Charles Fahey and John Lack | Working at Sunshine: A Case Study of the Recruitment, Retention and Management of Labour in a Melbourne Manufacturing Enterprise, 1946–63 | Labour History, 90

Working at Sunshine: A Case Study of the Recruitment, Retention and Management of Labour in a Melbourne Manufacturing Enterprise, 1946–63

Charles Fahey and John Lack^*

In the 1950s unemployment in Australia fell to record low levels. Official records record the low levels of unemployment but tell little about the way workers and employers reacted to this new environment. The personnel records of Massey-Ferguson at Sunshine are a window into the world of manufacturing work in the 1950s. Through a sample drawn from individual employee records we explore how workers at a major manufacturing firm reacted to a full-employment labour market. Through these records we explore such questions as labour turnover, the development of internal labour markets, the recruitment of migrant workers and the extent of over award payments. We also explore how the company attempted to cope with a highly mobile labour force.

In an important monograph, Christopher Wright has examined the evolution of a systematic approach to labour management by Australian firms throughout the twentieth century. A critical period in this evolution was the post-war boom. Wright argues that the years of full employment after the war were crucial in the formation of industrial relations departments, and the introduction of new management practices such as incentive work. Wright also demonstrates that in the post-war years employers became concerned about high levels of labour mobility. Before 1940 he argues employers generally adopted a confrontational and hostile attitude to unions. In the post-war years a number of employers continued a confrontational policy towards employers while a smaller number attempted to limit the influence of unions through the 'provision of superior amenities and working conditions, wage incentive, and over award payments'. Full employment in the 1950s reduced the impact of anti-unionism and many employers sought to 'codify the employment relationship'. Through the 'constitutional' approach most firms retreated behind the provisions of the relevant awards. In a number of industries the bargaining power of organised labour forced a more accommodating approach and employers negotiated directly with unions and sought to formalise relations through collective agreements. Finally, innovative employers adopted a consultative approach and emphasised the need 'for communication through joint consultative arrangements, suggestion schemes and human relations training for supervisors and middle managers'.¹

While we are indebted to Wright for his overview of management's response to the new labour market conditions of the post-war years, we do not have a similar study of the way labour reacted to this new and novel labour market. The years of intense industrial action between 1945 and the fall of the Labor Government in 1949 have attracted considerable research from labour historians. In his Divisions of Labour, Tom Sheridan provided detailed accounts of the major disputes of these years — in the metal trades (1946–47), in Victorian public transport (1946–48), in the Queensland railways and the famous New South Wales coal miners' strike. Sheridan has also written extensively on the waterfront in the post-war years. There are also a number of excellent surveys of individual trade unions.²

In a recent paper John Murphy has examined accounts of work and family life in the mid-1950s given through interviews with a number of older Australians. In particular, Murphy is concerned with the way his interviewees interpreted their role as breadwinners. He argues that in OECD countries during the full employment of the 1950s 'the male bread winner model was more than usually pervasive both culturally and in ordinary people's experience. It was fundamental to the ideas of domesticity and of the family that played a major part in Australian political culture'. In Australia the idea of the male bread winner had been built into the fabric of a strong system of wage regulation that begun with H.B. Higgins' 1907 Harvester Judgment. In looking at bread winner accounts of the 1950s, Murphy identified two dominant models: De Facto and Normative bread winners. The former took their position as bread winners for granted, as part of the natural order of things, while the latter had a much greater attachment to the model. Their narratives 'suggested that they thought a man ought to be the family provider'.³

Although Murphy's interviews of elderly Australians are important and insightful accounts of how his respondents interpreted their attitudes to work and family in later life, they tell us very little about how working men and women dealt with the everyday realities of the buoyant labour market of the 1950s. How, for example, did they obtain jobs? Did workers stay put with the one employer for large portions of their working lives, or did they move from employer to employer? Did employees experience social mobility in the work place? Were employees prepared to work overtime or for incentive payments? How were migrants incorporated into the structures of the labour market? Were migrants, for example, excluded from skilled work?

In looking for discussion of the post-war labour market the historian has to turn to contemporary analysis in economic and industrial relations journals. For the period from the end of the war up to early 1960s this economic discussion has focused on wages and the arbitration system, wage differentials between skilled and unskilled labour and over award payments or, in the jargon of the period, 'earnings drift'. In this literature there is little discussion on questions routinely pursued by labour economists looking at contemporary data, but sadly neglected by Australian labour historians, such as job search, labour mobility, job duration and internal labour markets. This largely reflects the relatively primitive state of labour force data collection in the 1950s. It is clear that Department of Labour and National Service was beginning to be interested in such questions in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In this period, the Department published a Bulletin of Industrial Psychology and Personnel Practice which published regular articles on labour turnover and wage incentive schemes. From 1949 the Bureau of Statistics began its series Labour Turnover. Such interest undoubtedly reflected the perceived growth of labour turnover in the post-war labour market.⁴

One area where historians have been drawn to labour studies is the question of migrants in the workforce. A number of commentators, most importantly Robert and Tanya Birrell, have criticised the migration planners of the 1950s and beyond for their failure to adequately choose migrants with skills suitable to needs of the Australian labour market. 'Southern migrants' — those from southern Europe, the Mediterranean and eastern Europe — lacked industrial experience, had little knowledge of English, and their high turnover, low skill levels and lack of commitment to industrial work lead to serious problems of low productivity and inferior quality of work. Constance Lever-Tracy and Michael Quinlan have delivered a trenchant critique of this thesis. Taking Melbourne as a case study, they have provided a thorough reworking of occupational information in census returns from the 1960s, the 1970s and the early 1980s. Their analysis of the available census material demonstrates that, although there were occupational ghettos, migrants were not confined to the unskilled segments of the workforce. To give one example, Italians were over-represented among labourers, but at the same time they were prominent in the building trades. In exploring these questions, Lever-Tracy and Quinlan did not have access longitudinal studies and they had to rely on cross-sectional data. Details of the employment status of migrants from the 1950s is inferred from censuses from the late 1960s and 1970s. Their work employs little official data from the 1950s. They could not, for example, test the assertion of the Birrells that migrants had higher turnover rates than other employees.⁵

This paper will provide a case study of the interaction of labour and management in a major Melbourne manufacturing firm — H.V. McKay Sunshine/Massey-Ferguson — from the end of the war through until the early 1960s. In the history of Australian industrial relations this firm has an important place as the factory investigated by H.B. Higgins in determining his famous Harvester Judgement of 1907. Before the depression, the firm was also an important innovator in the use of modern machine tools and work practices — such as time and motion studies tied to incentive payments. Sunshine also pioneered the use of mass production methods. The firm was also one of the first companies in Australia to introduce a personnel department. It is the records of this personnel department, particularly the employment cards on individual workers, that allows the historian to provide a detailed analysis of the relationship between labour and management and to explore the careers of individual workers in this firm.

