Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Monday, 6 March this year is a public holiday in Western Australia in celebration of Labour Day. While Labour Day is something that a lot of members here understand a lot about, it gives people like me great pause for reflection on the contribution that the wider labour movement has made and the many struggles and victories that have gone before as we anticipate the struggles and victories ahead in the brave new world.

In doing that I was having a conversation with Kim Young, a person I know very well in Perth, a former assistant secretary to the CFMEU and a former ALP candidate for the federal seat of Moore. In talking about that we reflected on the fact that a lot of young people do not understand and do not have the knowledge of a lot of the terms that are in common parlance these days. One that came to mind when we were having a discussion was the term ‘to go cap in hand’. He told me a story of an experience he had with his father, an experience that I will relay to the chamber now. He said:

When I was growing up around Fremantle in the fifties my father worked at a timber mill in Hamilton hill owned by Hawker Sidleys who later became Bunning’s. In those days most workers wore a soft cap to work.

One of my most vivid memories of those years was as a nine year old going with Mum and my brothers on a Friday afternoon to the sawmill where the old man worked to wait outside while he fronted the boss about a raise.

There we were looking through the front window watching him stand cap in hand almost begging for a pay rise.

Mum explained to us that this was the standard procedure if you wanted an increase in those days as there was no union to bargain on his behalf.

Mum also explained that should he get the raise then it was off to the beer garden of the Newmarket pub, down the road for fish and chips and a soft drink for the Kids and a beer or two for the old man and her.

When the old man came out of the office I couldn’t help but notice that he was crying and I said to Mum that it looked like he didn’t get the raise but we soon found that I was wrong and off to the pub we went.

Later that night I learned from mum that the tears that the old man had on his face where caused by the humiliation he felt at having to stand in front of all of the office staff and beg cap in hand for an increase in his pay—

to support his family. This is the Australia that Prime Minister Howard wants to recreate. Mr Young says he is firmly convinced that over the next few years many Australian workers are going to feel that same humiliation that his old man did because there is no way that an individual worker is going to be able to bargain with their employer and expect to win the sorts of wages and conditions that are currently enjoyed by workers of today. Those workers who think that their boss is a good bloke, so they will be all right, will remember the words of people like Mr Young when the boss comes to them and says that he has to cut their wages—as we are already seeing in some places—he has to slash their conditions or he has to let them go so that he can compete in the market that Mr Howard has supposedly created.

Our current employment conditions were not just handed to people by bosses out of the goodness of their hearts as some might think. They were won by the struggles of many generations of working men and women who were prepared to have a go and stand up and fight for decent wages and conditions. That is why it is important that we commemorate and celebrate days like Labour Day. Mr Young goes on to say that he is proud to have been a part of some of those struggles over his years as a union official and that he hopes that he never has to stand, cap in hand, in front of a boss like his old man did.