Labour Day does not attract a lot of attention in the
New Zealand of 2014. There are no major ceremonies or parades, and
very little media coverage or discussion about its history or
meaning. It pales in comparison to other public holidays such as
Anzac Day and Waitangi Day, both of which are commemorated with big
ceremonies and a large amount of media attention and debate. Yet all
three public holidays represent a connection to an important aspect
of New Zealand's history: our bicultural heritage (Waitangi Day), our
involvement in war (Anzac Day) and our Labour history (Labour Day).
For many New Zealanders of 1890, Labour Day was not yet
an official public holiday, but it nevertheless represented a
significant and highly valued historical connection. The labour
movement of the time was growing more and more powerful, and it
viewed the year 1890 as the fiftieth anniversary of Samuel Parnell's
fight for the 8 hour day. Thousands of people took part in
processions in all of the major centres, where speeches were followed
by a sort of carnival. Paul Corliss describes the Wellington 1890
Labour Day:
The day was more passionate and organised than Union
members have contemplated, let alone experienced, in the last several
decades. The joyous atmosphere had been created at a price and at
some industrial risk. The editorial report (29 October 1890) about
the day highlighted some of the attendant tensions that were about
the city when it noted that “the strike had alienated the sympathy
of the majority of employers ...”. It further recorded that many of
the business establishments were closed all day and a number shut in
the afternoon. The parade encompassed not just trade unionists and
activists but deliberately involved the wider community, was
organised to incorporate the labouring classes, their families and
friends, and did not separate out the industrial or workplace agenda
from the family and its political future. Recreation and enjoyment
were also a well planned and essential component of the message1.
The 'recreation and enjoyment' aspect was quite
important, and reflected the culture of the time:
Aswell as the usual lolly scrambles and merry-go-round
rides, “youths and maidens” played the alluringly named “kiss
in the ring” or danced to one of the several bands present. The
'clever' Royal Gymnasts twirled on the Roman rings and tumbled
through their acrobatic exercises2.
Sports and games were intertwined with a more serious
political message. Corliss describes the massive Dunedin Labour Day
'after party':
A huge crowd, variously reported as 8,000 to over 11,000 people,
attended their sports' day at the Caledonian Ground. […] A little
after 5 o'clock that evening, the skirl of preceding bagpipes
signalled the late arrival of a large mass of Amalgamated Society of
of Railway Servants' members from the railway workshops. The
apparently despised Railway Commisioners had refused them a holiday
to participate in the day. They had decided to collectively vent
their displeasure at 'the tyranny of the Commissioners” and were
supported by the large and listening crowd who gave forth with a loud
three cheers for the workers and a thunderous three groans for the
Commissioners and the Government. The net sum raised on the day was
some £247
and with characteristic southern generosity £200
of this sum was donated to the striking miners at Denniston on the
West Coast3.
These descriptions of 1890's
Labour Day invite us to consider several questions: Why was the 8
hour day struggle such a big deal? What was going on in New Zealand
at the time to make labour issues so important? If it was such a big
deal then in 1890, why is it now such an insignificant public
holiday? How and why did Labour Day decline?
Samuel Parnell and the 8
hour day
Samuel Parnell was a skilled
carpenter who emigrated to New Zealand on board the Duke of
Roxburgh in 1840. He was not happy working the 12 – 14 hour
days he was expected to work in England, and dissatisfied with the
meekness of the union, which refused to fight for shorter working
hours. On board the same ship Parnell met a shipping agent, George
Hunter, who needed a carpenter to build a store for goods in transit.
Parnell agreed to work for Hunter, but only on the condition that he
work eight hour days. Hunter was not happy about these terms, but
reluctantly accepted them – skilled carpenters were in short supply
in New Zealand at the time.
 |
| Samuel Parnell |
This precedent that Parnell
set was more than just a negotiation between an employer in a hard
position and an individual who drove a hard bargain: Parnell actively
spread the word about his success, and advocated other workers to
follow his lead. Bert Roth describes Parnell's precedent and the
collective action he inspired:
Other employers tried to
impose the traditional long hours, but Parnell met incoming ships,
talked to the workmen and enlisted their support. A workers' meeting
in October 1840, held outside German Brown's Hotel on Lambton Quay,
is said to have resolved, …. to work 8 hours a day, from 8am to
5pm, anyone offending to be ducked into the harbour. The eight hour
working day thus became established in the Wellington settlement. ….
