The Politics of Consumption and Labour History
Publication: LABOUR HISTORY
Number 100
Abstract
Australian labour historians have generally concentrated on exploring the politics of production rather than of consumption. The behaviour, actions and perspectives of consumers, however, are just as important to our understanding of society as are those of producers. This article undertakes a general review of historical debates in the Australian literature concerning the concept of consumption. It then provides an overview of the Australian experience based on primary and secondary research. Two issues are of particular interest. The first is the collective response of workers and other groups to the issues associated with consumption including the prices and the quality of goods and services. The article will primarily focus on co-operatives as the collective response. The second issue is the way in which employers attempt to control consumption through a range of strategies including company stores and canteens.
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Endnotes
1.
N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘The politics of consumption and co-operation: An overview’, Labour History, no.91, 2006, pp.1-12.
2.
D. Miller, ‘Consumption as the vanguard of labour history. a polemic by way of an introduction’, inD. Miller(ed.), Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies,Routledge, 1995, p.17. This book provides a very useful a multi-disciplinary overview of the issue of consumption.
3.
For the background and principles of Rochdale consumer co-operatives, seeN. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘“Practical utopians”: Rochdale consumer co-operatives in Australia and New Zealand’, Labour History, vol.95, November2008, pp.97-99. For Starr-Bowkett societies, seeM. Darnell, ‘Freehold property for mechanics: A brief insight into Starr-Bowkett Societies’inGreg Patmore,John Shields andNikola Balnave(eds), The Past is Before Us: Proceedings of the Ninth National Labour History Conference The University of Sydney 30 June-2 July 2005,Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 2005, p.97.
4.
Balnave andPatmore, ‘The politics of consumption’, p.1.
5.
D. Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the New Factory System in the United States,The University of Wisconsin Press, 1975, pp.93-4;H.L. Scamehorn, Mill and Mine: The CF&I in the Twentieth Century,University of Nebraska Press, 1992, ch. 6;C. Wright, The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers,Oxford University Press, 1995, pp.20-24.
6.
P. Glennie, ‘Consumption within historical studies’, inMiller(ed.), Acknowledging Consumption, pp.164-66;P. Guerney, Co-operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England 1870-1930,Manchester University Press, 1996, p.20.
7.
V. de Gracia andL. Cohen, ‘Introduction’, International Labor and Working-Class History, no.55, 1999, p.1.
8.
Guerney, Co-operative Culture, p.22.
9.
E. Ross, A History of the Miners’ Federation of Australia,Australasian Coal and Shale Employees’ Federation, 1970, p.46.
10.
L.B. Glickman, ‘The strike in the temple of consumption: Consumer activism and twentieth century American political culture’, The Journal of American History, vol.88, no.1, 2001, p.102.
11.
J. Smart, ‘Feminists, food and the fair price: The cost of living demonstrations in Melbourne, August-September 1917’, Labour History, no.50, 1986, pp.1-5.
12.
Guerney, Co-operative Culture, pp.21-22
13.
Ibid., pp.21-22. Unlike Australia, there are major projects in the United Kingdom involving historians that bring a multidisciplinary approach to consumption. These include the Cultures of Consumption project based around Frank Trentmann at the University of London and the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change at the University of Manchester.
14.
V. Burgmann, ‘In Our Time: Socialism and the Rise of Labor, 1885-1905,George Allen and Unwin, 1985;B. Scates, A New Australia: Citizenship, Radicalism and the First Republic,Cambridge University Press, 1997.
15.
R.W. Connell andT.H. Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Poverty and Progress, 2ndedn.,Longman Cheshire, 1992, pp.128, 131.
16.
E. Eklund, ‘The ‘anxious class? storekeepers and the working class in Australia, 1900-1940’, inR. Markey(ed.), Labour and Community: Historical Essays,University of Wollongong Press, 2001, p.234.
17.
E. Eklund, ‘Retail co-operatives as a transnational phenomenon: Exploring the composition of Australian colonial society and culture’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, vol.9, 2007, p.130.
18.
N. Arrowsmith andR. Markey, ‘Co-operation in Australia and the Illawarra’, inR. Hood andR. Markey(eds), Labour and Community: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Illawarra Branch,Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1999, pp.201-205;L. Blackley, ‘“You didn’t admit you were hard up”: Working-class notions of moral community’ inHood andMarkey(eds), Labour and Community, pp.21-22;H. Lee, ‘Workforce and community 1880-1904’inJ. Hagan andH. Lee(eds), A History of Work and Community in Wollongong,Halstead Press, nd, pp.70-75;J. McQuilton, ‘Community 1940-1980’, inHagan andLee(eds), A History of Work and Community, pp.147-149.
