12 MINIMUM WAGE LEGISLATION IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES

merce passed a resolution asking for the extension of the boards to
cigar factory, steel, and glass workers.* The results of the law have
led the Government since 1907 to extend the system to a great number
of other industries where home work plays no role and where the
workers are in no way exploited. The method of fixation of wages
by wages boards became thereby the general basis for the regulation of
conditions of labor and wages, a substitute for the method of strikes
and lockouts.
In the beginning the wages boards had to fix minimum wages more
or less in accordance with the wages already paid by good employers.
Since 1907 they have had the right to fix wages for both factory and
home workers higher than those paid by good employers. }
The factory legislation of Victoria was consolidated in the act of
September 6, 1915 (No. 2650). Article 49 thereof prescribes a minimum
 wage of 2s. 6d. per week for all factory employment. Articles
133 to 173 regulate the work of the wage boards. ~ Articles 174 to
181 authorize appeals from the boards to a court of industrial appeals.
In 1919 and 1920 further acts were passed, based on practical experience,
 to render the application of the law smoother.® An act
was Dasad December 21, 1922 (No. 8252), which authorized the
boards to prescribe that persons working less than a full week’s time
might be paid at higher rates. This was to protect employees against
the evils resulting from temporary part-time work. )
At the end of 1925, 181 wages boards regulated the conditions of
labor of 193,000 employees ¢ (practically all the workers of the State,
which in that year had a total population of 1,684,017 ).” The
development of wages under the board system may be shown by the
following figures for some of the main industries.®

TABLE 1.—Average weekly wages paid to employees in specified trades before
and subsequent to first determination by wages boards

Trade

Agricultural implements. __._______. A RR A RE
BOO eee. RR rm meer me
TEU] wimg micas AA ARETE mre mn
AOEDIOTINBIR comms isso eR AAA HARA Rr moreso morn
SERIO cov csi wisp gr AR RA AAR Ft mer emerson
PUIG. ie pain Aen Sd ERR E Ra A Sommer mo reer tore memmmroen
PUOINDOTS wp www sisintnios i ioston mmm sm etsmomon mormon eee orator arora
BIE unr: tatmms nmr ———————————————————
Wicker... Cr meme —— mmm ——

Average weekly wage paid to em
ployees—

Befora firs,
determina=' Tn 1914 ' Tn 1925
tion

ce
19
3
12
7 ¢€
0
c
5

10
2
2 7
3 10
6 9
So
4 A
oe

eb
j 8
| 3 9 “a
5 7
5 13 6
2 16 OC
4 18 4
§ 0 0
4 12 0
4 0 10

The table shows that wages in industries where women’s work and
home work predominated, for instance, in the clothing industry,
have been raised out of the “sweating” sphere. The increases for

: Broda, R.: La Fixation légale des Salaires. Paris, Giard &amp; Briadre, 1912,
¥ Victorian Year Book, 1925-28. Melbourne, p. 361.
$ Idem, Z 357.
? Australia. Bureau of Census and Statistics. Quarterly Summary of Australian Staistics.
 Melbourne, September, 1927, p. 3.
B Victorian Year Book, 1925-26, Melbourne, p. 359.