Australian labour historians have seldom explored industrial relations from the level of a case study of individual firms. In his study of the management of labour in Australia, Christopher Wright drew extensively on the personnel records of Australian companies, interviews with personnel managers and articles in professional journals. His detailed work on company records does not appear to include personnel files. In the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe the study of individual firms has enjoyed more popularity. Howard Gospel and Craig Littler in their Managerial Strategies and Industrial Relations provide case studies from British Motor companies and the German electrical engineering company Siemens. In the United States we have detailed studies of industrial relations at the Ford Motor Company and International Harvester, and Sanford Jacoby has recently examined welfare capitalism in a number of major US firms including Eastman Kodak and Sears Roebuck. Economic historians in the US have also used firm level employment records to study labour. Thomas N. Maloney and Warren C. Whately have drawn a sample from the employee records of the Ford Motor Company to examine racial discrimination in Detroit's labour markets from 1920–40.⁶

The key source employed in this paper is the employment card kept on each employees working at Sunshine in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. For this paper we have taken a systematic, one in five sample of all employees. For each employee we have data on a number of important variables. These include: age, dates of employment, wage rates, job classifications, country of birth, places employed at before recruitment at Sunshine, and reasons for leaving the firm. For 1955 our sample has been linked to census of earnings sent to the Bureau of Statistics. The sample includes all employees — staff and wage earners — and employees in Victoria and other states. Although management generated the employment cards, they tell us much about the aspirations of labour. At the simplest level the cards recorded workers' attitudes; why, for example, they left or whether they were insubordinate to managers. We can also infer much about labour motivations through tabulating such variables as length of service and hours worked above the minimum. We have also interviewed a small number of employees who turned up in our sample.⁷ The first part of our paper will present the statistical results of our analysis of the employment cards and in the second we will explore the way management practices changed in response to the post-war labour market.

H.V. McKay Massey-Harris in the 1940s and 1950s

In the 1920s the Sunshine Harvester Works was one of the more modern industrial complexes in the Australian Commonwealth. Under the driving ambition of its founder Hugh Victor McKay the firm had experimented with modern production methods including single purpose machine-tools, and payment by incentive, or piece. Tied to incentive payments were time and motion studies of the workforce.⁸ From 1921 the company was insulated from foreign competition by steep tariffs. To overcome this impost, one of Sunshine's main competitors, Massey-Harris of Canada, invested in Sunshine in 1931. The firm traded as H.V. McKay/ Massey-Harris until the agreement with the Canadians terminated in 1955. In this year the heirs to the McKay estate, led by Hugh McKay's son Cecil, sold out to their Canadian partners, and in 1956 the new firm changed its name to Massey-Ferguson, when it acquired sole rights to import Ferguson tractors.⁹

For most of the 1940s and 1950s production was centred on the Sunshine plant. In these years the firm was a 'full-line' firm producing both tillage and harvesting machines, and assembling imported tractors. The numbers employed in production at Sunshine varied seasonally — according to the production schedules for tillage and harvesting machinery — and due to the general state of the rural economy. In August 1946, 1,994 people were employed as manual workers on the factory floor at the Sunshine. On two occasions, as we shall see, ill judged company decisions resulted in major reductions in employees. Employment cards indicate that the majority of engineering and manufacturing employees were unskilled and semi-skilled operatives but there was a significant skilled component and a substantial proportion engaged in supervision (Table 1). A small manufacturing plant was built at the Sydney suburb of Concord in 1958. In addition to manufacturing plant at Sunshine, there was an office complex for sales and management, warehousing, and there were branch offices in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. These branches employed service and sales staff. In 1960 the Australia wide workforce was 2,270. Of these 1,472 were 'hourly rated' manual factory workers.¹⁰

Table 1
Employment at H.V. McKay Massey-Harris/Massey-Ferguson

	1950	1955	1960
Unskilled	50.5%	49.1%	52.3%
Semiskilled	9.8	10.2	9.5
Skilled	10.9	10.0	12.7
Clerical	15.0	18.3	17.0
Supervisory	11.6	9.6	6.4
Professional/managerial	2.0	2.6	2.1
Sample Size	507	741	436

Source: Systematic random sample of one in five from Massey-Ferguson Personnel Cards

The distinctions between skilled, semiskilled and unskilled are based on marginal rates awarded by the Arbitration Court. Those with a margin equal to or above 1^st class machinists were designated skilled; the margin for 2^nd class machinists was the cut off point for semiskilled and those at, or below, the wage for 3^rd class machinists were designated unskilled. Supervisors were foremen and sub-foreman and staff employed as checkers and inspectors

From 1922 to 1928 the company was highly profitable, and net profits as a proportion of paid up capital hovered around 20 per cent. Profits collapsed in the early 1930s. A recovery in the late 1930s was cut short by drought in 1938/39. The war brought a return to prosperity, and the company's fortunes were favoured by the guaranteed sale of reaper binders to the United Kingdom. A munitions annex was also established at Sunshine to produce tools and tank parts. Although profits were constrained by a shortage of labour at the end of the war, from 1952 through until the sale to the Canadians profits and dividends were at record levels. It is possible the McKay family, realising that their agreement with Massey-Harris was to expire in 1955, recklessly paid dividends in these years. When the Canadians took over in 1955 the company was restructured and capital was added through the provision of preference shares to Australian investors. The ordinary shares were held by the parent company. During this restructure the profit rate declined and considerable investment was placed in the Sunshine works, most importantly in an overhaul of the tool room. By the end of the decade profits were once again healthy at 14–15 per cent.¹¹

Labour Turnover and Recruitment

In the years after the war the Department of Labour and National Service became concerned with the level of turnover in Australian factories and initiated spot checks on selected organisations from 1948. In 1949 the Australian Bureau of Statistics commenced what became biennial surveys of labour turnover. Both surveys reveal extremely high turnover levels in the immediate post-war years. The Department of Labour's spot checks for 1948 to 1952 revealed an average monthly turnover of 6.40 per cent in textile factories and 6.63 for metal factories.¹² Details on the types of firm surveyed are few, but the average size of metal firms was only 267 in 1951 and 1952, well below the average employment levels at Sunshine. On two occasions — during the metal strike of 1946 and when the firm was re-structured in 1955–56 — management at Sunshine engaged in extensive shedding of staff. On each occasion the result was disastrous and considerable trouble was experienced in re-engaging labour. However, the firm generally carefully monitored turnover and as a large firm could offer incentives to hold labour — welfare measures, the provision of internal labour markets and above award earnings through overtime and piece work. Although the firm faced chronic labour shortages in the late 1940s, largely initiated by the 1946 lockout, by the early 1950s labour turnover was kept down to half the state average (Figure 1) and it was better than the rate for competitors — Ford and International Harvester.¹³ In 1956 the new Canadian management heavily retrenched labour and almost two thirds of the workforce was shed between July and December 1956. However, this proved costly and the firm experienced great difficulty recruiting labour in the tight labour market of the late 1950s. The conundrum was that this recruitment had to take place in a climate of constant labour turnover; in 1957 over 40 per cent of the workforce left voluntarily and in 1958 the figure jumped to over 50 per cent. The North Americans had unintentionally brought the turnover in their workforce into line with general trends Australian engineering (Figure 1). For the remainder of the decade and into 1960 labour turnover remained a source of concern. By the beginning of 1960 the board found that it was a hundred men shy of the complement required to meet manufacturing schedules.¹⁴

Figure 2

Annual Labour Turnover at Sunshine Harvester/Massey Ferguson and in General Engineering in Australia

With high levels of turnover, Sunshine, like most Australian manufacturing concerns, faced the constant problem of recruiting new employees. Using the employment cards we can learn much about these new recruits.