The last resistance was broken, according to Parnell, when labourers
who were building the road along the harbour to the Hutt Valley in
1841 downed tools because they were ordered to work longer hours.
They did not resume work until the eight hour day was conceded4.
In the 1890 Labour Day parade
in Wellington, the elderly Parnell led the procession and gave the
keynote speech. There was actually a fair amount of debate at the
time however about who the rightful 'Father of the Eight Hour Day'
actually was. Samuel Shaw led a protest movement of workers in
Dunedin in opposition to Captain Cargill, who expected them to work
'according to the good old Scotch rule' of ten hours per day. In
Auckland the painter William Griffin organised the Carpenters and
Joiners Society to insist on eight hour days, which set a strong
precedent in that region also. Without getting too deep into the
historical details, it is fairly clear that skilled workers such as
Parnell, Shaw and Griffin were successful in establishing the eight
hour day as a national custom throughout New Zealand during the 1840s
and 1850s. They were successful in establishing this custom partly
due to the fact that skilled labour was in short supply, so they had
a strong bargaining position with employers. It is very clear however
that the employers were only willing to accept the eight hour day
because they were forced to. Without the determined collective action
organised by Parnell and other skilled workers, the eight hour day
would surely not have been successfully established as a custom.
Although by the time of the
1880s the eight hour day was customary, it was not an official law
and it was never universally observed. Bert Roth observes that
Tradesmen and labourers did
enjoy an eight hour day, but many other workers were still required
to put in longer hours. The plight of shop assistants was notorious
[…] farmworkers were another group working long hours, as were
domestic servants, clerks and, more surprisingly, locomotive drivers
and other staff in the state-owned railways5.
It also needs to be noted that
many of these 8 hour day campaigners went on to become settlers and
landowners. We can be rightfully proud of the values Parnell and
others fought for, but we cannot pretend that these values were on
offer to the tagata whenua. The category Roth mentions above of
'domestic workers' would have included a huge number of women. So
although the 8 hour day struggle was an important victory, we have to
remember that it was a victory mainly for white male workers.
The
1880s, Unions and the Maritime Council Strike
The massively popular Labour
Day parades of 1890 also had a lot to do with the broader historical
background of the 1880s depression and the labour struggles
throughout that decade. More and more workers organised themselves
into unions, and the demand for an official and legally recognised 8
hour day became a central issue. These unions now extended into the
ranks of the unskilled and semi skilled workers, and cooperated with
each other to organise as a more effective political force. This
pattern of more and more vigorous union activity led to the formation
of the Maritime Council in Dunedin, where in late 1889 seamen,
watersiders and miners joined forces. The leader of this new union,
Captain Millar, was a staunch proponent of the 8 hour day who both
promoted and organised the Labour Day processions of 1890.
The sad part of this story now
needs to be told: the Maritime council organised a nationwide strike
in August 1890, but this was eventually defeated. As Bert Roth
explains, 'The strike was in its dying stages in late October but,
though the outcome was clear, the Labour Day demonstrations were a
resounding success.'. So the popularity of the Labour Day parade and
the strength of feeling behind the demand for the 8 hour day needs to
be seen in the context of this defeat. Having said this, surely any
strike which goes nationwide and lasts three months is a really
powerful and significant achievement, even if it does get defeated in
the end.
This mixture of union
militancy and a tendency to back down and compromise is reflected in
the diversity of the banners carried by workers in the Labour Day
parade. Turning again to Bert Roth to illustrate this:
The 1890 Labour Day marches
were a show of strength by the union movement, a signal to the
employers that, though defeated, labour was still a force to be
reckoned with. 'Might is Right has run its race,' read a Dunedin
building workers banner, 'Right is Might now takes its place. Now law
but vox populi.' A Christchurch Amalgamated Labour Union banner
stated boldly that 'Labour Omnia Vincit' (Labour Conquers All), but
these were not revolutionary marches clamouring for the overthrow of
the economic system. Wellington watersiders, whose union and jobs
were about to disappear (they were being replaced by scabs) carried a
banner with the clasped hands symbol and the motto 'Defence not
Defiance', while the equally doomed Lyttleton wharfies had a banner,
designed by a union member, which depicted a merchant and a labourer
shaking hands and the inscription 'Labour and Capital as they should
be6'.
