, 'Subsidized Holidays at the Zinc Corporation Ltd and New Broken Hill Consolidated Ltd', PPB, vol. 15, no. 2, June 1959, pp. 30–38). ^74.� Cuckson, 'The Factory and the Community', p. 25. ^75.� McCallum, 'Corporate Welfarism in Canada, 1919–39', p. 49. ^76.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 79. ^77.� Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations in the NSW Government Railways, p. 42. ^78.�The Budget, March 1913, p. 166. ^79.�Ibid., p. 166. ^80.� Eklund, 'Intelligently Directed Welfare Work?', 1999, p. 137. ^81.� Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 82. ^82.� Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in NSW Industry', p. 13. ^83.� Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', p. 44. ^84.� Eklund, 'Intelligently Directed Welfare Work?', 1999, p. 133. ^85.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 46; Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in NSW Industry', pp. 7–8. ^86.� Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations in the N.S.W Government Railways, p. 397. ^87.� Cited in M. Hearn, Working Lives: a History of the Australian Railways Union (NSW Branch), Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1990, p. 42. ^88.�Ibid., p. 46. ^89.�Ibid., p. 88; ARU Holiday Camp, Report from J.J. McCreadie, Acting Regional Director, IWD, Sydney to Assistant Secretary (General), IWD, Melbourne, 26/9/49, series SP146/1, file 575/3/29, AA. ^90.� Eklund, 'Intelligently directed welfare work?', 1997, p. 13. ^91.� Eklund, 'Intelligently directed welfare work?', 1999, p. 141. ^92.�Ibid. ^93.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 48; Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, p. 81. ^94.� Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in NSW Industry', p. 7; Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', p. 38. ^95.� Wall, 'Social and Recreational Clubs in Queensland Industry', p. 48; Bannerman, 'Social Clubs in 24 Victorian Undertakings', p. 42; Imer, 'Social and Recreational Activities in N.S.W.', pp. 11–12; Wright, Management of Labour, p. 63.

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Company-Sponsored Recreation in Australia: 1890–1965

Nikola Balnave

Industrial Welfarism

Company-Based Recreation

Overview

Labour Supply

Managerial Prerogative

Labour Response

Conclusion

Endnotes