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'War conducted under certain rules, but nonetheless war': Arbitration, Capital and Labour in the Western Australian Gold Mining Industry, 1901–14
Naomi Segal*
Between 1900 and 1914 state arbitration in the mining industry in Western Australia, was driven more by the mining employers and less so by organised labour. The process and outcome of centralised wage fixing reflected the different logics of the protagonists' collective actions, which arose from the inequality of their resources, both strategic and material, and from the differences in the nature and difficulty of their organisational tasks. Collective relations changed from arbitrated to unmediated conflict as the organisational, market and political power of labour grew. Arbitration, rather than resolving conflict, became the focus of disputes. Wider and more intense conflicts centering on the Awards of the Court were only averted by global considerations of overseas controllers of the mines for whom the declining Western Australian mines were only marginal. At the end of the period studied, Western Australian mining employers, while continuing to demonstrate cohesion and capacity for action superior to labour's, began forming and supporting new forms of industrial and political organisation with which to maintain their advantage over labour.
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| In the first 15 years of the twentieth century relations between Western Australian mining employers and their workforce unfolded within the institutional framework of compulsory state arbitration legislation. Although Western Australia, the first colony/state to introduce compulsory arbitration, did so in 1900, the legislation was not used widely until after its strengthening in 1902. The legislation's main feature was the establishment of a three member court (employer and employee representatives and a presiding Supreme Court judge) with judicial and arbitral powers. There were also provisions for a regional system of Conciliation Boards, voluntary registration of employer and worker associations and registration of industrial agreements. Compulsion stemmed from the judicial and arbitral powers of the court, and the ability of either party to refer, unilaterally, a dispute for arbitration. Significantly for the purpose of this article, there were penalties under the legislation for engaging in strikes and lockouts. The court determined the scope of awards, which were a common rule within the respective district (or an area within a district determined by the court). In 1912, an amended Industrial Arbitration Act granted the court powers to intervene pre-emptively in industrial disputes.1 |
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During the period of this study, organised mining capital and organised mine labour expended much effort litigating in the State Arbitration Court and collectively bargaining on the basis of awards, leading to the hearing of 34 major cases and the signing of 46 industrial agreements. Almost all transcripts of cases heard have survived, and this article draws on them for assessments of the performances of the protagonists and understanding of the work process, wage systems, labour policies and working conditions prevailing in the mines. Research for this account also relied on the files of the employer association, the Chamber of Mines of Western Australia, which contained reports on employers' arbitral strategies as well as many of the negotiations between the Chamber and labour representatives. Records of the mining unions for the period have unfortunately not survived. Together with newspapers, parliamentary debates and government records, these extant sources illuminate the evolution of relations between organised mining employers and unions in Western Australia and the role of arbitration in these relations – both subjects historians, in the main, have not investigated in any detail before, notwithstanding that the mining workforce was the first mass industrial workforce in Western Australia and that it was critical to the state's early labour history. In focusing on the experience of early arbitration in an industry, this study adds to studies which, as Hearn and Knowles lamented, remain small in number.2 |
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