Throughout the 1950s the typical new employee was a sojourner. Of all those who sought employment at Sunshine in the 1950s the average length of stay was 405 days, with 6.7 per cent staying for a day or less, and a quarter for less than a month. Commenting on recent job duration statistics, the labour economist K. Norris has written that 'casual empiricism suggests that the young will be over-represented among the group' of workers who changed jobs regularly.¹⁵ In the tight labour market of the 1950s, Sunshine management were forced to employ a wide range of age groups to meet its labour requirements. The median age for male recruits was 31.3 years and for women 21.0. Moreover, at least one fifth of the males were recruited after their fortieth birthday. Those under 20 were the least likely to rapidly leave the workforce, presumably because they were apprentices or under parental guidance. Those in their 20s and 30s were extremely mobile and most stayed for less than half a year. Although the length of job increased with age, the median job length for men in their 50s was under one year. The typical recruit was classified as unskilled, although to meet its production requirements, the firm had to recruit significant numbers semi-skilled and skilled labour. The unskilled and the semiskilled stayed for less than a third of a year, but skilled workers were only slightly more stable, staying for a median of only half a year (Table 2).

Table 2
Entry Level Jobs and Job Duration

	Males			Females
	% of recruits	Av. Years	Med. Years	% of recruits	Av. years	Med. Years
Apprentice	0.6	5.9	5.5	0	0	0
Clerical	10.2	1.55	0.88	79.0	1.69	0.90
Unskilled	58.4	1.06	0.32	15.9	2.90	2.40
Semiskilled	11.6	1.06	0.32	0	0	0
Skilled	7.7	2.81	0.55	0	0	0
Supervisory	0.7	3.00	1.77	0.1	0.58	0.58
Technical	1.5	1.82	1.84	2.5	0.06	0.08
Male junior	9.2	0.80	0.36	0	0	0
Sample Size	1516			157

Source: Massey-Ferguson Personnel Cards

The places of birth of Sunshine recruits reflected the basic contours of pre and immediate post-war migration. During the pre-war years the only overseas born employees at McKay's were from the United Kingdom. In the second half of the 1940s a smattering of Italians began to seek employment at Sunshine. In the 1950s the numbers of Italians increased dramatically and throughout this decade, at 19.2 per cent of recruits, they were second in numbers only to the Australian born recruits. In absolute numbers, the second largest migrant group was from the British Isles (9.3 per cent), followed by former residents of Malta (5.8 per cent), Poland (5.1 per cent), and Germany (4.7 per cent) in that order. Table 3 presents the broad regional origins of the recruits of the 1950s.

Table 3
Regional Origins of 1950s Massey-Ferguson Recruits

	Number	%
English speaking (undefined)	305	18.1
Australia & New Zealand	361	21.5
United Kingdom and Ireland	159	9.5
Eastern Europe/Baltic States	186	11.1
Western Europe	133	7.9
Southern Europe/Mediterranean	529	31.5
Canada/United States	2	0.1
Other	4	0.2
Sample Size	1679	100

Source: Massey-Ferguson Personnel Cards

In the critique of the post-war migration policies, the Birrells contended that immigrants generally came ill-prepared for industrial work. This is not borne out from the evidence of employment at Sunshine Harvester/Massey-Ferguson (Table 4). As part of their screening process new recruits were queried as to their former jobs and length of service. Although there may have been a temptation to exaggerate industrial experience to obtain work, recruits generally gave precise details of former employers. The combined experience of training at home and moving about within Australia brought to Massey-Ferguson recruits familiar with the metal trades and with the metal working industry. Of the blue collar recruits of the 1950s, one fifth had experience as metal tradesman or semi-skilled operatives. The general experience in metal works was even broader. When we consider labourers and process workers, a third of recruits had acquaintance with metal and engineering works. This contrasts with only nine per cent who were recruited directly from farming or rural backgrounds into Massey-Ferguson.

Table 4
Places of Birth and Entry Level Skills of 1950s Male Recruits

	English speaking (undefined)	Australia	United Kingdom & Ireland	Eastern Europe & Soviet Union	Western Europe	Southern Europe	Canada & United States	Other	Total
Apprentice	0%	1.2%	2.6%	0.5%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0.6%
Clerical	80.2	1.8	3.3	0	0.8	0.2	0	0	10.3
Unskilled	4.0	59.8	50.7	72.5	43.5	76.8	50.0	75.0	58.4
Semiskilled	1.7	6.8	17.1	13.2	34.4	10.3	0	0	11.6
Skilled	1.7	8.3	19.1	5.5	12.2	5.3	0	0	7.6
Technical	5.1	2.1	2.0	1.1	0.8	0.0	50.0	0	0
Supervisory	5.6	0.3	0	0	0	0.2	0	0	0.7
Male Junior	1.7	19.6	5.3	7.1	8.4	7.2	0	25.0	9.3
Number	177	336	152	182	131	525	2	4	1509

Source: Massey-Ferguson Employment Cards

For migrants experience in metal manufacturing was gained in a number of ways. German and British migrants came from nations with long industrial history. In the case of the British recruits experience was often gained in the wartime armaments industries and in the motor plants of the midlands. Many Eastern European migrants had experienced war-time work in German munitions and armaments factories, and Italian recruits had experience in naval ship yards in Trieste and Egypt. For the Maltese the avenue for metal work experience was often the British Naval Dockyards.¹⁶

When they asked prospective employees where they had worked before, Massey-Ferguson was clearly interested in matching past experience with present job requirements. Even unskilled factory jobs had the potential to be performed more efficiently by those with prior factory experience. At the same time, in a tight labour market, it made little sense to place skilled workers in unskilled positions; they were likely to move on as soon as a better opportunity beckoned. With problems of language and the recognition of overseas skills, Massey-Ferguson frequently placed skilled migrants in unskilled positions. Nonetheless, it is also clear that this firm appreciated recruiting men with industrial and metal work experience. And when they were sure that migrants possessed skills they were prepared to employ them on higher paying occupational designations.¹⁷

Recruits from those regions the Birrells labelled 'southern' were disproportionately recruited into unskilled occupations. Three quarters of all Southern Europeans were engaged in job designations that carried unskilled award wages. Amongst the recruits from the UK the proportion was only 51 per cent. At the other end of the recruitment spectrum skilled labour was drawn disproportionately from the United Kingdom and Western Europe. Almost one in five of recruits from the United Kingdom entered the factory as the elite of the manual working recruits — tool makers and 1^st class machinists and welders. Just over 12 per cent of Western European migrants entered the factory with similar job designations (Table 5). However, 'southern migrants' were not confined to unskilled work, and Massey-Ferguson did employ skilled tradesmen from 'southern regions'; almost a quarter of all skilled recruits were from Southern Europe (24.3 per cent) and a further 8.7 per cent were from Eastern Europe. Where there was some doubt about skills the option was available to place men in the lower designations of 2^nd class worker. The onus was then on the worker to show his capability, and earn a higher rating. Among those recruited into the semiskilled positions, almost 45 per cent were from Southern or Eastern Europe. Many of these semiskilled positions were crucial for maintaining productivity; the company required men to operate machines on piece rates at high volumes to met seasonal peaks in demand. Finally, the Birrells argued that the lack of industrial experience among southern migrants made them less amenable to the discipline of the factory and more likely to move on. The simple problem for management in the 1950s was that all recruits, no matter where they came from, realised the labour market was in their favour and turnover rates were high for all ethnic groups. For example, the average length of stay for Southern Europeans and United Kingdom recruits was identical, a mere 10.8 months.

