Workers in the machine room at McKay’s factory in Sunshine.
Source: Museum Victoria
100 years ago today a highly significant industrial decision was handed down in Melbourne: the world’s first national minimum wage.
On 8 November 1907 Justice Higgins, President of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Court, handed down the decision which came to be known as the Harvester Judgment—from the name of the agricultural machinery manufactured by HV McKay, the employer at the centre of the case.
The Harvester Judgment established a male living wage that had to be ‘fair and reasonable,’ sufficient to support workers as ‘civilised beings’ in a standard of living appropriate to a ‘civilised community’.
Most significantly, Justice Higgins called on the evidence of workers’ wives as to the cost of living. Their testimony remains a vital insight into the struggle to feed and clothe a family in turn of the century Melbourne, on a labourers wage:
'I am a married woman living with my husband in Bay St, Port Melbourne. We live in a five roomed brick house – two stories – and not a good house at that. There is a bath and copper in a shed in the yard. We have no bathroom. We pay 12/6 for it.
'I do not know what my husband earns but he gives me ₤2-10-0. I spend it all. This is not enough to keep the family going. I could do with more. I do not run into debt but I spend it all – I never have anything over. Our weekly expenditure varies. If I have a shilling or two over I might be able to get an odd pair of boots for one of the children now and again. At best of times it would only be a shilling or two either way.'
- Kate Russell
Museum Victoria’s upcoming permanent exhibition, The Melbourne Story, will draw upon the museum’s McKay collection, featuring a display case about the factory and, in particular, the story of the Harvester Judgement.