This picture can be read in
two ways: we can either focus on the tendency of some workers to back
down and cooperate with employers, or we can focus on the more
militant sections of the working class who carried the strident and
uncompromising banners. Just like with the Maritime strike, the
banners of the more militant workers should still be seen as
inspiring, even if large sections of the working class did not share
their militancy.
The
Rise and Decline of Labour Day
One feature of the Labour Day
parades which is quite significant is the nature of the floats,
banners and displays. Workers made models and banners depicting their
trades: seamen made model ships, the boilermakers carried a makeshift
furnace, bakers carried banners with pictures of their cakes and
bread and so on. So alongside banners demanding “Eight hours
labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest”, workers actually
displayed their pride about what they did in their jobs.
Unfortunately, this display of pride and dignity was displaced by
more commercial interests as the union movement receded, and business
owners manipulated the content and meaning of the floats and
displays.
After 1890, when most
unskilled and semiskilled unions collapsed, the annual processions
became again the domain of the tradesmen's societies, as they had
been in the 1880s. These societies vied with each other in displaying
their skills to the public, but they had to compete for attention
with visiting theatre groups and even circuses, which were allowed to
take part in the parades, and with business firms which quickly
realised the opportunity to promote their products. When the
breweries entered floats, the temperance societies insisted on their
right to provide counter-attractions denouncing the evils of the
drink traffic. As the processions were gradually drained of their
union content, the numbers of union marchers declined.
Labour Day became more and
more detached from its union heritage, and the focus was placed
mostly upon the afternoon sports and picnics: 'There were
merry-go-rounds and baby shows and all manner of entertainments for
young and old7.'
The fact that the 8 hour day custom, and the principled demand for
adequate leisure time which inspired it, came from a history of
worker's struggle was obscured by this depoliticised focus on
recreation. Politicians actively and skillfully manipulated the 8
hour day message into a subservient format: for example, the Liberal
politician Sir Robert Stout said this to the Wellington Labour Day
crowd in 1891: “..by insisting on the eight hour principle working
classes were fighting for their moral, mental and physical health and
would thus be doing a duty to themselves, to their families, and to
their employers8”.
Bert Roth concludes his
analysis of the decline of Labour Day:
The Labour Day celebrations
reflected the Lib-Lab ideology of a partnership between labour and
capital. When the Liberal-Labour coalition disintegrated, the Labour
Day marches also declined in popularity. They did not fit the
militant ideology of the Red Federation of Labour, which was in the
ascendancy in 1912 -13, and half-hearted attempts after the first
world war failed to rekindle enthusiasm. 'Labour Day', wrote the
Auckland Star in 1920, 'is a holiday to be enjoyed rather than
a day of aggressive demonstration as May Day is on the continent.'
Labour Day indeed became just another paid holiday, the proper time
to plant tomatoes9.
What can we learn from this
history?
Looking forward into 2015,
without any doubt the biggest and most ideologically significant
public holiday will be Anzac Day. The centenary of the Gallipoli
landings will be the occasion for an orgy of sentimentalised
'remembrance' and patriotism. Second place in this contest will
fortunately be awarded to Waitangi Day (there will probably be some
kind of repeat of the Herald's “protest free” edition, but this
will be fiercely and loudly countered by more progressive forces). In
terms of public spectacle and ideological prominence, Labour Day will
trail a distant third place.
Traditions and commemorations
are surely not monolithic, so although we are in a fairly depressing
period of history, I don't think we should succumb to depression. As
the Labour Day history shows, these sorts of traditions are
changeable, and their fortunes rise and fall according to the nature
and intensity of class struggle. The recent anti union 'tea break'
legislation is a good example of why the values and ideals which
motivated people like Samuel Parnell to fight for the 8 hour day are
just as relevant now as they were in the nineteenth century. Whether
or not Labour Day is resurrected, the struggle for time for us to do
as we please – free from the exploitative demands of the capitalist
economy – will continue to be an important aspect of political
struggle.
References
Corliss, Paul. 2008. “Samuel
Parnell – A Legacy: The 8 hour Day, Labour Day and Time Off”.
Purple Grouse Press.
Roth, Bert. 1991. “Labour
Day in New Zealand”. The Dunmore Press Limited
1Corliss
(2008)
2Ibid
3Ibid
4Roth
(1991)
5Ibid.
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8Ibid.
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