workers rights

The killing of Fred Evans

Supporters of the strikers

On 'Black Tuesday', 12 November 1912, in the midst of a bitter six-month strike by miners in the small New Zealand goldmining town of Waihi, striker Fred Evans was killed - one of only two fatalities* in an industrial dispute in New Zealand's history.

The Second World War saw an unprecedented expansion of government control over the lives of New Zealanders. Under the pragmatic leadership of Prime Minister Peter Fraser, the Labour government introduced military conscription, industrial manpowering and a comprehensive economic stabilisation system. It also established a Waterfront Control Commission (later the Waterfront Industry Commission) to run the wharves, which were vital to the war effort.

The immediate cause of the 1951 waterfront dispute was the post-war economic situation. After years of restrictions and shortages, the economy was booming. As the cost of living soared, workers demanded higher wage increases.

In January 1951 the Arbitration Court awarded a 15% wage increase to all workers covered by the industrial arbitration system. This did not apply to waterside workers, whose employment was controlled by the Waterfront Industry Commission. The mostly British-owned shipping companies that employed the wharfies instead offered 9%, claiming that earlier waterfront wage increases should be taken into account.

Despite the scale of the 1951 dispute, the wider labour movement was not united behind the watersiders' cause. In fact, only 8% of the country's union members took part in the dispute – the other 200,000 continued working. The watersiders’ militancy had isolated them from most unionists, who were affiliated to the more moderate Federation of Labour (FOL). Fintan Patrick Walsh and other FOL leaders called on wharfies to ‘abandon their Communist-dominated misleaders’. Meanwhile, Walter Nash’s Labour Party Opposition sat uncomfortably on the fence, denouncing government repression but refusing to back either side.

Portrait of Fred Evans by Dick Scott, c1913. Evans was killed during the 1912 Waihi strike.

At a meeting held in Wellington, Marianne Tasker attempted to establish a domestic workers’ union. Central to its demands was the call for a 68-hour working week. From the late 1880s to the 1930s domestic service was the single largest category of paid employment for women. ‘Domestics’ could be found in more than 15,000 dwellings around the country.

The first Labour Day celebrated the struggle for an eight-hour working day. Parades in the main centres were attended by several thousand trade union members and supporters.

New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim the right to an eight-hour day. As early as 1840 the carpenter Samuel Parnell famously won an eight-hour day in Wellington. The provision was soon extended to other centres, but it was a custom, not a legal entitlement, and only applied to some groups of workers.