Table 5
Age and Length of Service Massey-Ferguson (years)

	Average age of employees in December		Average length of service in December		Average final duration of employment held in December
	1955	1960	1955	1960	1955	1960
Unskilled	37.5	37.3	4.8	3.2	7.1	8.3
Semiskilled	38.2	35.8	8.4	4.8	11.7	9.6
Skilled	36.8	35.3	10.5	5.5	15.1	10.3
Clerical	34.1	35.0	9.7	6.6	12.2	10.0
Supervisory	47.6	47.0	19.8	21.2	23.9	26.2
Professional/managerial	42.9	36.0	15.2	8.3	20.3	13.3
All	38.2	37.1	8.3	5.5	13.8	9.4

Source: Massey-Ferguson Personnel Cards.

The average final duration of employment held in December of 1955 and 1960 acknowledges that many employees were employed beyond these dates. For example, employees recruited in these months may have gone on to long term employment with the firm. Their length of employment in December 1955 or 1960 may have been only a day, but the job they held in these months may have lasted many years.

Internal Labour Markets

Faced with a highly mobile labour market, management attempted to hoard labour through the provision of internal labour markets, while employees demanded over award wages as the price of their loyalty.

Modern studies of the length of employment in Australian show a labour market where a large proportion of employees stayed in their job for a very short-time while other employees worked for the one employer for many years.¹⁸ This is probably not only a recent trend, and throughout the 1950s the Sunshine workforce was composed of two distinct groups: a core of loyal and long term workers and a group of floating, less permanent employees. In Table 5 the length of service at the Sunshine factory is set out at two points: in 1955, the last year of control by the McKay family, and 1960, several years after the North Americans had been in control.

When they visited the Sunshine factory in the late 1940s and early 1950s, representatives of the North American shareholders pointed to what they considered were the high ages of the Sunshine workforce. Although there were a few old servants of the McKay's on the shop floor, this judgement was more a matter of prejudice than science; an aged workforce was just one more of the perceived management failings of the Australian firm.¹⁹ In 1955 the workforce was not young, nor was it elderly with an average age of 38 years. Five years later, after the retrenchments of 1956, the average age had changed little (Table 5). In their promotional literature and other publicity in the '40s and '50s, the Sunshine, management stressed the long service of their employees, and this is certainly borne out in their employment records. In 1955 the average length of service was over eight years. On the factory floor the length of service varied with skill; skilled tradesmen had the longest service, followed by semiskilled operatives and the unskilled. Among clerical workers long service was also common. A key to the perceptions of the North Americans probably lies in the supervisory group; here the average length of service was almost 20 years and the average age was almost 48 years.

The evidence of duration of employment points to the existence of internal labour markets, and a closer look at the employment patterns reveals this to have been the case. In the literature on internal labour markets a threefold classification has been employed: open, manorial and guild. In the first there are ports of entry at all job classifications and the line between internal and external labour markets is very thin. Such markets operate where specific training is unimportant and capital and machinery is little used. Manorial labour markets exist where there are few points of entry with well-defined promotion or progression lines. Finally, guild labour markets exist where general training is required such as for craft workers. At Sunshine under the McKay management the second and third types of labour market were clearly in evidence.²⁰

Although only a minority on the shop floor, skilled tradesmen held a strategic position in the firm. As guild labour market workers they were often located in the toolroom and were essential in setting up machines for the general workforce. The inner sanctum of the skilled worker was the tool-room. Here were employed maintenance fitters and tool makers, most of whom had served formal apprenticeships. In the 1920s the firm instituted a formal system of apprenticeship training linked to the Sunshine Technical School. This broke down in the 1930s depression but was rejuvenated in the tight labour market of the 1940s. The majority of skilled workers in 1955 entered the firm as fully trained craftsmen or served a term as firm-trained apprentices. It was also possible for young men to enter as 'male juniors' and move into trades after a period of time in which they demonstrated their trustworthiness and application to the management. More typical was the manorial labour market, and most of those employed in 1955 had entered the firm as unskilled labour.²¹

Within the factory there were a large number of unskilled jobs where little firm specific training was necessary; a great deal of the unskilled work was simply lifting and carrying. However, the heart of the manufacturing process was machine work and assembling. Here many firm specific skills were required. Even in the 1950s, few of the machining processes were fully automatic, and basic set up skills were essential. It was clearly to the advantage of the firm to hoard even unskilled and semiskilled assemblers and machinists. In addition the firm had to deal with the reality of labour turnover, and there was a constant need to train and supervise new recruits. Quality control and monitoring of piece work was also an essential requirement of successful manufacturing. For these reasons the firm employed a large number of sub-foremen, foremen and inspectors. Men competent in the setting up of machines to deal with more than 200,000 piece rates jobs were critical in facilitating the work of unskilled machinists.²² These positions were frequently promoted from the ranks of tried, trusted and long serving unskilled workers. In the metal work dispute of 1946 many of these men were moved to staff positions. While this was an extreme reaction to a particular crisis, the promotion of such grades to work to staff was on-going policy of the firm. Output was also essential and the firm provided opportunities for the unskilled to pick up semi and skilled machinery classifications on the job. The unskilled were also promoted to supervisory positions.²³ The following diagram illustrates some patterns of internal promotion (Figure 2).

Figure 2
Some Illustrative Career Patterns at Sunshine

Born 1929	Born 1926	Born 1916
Male Junior 1945	Male junior 1941	Labourer 1946
Fitter's Apprentice 1946	Template Attendant 1942	Machinist 3^>rd Class 1947
Fitter 1951	Fitter's Apprentice 1943	Setter Up 1955
	Machinist 1^st Class 1947	Leading Hand 1955

Source: Massey-Ferguson Employment Cards

When they took control of the plant in 1956 the North American managers, as we have seen, undertook a process of retrenchment. Part of the justification for this was their perception that Sunshine workforce contained a large number of old employees. In the buoyant state of the Melbourne market it was a foolish tactic and meeting labour requirements for production became a major problem. The North Americans, like their Australian predecessors, adopted a policy of promoting internal labour markets. Although average length of employment had declined by 1960, continuing employment was offered to those who were loyal, trustworthy and willing to stay.²⁴ Finding the latter was the difficult task. A critical factor in holding labour was remuneration.

