Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Inception and setting
- The Higgins era 1907–1921
- Caution and restraint 1921–1929
- Wage policy in Depression and recovery 1929–1939
- 8 The setting
- 9 Wage policy and the onset of Depression
- 10 The depths of the Depression
- 11 The basic wage in the recovery
- 12 Other aspects of wage policy 1935–1939
- The economic critique
- References
- Index
9 - Wage policy and the onset of Depression
from Wage policy in Depression and recovery 1929–1939
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Inception and setting
- The Higgins era 1907–1921
- Caution and restraint 1921–1929
- Wage policy in Depression and recovery 1929–1939
- 8 The setting
- 9 Wage policy and the onset of Depression
- 10 The depths of the Depression
- 11 The basic wage in the recovery
- 12 Other aspects of wage policy 1935–1939
- The economic critique
- References
- Index
Summary
9.1 The inception of Depression wage policy
As discussed in Chapter 7, in the late 1920s judges referred from time to time to the need for a fundamental review of the basic wage. Lukin, in particular, was exercised by the continuance of Powers' 3s. Apparently, a general inquiry into the basic wage was delayed by the volume of work claiming the Court's attention. In December 1929, Dethridge, in a case before the Full Court, noted that the basic wage was not an issue in that case, but touched upon a concern to which the Court (and Dethridge in particular) would return in later cases: the need to balance the employment-promoting effects of high wages (due to the spending of the workers) against their employment-destroying effects (due to the costs borne by employers). It was generally recognised, said Dethridge,
that, in order to minimise industrial depression and unemployment, purchasing power should be widely distributed, which means in effect that as much as possible of the community's production should be paid in wages. With our present means of information, it does not seem possible to measure and state the proportion that can, at any one moment, be so paid, but obviously the amount of that proportion, and therefore of employment, depends nowadays upon the amount of the community's marketable production. The higher that amount the higher is the amount of the proportion that can and should be paid as wages and the lower is the unemployment, but clearly on the other hand the lower that amount the higher becomes the unemployment.
(Motor Body case 28 CAR 411, 421)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Australian Wage PolicyInfancy and Adolescence, pp. 359 - 464Publisher: The University of Adelaide PressPrint publication year: 2013