Control in the Shearing Shed: The Introduction of Machinery and Changing Workplace Relations in New Zealand

Abstract

The impact of the introduction of machine shearing on the relationship between pastoralist and shearer has been documented in recent Australian literature.1 This paper explores similar developments in New Zealand and places machine shearing in the wider context of workplace relations in shearing sheds in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with a focus on shearing agreements and later, the emergence of Arbitration Court awards and a contracting system for shearing. It takes as a key issue that of control in the shearing shed. Shearing was a distinctive kind of work which was particularly important in New Zealand historically.2 It was associated with strong employer and worker organisation, and by considerable and endemic conflict. It presents an interesting case study in that it is highly seasonal but skilled work, it is paid on a piece-rate basis, there is considerable ritualised competition between individual workers in terms of skill and speed, and it represents an important part of the historical mythology of male work-oriented culture in New Zealand.3 In terms of the numbers of workers gathered together under one roof, shearing ranked amongst the most substantial 'industries' in this country in the nineteenth century. The ideas of Harry Braverman have been extremely influential in the study of work.4 His basic argument is that we have to understand the foundations of class relationships in the 'labour process', that is as relations of power and control between employers and workers that exist at the level of work itself. It is crucial to his theory that, increasingly under capitalism, control over workers is exercised by means of the organisation of work through mechanisation. This