Over-Award Payments

Workers in the agricultural implement trade were singled out in the 1920s as a special group of workers in the metal trades. The first Commonwealth Arbitration Court award for the implement industry, handed down by Sir John Quick in 1926, largely accepted the employers' case that the industry, through the use of modern machine tools, had eliminated skill. Margins for skill were, therefore, set below those prevailing in jobbing engineering shops. The same award also endorsed the policy of earlier state wages boards and permitted piece work. The system of lower margins remained in force until 1936 when a new award was handed down by Justice George Beeby. In his award, Beeby recognised that some implement work was comparable to skilled engineering, and for this work set rates in line with his engineering award. Beeby was also a proponent of the need for mass production techniques to be applied to Australian manufacturing and he also set rates for machine operators. He introduced the designation of process worker and divided machinists into three grades: 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd class machinists. Assemblers were also divided into those with and without two years of experience. Beeby's determination remained the basis for awards handed down in the 1940s and 1950s.²⁵

For the unions involved in Sunshine, piece work was a vexed issue. Within the Sunshine plant, four major unions traditionally sought to recruit members: the Agricultural Implement Makers, Sheet-metal Workers, Moulders and Engineers. The last three were traditional craft unions, while the Implement Makers' Union, first formed in the mid-1880s, recruited all grades of labour. The Sheet Metal Workers and Implement Makers merged in 1946, while the moulders and the engineers continued as separate unions throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Although the Implement Makers recruited men who did not earn the minimum wages set by the unions of the engineers and moulders, they were initially opposed to piece work. This was one of the issues behind the protracted implement makers' strike of 1911. At the termination of the strike the Sunshine management pursued a vigorous policy of introducing new machinery and piece work. By the mid-1920s piece work had become standard throughout the manufacturing divisions of the works and only jobbing moulders and highly skilled maintenance fitters and toolmakers held out against its introduction. In these areas its introduction was not favoured by the nature of work, where much of the work was specialised and of low volume. While the union maintained a fiction of opposition to piece work and incentive payments, in practice it accepted piece work. In truth it had no alternative as it members readily undertook piece work as a means of increasing their incomes. As we have seen, the company adopted a policy of shop floor promotion, and men were promoted from labouring jobs to classifications with engineering margins. These men, often working on piece, remained members of the Implement Makers' Union rather than join the Australian Engineering Union, which forbade incentive payments. There was also a long tradition of overtime in the implement trade to meet seasonal rushes²⁶. Interviews with former Sunshine workers stressed the importance of overtime and incentive work. One Italian worker recalled: 'We were on piece work. We made lots of money. At the time it was beautiful'.²⁷

In the immediate post-war years piece work and overtime became essential tools in the recruiting and holding of labour. Cecil McKay resolutely opposed the demands for a £1 pay rise in 1946. However, Sunshine, like all manufacturers, faced a tight labour market, and by the end of the war they confronted demands to provide over award payments. Under wartime regulations Melbourne manufacturers adopted a number of methods to provide over award payments. Perhaps the crudest was a simple reclassification of employees; the Sunshine management complained to the Chamber of Manufacturers in September 1946 of the practice of classifying an employee 'in a higher classification than his skill warrants or to appoint leading hands in excess of the appropriate award provisions'. After the 1946 foundry dispute the McKay management could justifiably have had this charge thrown back at them by their competitors for labour when they moved employees to staff. An alternative was to offer overtime and to provide over award payments through piece work. Both policies were adopted at Sunshine. In regard to incentive payments the Sunshine management informed the Chamber of Manufactures that it should be the policy of employers to 'establish the award rate as the base rate' but they preserved the right to use a 'scientifically based incentive payment'.²⁸

Under the Australian management careful monitoring of wages costs was undertaken and management kept a watchful eye on the proportion of total earnings made up through piece work and overtime. The importance of incentive work varied over time. With tight labour market controls just after the war incentive payments were critical in attracting labour. During the busy season of July 1946 the impact of piece work was to lift actual earnings well above time rates. The proportion varied from section to section; foundry workers, the most disruptive section of the workforce, received almost 40 per cent above their base wage and margins.²⁹ The policy of piece work was only available in manufacturing divisions and in the service areas of the company, the toolroom for example, overtime had to be employed. From the mid-1940s through until the mid-1950s, company returns indicate that both over time and incentive payments were a significant component of average earnings in the works. From a low of just under nine per cent in 1947, overtime and incentive payments peaked at around 16 per cent of average earnings in the early 1950s (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Overtime and Incentive Payments at Sunshine Harvester

To explore the importance of over award payments employment cards have been linked to the earnings return sent to the Bureau of Statistics for the first week in December 1955. Table 6 reports the results of multiple regressions, firstly, on nominal wages and, secondly, on earnings. These equations highlight a number of important points. They clearly challenge the notion that migrants, particularly the Birrell's 'southern migrants', were less productive than other groups. Age, skill classification and gender were the main factors determining nominal wages. Controlling for these variables, the difference in wage rates between ethnic groups was not significant. The disadvantage that 'southern migrants' faced was their over-representation among the unskilled. Yet these unskilled 'southern migrants' were prepared to work both overtime and, more importantly, incentive work to lift their earnings well above base rates. Such work was also more likely to be undertaken by men age 35–54 (Table 6). A former employee, who migrated from the Ukraine and regularly worked overtime recalled: 'There was no difference — migrant or Australian — same pay same job. It was very good'.³⁰

Table 6*
Wages and Earnings Regressions, December 1955 (control groups southern European unskilled males aged 35–44)

	nominal £ per week	t statistic	earnings £ per week	t statistic
	13.45	8.75***	19.13	24.52***
Age
15–24	-5.07	-7.06***	-7.37	-8.14***
25–34	-0.80	-1.18	-1.79	2.12**
45–54	1.06	1.54	0.36	0.41
55 & up	0.03	0.0	-2.12	-2.40**
Occupation
Skilled	2.3	3.01***	3.58	3.71***
Semiskilled	1.53	2.22**	3.44	3.93***
Clerical	5.29	7.61***	1.87	2.13**
Supervisory	5.81	7.5***	4.65	4.75***
Nativity
English speaking	-0.08	-0.12	-0.53	-0.62
Eastern European	-0.69	-0.79	-0.68	-0.62
Western European	0.63	0.02	0.94	0.62
Other	-1.46	-0.45	-1.23	-0.30
Gender
Female	-4.94	-6.42***	-5.76	-5.92***
adjusted R squared	0.35		0.33
F	19.51		17.94
Number	445		449

Source: Massey-Ferguson Personnel Cards linked to ABS earnings returns, MUA * significant .01 level significant .05 level
* A useful introduction to the techniques of multiple repression can be found in Charles H. Feinstein and Mark Thomas, Making History Count: A Primer in Quantitative Methods for Historians, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.

In holding labour in the late 1950s the new North American management, as we have seen, caused problems for themselves in 1956 when they shed labour and then had trouble re-engaging workers from 1957 to 1960. Part of their problems also emerged from their initial reluctance to give overtime and from their intentions to reform piece work. By December 1957 overtime for all but skilled workers had been largely eliminated.³¹ For unskilled and semiskilled workers the only avenue for over award earnings was through piece work. In an ill-timed move the company announced in September 1957 that existing piece rates were 'unscientific' and they intended to re-time all jobs. The inevitable response from the shop floor was resistance. Passive resistance was simply to leave; a more aggressive approach was to ban piece work. When the firm attempted to introduce its new rates in February 1958 a lunchtime meeting was held outside the factory, and a ban was imposed on piece work. The union was called upon to negotiate a settlement, and the company was warned also that if men were dismissed for failing to work piece then a general stoppage would be called. A month later the company was adamant that they would not give in. However, the consequences were a continuing loss of labour and 40 per cent decline in production. By March 1958 the firm had agreed to observe 1956 prices for all old jobs up to 1960. Any new jobs were to be investigated and prices fixed by a committee representing the employees and management. A minor dispute flared up in August but once again management was forced to back down.³²

Changing Management Attitudes

From the end of the war through until the early 1960s management at Sunshine — both the Australians and Canadians — faced a continuing battle to recruit and hold labour. Over award payments and the creation of internal labour markets were two of the more important policies put in place to address this problem. The problems of a full employment labour market also forced management to change its attitudes to industrial relations. In the two decades after the war elements of all the approaches identified by Wright — confrontational, sophisticated paternalist, anti-unionist, constitutional and consultative — were adopted. These changes were usually adopted in response to crises and a continued misreading of the labour market.

