Singer in a Songless Land by K. R. Howe

Author:K. R. Howe [Howe, K. R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 1990-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

… a process which consisted of the Premier punching me to get it done upon which I had to give ten punches to Dr Fitchett at intervals, then I would get tired of hammering and rest till the Premier punched me again. Anyway it never came off: when about two-thirds of the thing were ready Fitchett jibbed under pressure of all sorts of other Bills marked urgent, and in spite of all bullying wouldn’t come up to time. The fact was that every mail brought a letter from some Union, League, Conciliation Board chairman, president or meddler generally in which new views were expressed, new projects mooted, new legislation proposed. The premier would say ‘See Fitchett about this proposal’ — and the next & the next till I believe that he fairly got bewildered and did not know what was in and what was not. I know that he had 13 different revisions of the part that he had done and the part he hadn’t was simply nebulous. This dragged on through the greater part of the Session until the Unions got frightened and from all sides poured in a correspondence to the effect ‘For God’s sake bring on the Amending Bill! We are at a deadlock — with no power to enforce the Courts awards’ — so a lean shadow of a Bill crept forward and in the last hours of the Session had its emaciated self in the Statute Book.80

This 1898 amendment Act at least gave the Arbitration Court the power of summary and exclusive jurisdiction over offences against the Act.

Seddon and Tregear finally managed to get their IC&A consolidating bill passed in 1900. Among new powers given to the Arbitration Court was the right to make colony-wide as opposed to industrial district awards, though partly as a result of Tregear’s fierce opposition to this idea,81 employer and/or employee unions in districts beyond where the court was sitting could object and ask the court to consider their district separately. The 1900 Act also bound non-union workers to awards, as well as binding new employers to existing awards. The issue of union preference was an ongoing and thorny one. Court awards in practice implemented union preference. Employers vigorously opposed it, and were especially antagonistic to workers’ union demands over the years for ‘unqualified preference’ and even ‘compulsory unionism’. Seddon’s and Tregear’s attempts to introduce ‘unqualified’ or ‘compulsory preference’ clauses to the Act in 1903 and 1905 were defeated.

No sooner had the consolidating bill been passed than it was in need of urgent amendment. The Arbitration Court ruled in 1900 that only workers who actually ‘produced’ goods came under the Act. A 1901 amendment Act redefined workers as all those employed ‘to do any skilled or unskilled manual or clerical work.’ An immediate consequence was that those workers who suddenly found that they were not eligible for coverage under the Act before it was amended now hastened to register themselves in unions. Tregear as Registrar found himself with a ‘very

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