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APPENDIX F. 



STATE ACTION IN FIXING WAGES. 



By VV. Stephen Sanders. 



Apart from the insertion of fair wages clauses in Government 

 and Municipal contracts and the fixing of minimum rates for 

 public servants and employees by central and local authorities, 

 various methods have been adopted, especially in Australasia, to 

 establish legal minima of wages for all workers. The following are 

 the methods which have been adopted in that part of the world : 



I. Ratification of I oluntary Agreements. — Under the labour laws 

 of New Zealand and Australia, voluntary agreements arranged 

 between the organised workers and organised employers may be 

 ratified by the State. The effect of such ratification is to make 

 the agreement binding on all employers engaged in the industry, 

 whether they were parties to the voluntary agreement or not. It 

 also gives the employees the definite legal right to receive the 

 standard rate. It is to be noted that, under this arrangement, 

 always implicitly, and sometimes explicitly; the employees are 

 forbidden to strike for more than the standard rate. 



II. Arbit ration Courts. — Under the New Zealand Arbitration 

 Act, passed in 189 k all industrial disputes which cannot be other- 

 wise settled are referred to an Arbitration Court. Either party 

 may refer any matter in dispute to the Court, whereupon the 

 Court has power to give an award which has all the force of law. 

 The Court can prescribe a minimum wage or a graduated series of 

 standard rates, and can regulate the hours of work and all other 

 conditions of employment. 



Compulsory arbitration under the above-mentioned Act has 

 been in operation in New Zealand for eighteen years, and although 

 there has been considerable friction from time to time, many 

 beneficial results have been achieved, and there does not appear 

 to be sufficient dissatisfaction with the system to lead to any like- 

 lihood of its repeal. There are, however, many objections to 

 compulsory arbitration, and under the conditions which exist in 

 England these objections (especially the inevitable limitation of 

 the right to strike) are likely to prove insuperable. 



III. Trade Boards. — The most satisfactory and successful 

 method of raising wages by State action which has yet been dis- 

 covered is that of " Trade Boards," which were first adopted in 

 Victoria, in 1896. The system was first applied to five trades, 

 including clothing, furniture, shirt-making, and baking, in which 

 the workers were indisputably underpaid. Since then it has 

 spread to trade after trade, and from 1908 there has been a positive 

 rush of trades, employers and workpeople showing almost equal 



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