From the 1930s through until the sale to the Canadians in 1955, the Sunshine plant was run by Cecil McKay, the son of the founder of the firm H.V. McKay. Cecil McKay's pre-war experience of manufacturers was of a labour market where management held the whip hand. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s employment in the agricultural implement making industry was characterised by high levels of unemployment. Sunshine, the largest employer in the sector, did offer long-term employment to substantial core of employees, but it could also draw on a reserve of labour to meet seasonal peaks in production. Labour was also trimmed extensively when droughts and other climatic events curtailed orders. The war dramatically changed this situation, and by the beginning of the 1940s unemployment in the industry had dropped to historically low levels. Manpower regulations, which controlled the movement of labour, helped to disguise this problem; when these were removed management faced a constant battle to hold onto labour. In July 1945 the directors' minutes recorded that, in spite of all efforts, they were still 500 production workers below the number necessary to meet the orders for harvesting machines that had been placed by Australian farmers for the coming summer season.³³

Sunshine had always maintained the fiction that they dealt only with individuals and not with unions. In reality unions regularly confronted management in the Commonwealth Arbitration Court. In line with this policy of anti-unionism the directors authorised the formation of a Works Council in February 1945. The aim of this body was to improve relationships between management and employers but it was not given a brief to canvas issues of wages.³⁴ The Implement Makers' Union initially opposed the council but eventually decided to stand known unionists for six of the seven positions up for election. More ominously for future industrial relations, foundry workers refused to take part in the elections.³⁵ In March 1945 the reasons for the hostility of the foundry became clear when a stop work meeting of foundry labourers called for a rise in the base rate for labourers to £6 per week. This was a city wide campaign. To force the issue the union placed a ban on overtime and a restriction on piece work to quantities sufficient to earn ten per cent above time rates.³⁶ Management refused to depart from the terms of the existing award and 35 moulders were discharged for going slow. The issue was temporarily resolved when the union gave an undertaking to return to work on the existing conditions. However, only 25 of those dismissed returned to work. This should have been a warning to management on the state of the labour market.³⁷

On 6 October 1946 the issue came to a head when foundry employees held a lunchtime meeting that extended into working hours. At the termination of the meeting six representatives of the moulders' and iron workers' unions asked the factory superintendent for increased wages. This was refused as being illegal under the National Security Regulations. Although the men returned to work during the afternoon, 64 men and two women gave notice of their termination. As this was considered to be strike action, management withheld holiday pay. Between 17 October and 31 October a further 33 workers left because they refused to do the work of strikers in the foundry. On the later date the dispute deepened when most foundries in Melbourne went on strike. In response to this, and bans imposed by the Amalgamated Engineering Union, manufacturers decided to give notice that unless iron workers returned to work by 6 November all factories would be closed.

When the ultimatum expired management at Sunshine gave notice that all employees, except staff and apprentices and a few exempted sections, would be paid off. Initially Melbourne employers took a strong stance and 70,000 notices were served on metal workers across the city. Many firms drew back from the brink and only 20,000 workers were locked out.³⁸ The Victorian Premier, John Cain, somewhat cruelly, suggested that Cecil McKay, who was Chairman of the Chamber of Manufacturers, wished to emulate his father and have a big strike like the lock out of 1911.³⁹ Once other employers had broken ranks, McKay was denied the crushing victory his father had won. On 20 January 1947, when the employers re-opened their factories, a meeting was held outside the gates at Sunshine but only 368 former employees decided to return to work (less than one fifth of the number employed by the firm before the lockout). The representative of the Implement Makers' Union at this meeting, J. Wilkinson, was convinced that men wished to return to work, and by 3 February the members of all unions except the Australian Engineering Union, agreed to come back subject to the following terms:⁴⁰

employers would not oppose wage increases up to the limits allowed by war time regulations;
such increases would be retrospective to the date of resumption;
increases would be in addition to existing (piece work) premiums; and
there would be no break in service.

Unfortunately for management, many former employees had obtained work elsewhere and recruiting labour proved to be a severe problem; by the beginning of March only 938 were employed from a complement of 1,668 before the factory closed.⁴¹

In a tight labour market Sunshine management, as have seen, attempted to win employees back by significant over award payments. They also adopted a number of alternative tactics. From 1944 the firm published a house journal — the Sunshine Review. Through the pages of this journal management attempted to engender an esprit de corps with articles on the problems of labour turnover, on the careers of long serving employees, on the treatment of junior labour, co-operation in the workplace and on the welfare provisions provided by management.⁴² In the late 1940s employees were encouraged to welcome 'new Australians' into the workforce and the community. A number of welfare measures were adopted. During the war, when a munitions annex was set up at Sunshine, the company established a canteen for the first time. This was continued after the war and often relied on a subsidy from the company.⁴³ In 1948 the company revived the pre-war institution of the company picnic, contributing £163 in 1949 and £250 in 1950. Realising that housing shortages were major post-war problem, the company subsidised the Sunshine Harvester Works Co-Operative Building Society. The company minutes stated openly that aim of this was to increase the factory's labour force, and the company met the Co-Op's management expenses, including accounting services, stationary, postage, telephones and audit fees. The Company was also a large consumer of timber and was in a position to acquire scarce building supplies. In July 1950 members of the Co-Op were offered weather boards at the ruling local price plus cartage.⁴⁴ The firm also tried to discourage unionism by a policy of transferring employees from wages to staff; 220 employees were transferred to staff in July 1947. When this issue was raised at a meeting of Shop Stewards at Sunshine in March 1948, George McNolty, the Union Secretary, advised stewards to approach non-unionist and point out that they should become unionists. Although he warned that they might have to call a meeting to force non unionists to join, no action appears to have been taken.⁴⁵

Even before the North Americans took control of Sunshine in 1955, they were scornful of the management style of their Australian partners. Although they rated Australian-built machines highly, they were critical that much of the capital infrastructure of the firm had been run down. Accordingly, when they took over they redesigned the factory layout and invested in a major overhaul of the tool room. They were also critical of personnel, and considered that the factory had a large proportion of elderly workers. The question of age was among the factors that lead the new management into a potentially dangerous decision in 1956–57 to retrench labour.⁴⁶

The desire to reduce labour also sprung from factors outside Australia. World wide, Massey-Ferguson was in financial trouble, which led to the resignation of the Corporation's President, J.S. Duncan. On his departure an attempt was made to reduce inventories. In the particular case of Australia, floods in 1956 led to crop failures and a local build up of inventories. In the second half of 1956 the firm commenced a reduction in employees and a drive to reduce inventories. The Australian board announced in August 1956 that the manufacturing workforce would be reduced from the July 1955 complement of 2025 to 1380 by December. In the next six months over 500 employees were retrenched and over 150 retired. Yet at the same time employees continued to leave voluntarily in the knowledge that they could obtain work in a tight labour market. Overall the firm lost almost two thirds of its labour force between July and December 1956. By the later date the workforce had been reduced to only 576 and by the following March inventories had been reduced by 27 per cent.⁴⁷

