THE HARVESTER JUDGEMENT Some Australian Union History to share at the table this Christmas. The turn of

On 8 November 1907 HB Higgins, the President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court, handed down his famous Harvester Judgement, enforcing a basic rate of pay – in effect, a minimum wage. This was a time when working people across the globe were often treated like commodities. Pay was determined by market rates (usually how little employers could get away with paying) with little or no regard for how workers would afford to pay for the necessities of life.

The union movement always opposed this logic. Workers are human beings who deserve a wage that at the very least we can survive on. Even in the nineteenth century we campaigned for governments and employers to take action to make sure this was the case.

In Victoria, liberal reformers prompted by union campaigns had set the first compulsory minimum wage in the world in 1896. It was one of many union-influenced progressive reforms implemented at the time in Australia that drew international attention and acclaim. Professor Marilyn Lake has demonstrated how these ideas influenced global movements for social reform and change.

In 1907, the owner of the Sunshine Harvester Factory sought to avoid paying an excise tax by demonstrating that he paid ‘fair and reasonable’ wages to his employees, which would qualify him for an exemption. The unions representing workers at the Factory objected to this claim, and the case was brought before Higgins at the court.

Higgins ruled that the employer had a responsibility to offer a wage that was based on ‘the normal needs of the average employee regarded as a human being living in a civilised community’.

This ruling meant that wage rates should take account of workers’ needs and not be solely dependent upon an employer’s profits. As he explained, if your business model did not include paying your workers appropriate wages, you shouldn’t be in business. Plenty of modern employers could learn a lot from Justice Higgins!