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Interrogating Arbitration: Reflections on Work, Nation and History
Raelene Frances
| When the various Australian jurisdictions adopted industrial arbitration at the turn of the twentieth century, they created not just a 'new province for law and order', to use Higgins' famous term.1 They also created a new arena in which workplace contests could be fought, a new space in which discourses could be elaborated and a stage on which power relationships could be performed. The articles in this thematic section engage with all of these dimensions, drawing on the transcripts of proceedings as well as other written and oral evidence to explore the many levels on which the courts operated. |
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W.M. Robbins and Ian Harriss remind us particularly of the theatrical dimensions of the early Commonwealth Court, arguing that Higgins deliberately extended the time taken for the hearing in order to convey to the public a sense of the historic importance of his pending decision – the 'creation of a sense of dramatic suspense'.2 The transcripts in this case reveal that Higgins formed his judgement despite the evidence presented at the hearing: his judgement was rather shaped by his own ideas about the needs of a modern young nation. In this sense, 'we see in the Harvester transcripts a discernible sub-text through which a distinctively Australian sense of modernity pulsates'.3 |
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Mark Hearn is also interested in the discourses of nation embedded in the transcripts of two later cases: the 1912 Fruitpickers case and the 1919 Clothing Trades case, both cases over which Higgins also presided. Hearn's interest is in the gendered dimensions of Higgins' approach to citizenship and in how wages awarded to each sex affected their ability to carry out their roles as citizens of a modern state. As Hearn's use of the testimony of Florence Wootten in the 1919 inquiry shows, Higgins was vitally interested in the ways in which workers spent their money. Did they spend it on frivolous luxuries or did they set aside funds for civic and self-improving activities such as library and lodge subscriptions? Wootten's allegedly extravagant expenditure on dress and her failure to spend on self-improvement apparently influenced Higgins' decision to award lower wages to female workers. |
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Sixteen years ago in this journal, Gail Reekie also explored the ways in which discourses around working women's wardrobe reflected the ways in which modern consumerism was sexualising the body of the female worker. She also notes how the interrogation of women's attire by wage-fixing courts provided opportunities for men's sexual pleasure at the expense of women's discomfort: courtrooms assumed a sexually-charged atmosphere where male judges could inspect and handle items of female underwear whilst simultaneously interrogating female witnesses about their own needs and preferences in this regard. Again we see the court as stage, where men (both judges and advocates) acted out their control over women's bodies in a sexual farce. As Reekie comments, 'the men of the court not only appeared to enjoy looking at and touching articles of women's underwear; like the patrons of some forms of contemporary prostitution, they derived pleasure from listening to women speak about their bodies.' Nor were male employers left out of the act: the need to provide their own evidence to the court gave them license to require women in their employ to come to their offices individually and in confidence tell them the details of their wardrobes.4 |
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