As we have seen, high labour turnover rates in the late 1950s made it difficult to build up the workforce after the crisis had passed. By the beginning of the 1960s Sunshine Management had not solved its labour problems. In January 1960 the board was informed that, although the manufacturing work force stood at 1,438, the company was 100 below its planned total number of employees. Restricted overtime was to be introduced to 'overcome arrears and to attract labour'. This did not solve labour problems and, particularly in the foundry, disputes over piece work were endemic. Late in 1961 a refusal of foundry employees to work piece work led management to threaten to dismiss 500 employees during the Christmas vacation. This was essentially an idle threat and the Company was forced to amend its piece work rates. Disputes in the foundry did not disappear and problems flared up in 1963 over new piece rates. In June of this year management agreed to pay foundry workers an extra 6d per hour for all hours worked and to improve working conditions.⁴⁸

In the end the disputes of the late 1950s and early 1960s forced the company to totally re-frame its industrial relations policy. At the beginning of the post-war boom management at Sunshine had an official policy of non-recognition of the union. By the beginning of the 1960s such a position was patently unworkable, and a totally new position was adopted. When the company was restructured in the mid-1950s the North American managers were contemptuous of the union. Writing to the Managing Director in Melbourne a Canadian Executive, H.A. Wallace, observed that he could 'fully appreciate the frustration which a North American would find in attempting to deal with a disorganised mob'.⁴⁹ The key was to take matters into their own hands and organise the union. In November 1962 the manager of personnel advised the union secretary, Albert McInolty, that the following notice had been placed throughout the works.

It has been brought to our notice that some employees are reluctant to join their appropriate union. We want to make it quite clear that the management of this Company is not opposed to union membership. It is the policy of Massey-Ferguson to respect the dignity of the rights of individuals. One of these rights is the right to join a trade union. We believe that is the Union's prerogative to enrol members and since this is a Union Shop, recommend that the employees join their appropriate union.⁵⁰

This action had been agreed to at a private meeting where Sunshine Management had also agreed to make reasonable facilities available to the Union Organiser, to have shop stewards elected and to 'assist the shop stewards in enrolling members into the union'.⁵¹ Having recognised the union the next step was to establish a collective bargaining agreement with the union. During the foundry dispute of 1963 the Sheet Metal Union minutes reported that the company had intimated that it would negotiate an agreement on classifications, wages and conditions with unions who had members employed by the company'.⁵² Over the next six months both union and management undertook the arduous process of negotiating an industrial agreement that would establish wage rates for a prescribed period and set aside guaranteed premiums for incentive workers. The tight labour market of the 1950s had turned a company with a history of opposition to trade unions to situation where it embraced unions to provide stability and discipline on the factory floor. For the remainder of the 1960s consultation with shop stewards was regularly carried out and a collective agreement was negotiated biennially.⁵³

Conclusion

Throughout the 1930s management at Sunshine had little difficulty recruiting labour. One interviewee recalled that in 1939 he had to walk through a crowd of men standing about the factory gates looking for work. Inside the factory this gave the foremen 'tremendous power'. Although employees had to work their 'guts out', their jobs were quite insecure and at the end of the day the foreman could simply say: 'Out, finished'.⁵⁴ After the war the personnel records of the firm clearly show that the balance of power shifted to labour, and labour quickly learned to use this power. The industrial battles of the late 1940s have captured the attention of historians, and historians have written very little of the more mundane confrontations that individual workers daily engaged in with their employers. With a buoyant labour market they had little toleration for employers who did not provide sufficient overtime or incentive work, and registered their annoyance by simply looking for more lucrative employment. The records of the Massey-Ferguson give no support to the Birrells' argument that 'southern migrants' were particularly footloose. The simple fact was that the migrant and the non-migrant, the young and the old and the skilled and the unskilled used the post-war labour market to their advantage and regularly moved in search of better opportunities. Yet despite high turnover rates, a core of workers stayed put for long periods of time, and achieved mobility on the shop floor. The management at Sunshine moved along the path described by Christopher Wright from opposition to consultation with unions. However, the case study of Sunshine suggests that management — both Australian and Canadian — had difficulty coming to terms with the new reality of full employment. Management policies were often developed ad hoc in response to crises, and they frequently misjudged the new labour market they were working with.

Charles Fahey teaches in the History Program at LaTrobe University. He is currently engaged in research on families and communities on the Victorian goldfields, 1852–1938. He is also working with a group of historians who are writing a history of inland Australia.
<c.fahey@latrob e.edu.au>

John Lack is a Principal Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne and a Research Associate at the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University. He and Charles Fahey are writing a history of the Sunshine Harvester Works. His most recent book is No Lost Battalion, an oral history of the 2/29th Battalion AIF.
<j.lack@unimelb.edu.au>

Endnotes

^* This article has been peer-reviewed for Labour History by two anonymous referees.

^1. Christopher Wright, The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995. See ch. 2, 3 and 4, passim. For the quotations see pp. 108 and 111.

^2. Tom Sheridan, Divisions of Labour: Industrial Relations in the Chifley Years, 1945–49, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989. See among others Tom Sheridan, Mindful Militants: The Amalgamated Engineering Union in Australia, 1920–1972, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [Eng.]; New York, 1975, and Bradley Bowden, Driving Force : The History of the Transport Workers' Union of Australia 1883–1992, Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1993. Tom Sheridan, 'Australian Wharfies 1943–1967: Casual Attitudes, Militant Leadership and Workplace Change', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 36, no. 2, 1994, pp. 258–84 and 'Shipowners, Stevedores and Foremen,: Divergent Management Attitudes to the Water Front in the 1950s', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 38, no. 2, 1996, pp. 412–441.

^3. John Murphy, 'Breadwinning: Accounts of Work and Family Life in the 1950s', Labour & Industry, vol 12, no. 3, April 2002, pp. 60 and 67.

^4. See K.J. Hancock, 'The Wages of the Workers', K.J. Hancock, 'Earnings Drift in Australia', K.J. Hancock and Kathryn Moore, 'The Occupational Structure of Australia Since 1914', E.A. Russell, 'Wages Policy in Australia', all in J.R. Niland and J.E. Isaac (eds), Australian Labour Economics Readings, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1975, and J.E. Isaac, 'Wage Drift in the Australian Metal Industries', Economic Record, vol. 41, no. 94, June 1965, pp 145–172. For a summary of the Australian literature on turnover see Labour Turnover, Department of Labour and Immigration, Canberra, 1974.

^5. Robert and Tanya Birrell, An Issue of People: Population and Australian Society, Longmans Cheshire, Melbourne 1981, pp. 54–80. Constance Lever-Tracy and Michael Quinlan, A Divided Working Class, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1988, see ch. 2.

^6. Howard F Gospel and Craig R. Littler, Managerial Strategies and Industrial Relations: A Historical and Comparative Study, Heineman, London, 1983. Stephen Meyer, The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921, State University of New York Press, New York, 1981. Robert Ozanne, A Century of Labour Management Relations at McCormick and International Harvester, University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, 1967. Sanford M. Jacoby, Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1999. See especially Thomas N. Maloney and Warren C. Whately, 'Making the Effort: The Contours of Racial Discrimination in Detroit's Labor Markets, 1920–1940', The Journal of Economic History, vol. 55, no. 3, September 1955, pp. 465–491.

^7. These records are held by the University of Melbourne Archives (hereafter MUA). For the period from 1950 to 1984 there are in excess of 30,000 record cards. We have contacted a small group of 20 workers found in our sample and have conducted interviews with them. We used these interviews to provide more complete work histories and to investigate attitudes to such issues as physical working conditions, piece work and overtime. These interviews gave general impressions of work at Sunshine, but many of the informants were vague on the issues explored in this paper such as the length of employment and income. A condition of our use of the files was that we would not reveal the identity of employees.

^8. Management at Sunshine before the war has been examined in Sandra Cockfield, 'McKay's Harvester Works and the Continuance of Managerial Control', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, no. 1, 1998, pp. 383–400, and Charles Fahey and John Lack 'We have to Train Men from Labourers: The Agricultural Implement Trade 1918–1945', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 42, no. 4, 2000, pp. 551–572.

^9. This account of Sunshine is derived from company ledgers and Company Minutes for the 1950s, (MUA) and files written by Canadian executives in the late 1940s and the mid-1950s. These are held by the University of Guelph Archives, Ontario, See Aus/49 and Aus/22.

^10. An analysis of employment in 1946 can be found in the firm's submission to the 40 Hours Case, Implement Makers Collection, Arbitration Files, 2/7/1/45, Box 132, MUA. For employment in 1960 see McKay/Massey-Ferguson Collection Box 111, MUA.

^11. From 1922 to 1930 the average annual profit was 17.1 per cent. This fell to 6.5 per cent from 1931 to 1940, and stood at 11.3 per cent for 1941–50. For the decade 1951–60 the average annual rate of return was a healthy 22.9 per cent. See unpublished company profit and loss statements, MUA.

^12. A.C. Clarke, 'Labour Turnover 1948–1952', Bulletin of Industrial Psychology and Personnel Practice, vol. 8, September 1952, pp. 22–31, see table 1.

^13. In 1951 the turnover rate at Ford in Geelong was 50 per cent, while international Harvester in the same city had a rate of 6 per cent per month. See details in Aust 22, University of Guelph Archives.

^14. Directors' Minutes, 14 November 1956 and 18 March 1957. For labour shortages in 1960 see 25 January 1960.

^15. K. Norris 'Job Durations in Australia', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 26, June 1984, pp. 188–199, p. 197.

^16. These observations are based on details of former jobs listed on employment cards.

^17. This observation is based on comments made on and details contained in employment cards.

^18. Norris, 'Job Durations in Australia', p. 197.

^19. Report on Trip to Australia made by Messrs J.S. Duncan, R.H. Metcalfe and E.G. Burgess, 29 April to 15 May 1948, University of Guelph Archives, Ontario, Aus 49.

^20. For internal labour markets see Peter B. Doeringer and Michael J. Piore, Internal Labour Markets and Manpower Analysis, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., New York, 1985. For an Australian text book account see Keith Norris, The Economics of Australian Labour Markets, Longman, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 106–119.

^21. This observation is based on our analysis of the sample of employment cards. The cards noted where the employee had served his apprenticeship and details of the training of apprentices trained by the firm were also noted on the cards.

^22. In a statement to the Arbitration Court in 1946, Mr A.D.J. Forster, the General Manager of Sunshine Harvester, testified that the firm had over 220,000 different piece rates. See Implement Makers Collection, Arbitration Files, 2/7/1/45, Box 132, MUA.

^23. Of the supervisory workers employed in December 1955, 57 per cent started their working lives in the firm as unskilled workers. Thirty-two per cent of the skilled workers at the same date entered as unskilled workers.

^24. Of the supervisory workers employed in December 1960, 54 per cent started their working lives in the firm as unskilled workers. A quarter of the skilled workers at the same date entered as unskilled workers.

^25. For Beeby's award, see Lack and Fahey, 'We Have to Train Men', p. 561.

^26. For engineering workers in the Implement Makers Union, see Sheet Metal Employees Union return of members 1943, Sheet Metal Workers Union Records 2/7/1/34, MUA.

^27. Interview with an Italian born assembler 22 April 1999. Under our agreement with the firm, names cannot be revealed.

^28. Both quotes are from Directors' Minutes, 17 September 1946.

^29. See 'Statement of A.D.J. Forster, Director of H.V. McKay Massey-Harris Pty Ltd to the 40 Hour Case', Sheet Iron Workers' Union, 2/7/1/45, box 132, MUA. This return claimed foundry employees in July earned 38.6 per cent above day rates through incentive work. The rate for blacksmiths was 27.9 per cent, 28.1 per cent for sheet iron benchmen, 22.0 per cent for engine works machinists and 29.9 per cent machine fitters.

^30. Interview with a Ukrainian born assembler, 17 April 1999.

^31. Duplicate ABS returns for 1955 show an average of 4.1 hours per week overtime for the unskilled; by 1957 this had dropped to 0.3 hours. See Box 22, Massey-Ferguson Collection, MUA.

^32. See Sheet Metal Worker, May and August 1958, Directors' Minutes 4 March 1958, 6 October 1958.

^33. Directors' Minutes, 17 July 1945.

^34. Directors' Minutes, 27 February 1946.

^35. Directors' Minutes, 24 April 1946.

^36. As discussed above, piece rates were used by employers as a form of over award payments to recruit and hold labour.

^37. Directors' Minutes, 16 April 1946.

^38. Sheridan, Mindful Militants, p. 172.

^39. For the 1911 strike see Charles Fahey and John Lack, 'A Kind of Elysium Where Nobody has Anything Difficult to Do, H.B. Higgins, H.V. McKay and the Agricultural Implement Makers, 1901–26', Labour History, no 80, May 2001, pp. 99–120.

^40. The Sheet metal Working, Agricultural Implement and Stove making Industrial Union, Board of Management Minutes, 20 January and 3 February 1947, 1/1/2/1/3, MUA.

^41. Directors' Minutes, 4 March 1947.

^42. Copies of the Sunshine Review are held by Museum Victoria. The first issue was December 1944. See March 1945, December 1947, September 1948 and April 1950.

^43. Directors' Minutes, 24 April 1945 and 11 October 1949. The loss on the canteen in 1949 was £194.

^44. Directors' Minutes, 20 April 1948, 10 May 1949, 4 July 1950 and 14 November 1950.

^45. Board of Management, Minutes, 24 March 1948. Company duplicates of Statistical Returns to the Bureau of Statistics, 1946–47, Box 22, Massey-Ferguson Collection, MUA.

^46. Report on Australian Company, December 1951, University of Guelph Archives, Aust 22.

^47. This reduction in employment was detailed in the Directors' Minutes, 23 August 1956, 14 November 1956, 18 March 1957.

^48. Directors' Minutes, 26 February 1960 and Sheet Metal Workers Union, Minutes 13 December 1961, 24 January 1961, 20 March 1963, 1/1/3/1/14, MUA.

^49. Confidential Report on the Australian Operations of Massey-Ferguson by H.A. Wallace, September 1958, University of Guelph Archives, Ontario, Aust 44.

^50. H.L. Clemson to Mr A McInolty, 7 November 1962, Personnel File 1962, MUA.

^51.Ibid.

^52. Sheet Metal Union Minutes, 17 July 1963, 1/1/3/1/14, Box 11, MUA.

^53. From the early 1960s, annual personnel files record the state of industrial relations at Massey-Ferguson and contain correspondence concerning collective bargaining.

^54. Interview with an Australian born accountant, 11 March 1999.

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Working at Sunshine: A Case Study of the Recruitment, Retention and Management of Labour in a Melbourne Manufacturing Enterprise, 1946–63