19.
G. Lewis, A Middle Way: Rochdale Co-operatives in New South Wales 1859-1986, published for the Australian Association of Co-operatives Ltd,Sydney by Brolga Press, ACT, c1992, p.xvii;G. Lewis, People Before Profit: The Credit Union Movement in Australia,Wakefield Press, 1996, pp.xxiv, 42-43, 46, 298.
20.
G. Reekie, ‘Decently dressed? Sexualised consumerism and the working women’s wardrobe 1918-1923’, Labour History, no.61, 1991, pp.42-56;A. Stephen, ‘Selling soap: Domestic work and consumerism in the inter-war years’, Labour History, no.61, 1991, pp.57-69;R. Walker, ‘Aspects of working-class life in industrial Sydney’, Labour History, no.58, pp.36-47.
21.
Smart, ‘Feminists, food and the fair price’, pp.113-131; See also Smart’s later work:‘A mission to the home: The Housewives Association, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and Protestant Christianity, 1920-1949’, Australian Feminist Studies, vol.13, issue28, 1998, pp.215-234and‘The politics of the small purse: The mobilization of housewives in interwar Australia’, International Labor and Working Class History, no.77, 2010, pp.48-68.
22.
R. Markey, ‘New South Wales trade unions and the co-operative principle in the 1890s’, Labour History, no.49, 1985, pp.51-60;R.B. Walker, ‘The ambiguous experiment: Agricultural co-operatives in New South Wales’, Labour History, no.18, 1970, pp.19-31.
23.
Markey, ‘New South Wales trade unions’, p.51.
24.
Walker, ‘The ambiguous experiment’, pp.26-27.
25.
P. Cochrane, ‘The Wonthaggi Coal Strike, 1934’, Labour History, no.27, 1974, pp.12-30;B. Ellem andJ. Shields, ‘Making a “union town”: Class, gender and consumption in inter-war Broken Hill, Labour History, no.78, 2000, pp.116-140;A. Salt, ‘Women on the northern coalfields of NSW’, Labour History, no.48, 1985, pp.44-53.
26.
D. Green, ‘The 1918 strike of the medical profession against Friendly Societies in Victoria’, Labour History, no.46, 1984, pp.72-87;R.V. Jackson, ‘Building Societies and the workers in Melbourne in the 1880s’, Labour History, no.47, 1984, pp.28-38;D. Weinbren andBob James, ‘Getting a grip: The roles of Friendly Societies in Australia and Britain reappraised’, Labour History, no.88, 2005, pp.96-8.
27.
N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘Practical utopians: Rochdale Consumer Co-operatives in Australia and New Zealand’, Labour History, no.95, 2008, pp.97-110; See thematic section inLabour History, no.91, 2006.
28.
N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘Marketing community and democracy: Rural Rochdale co-operatives in Australia’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, vol.13, no.1, 2010, pp.61-78;N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘Rochdale consumer co-operatives: A case of rural survival’, Journal of Co-operative Studies, vol.41, no.1, 2008, pp.11-21.
29.
G. Boyce andS. Ville, The Development of Modern Business,Palgrave, 2002, pp.268-271;K. Humphery, Shelf Life: Supermarkets and the Changing Cultures of Consumption,Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.51;G. Reekie, Temptations: Sex, Selling and the Department Store,Allen & Unwin, 1993, p.124.
30.
B. Kingston, Basket, Bag and Trolley: A History of Shopping in Australia,Oxford University Press, 1994, pp.32-33.
31.
Co-operative News, 1October1925, p.5;1August1928, p.4.
32.
E. Eklund, ‘“Intelligently directed welfare work”?: Labour management strategies in local context: Port Pirie, 1915-1929’, Labour History, no.76, 1999, p.131;Ellem andShields, ‘Making a union town’, pp.116-140;E. Eklund, ‘Managers, workers, and industrial welfarism’, Australian Economic History Review, vol.37, no.2, 1997, p.150.
33.
M. Kerr, ‘Labour management practices in non-union firms: Australian Abrasive Industry 1945-1970’, Labour History, no.92, May2007, p.84;G. Reekie, ‘“Humanising Industry”: Paternalism, welfarism and labour control in Sydney’s big stores, 1890-1930’, Labour History, no.53, 1987, pp.14-15;S. Stevens, ‘A social tyranny: The truck system in colonial Western Australia, 1829-1899’, Labour History, no.80, 2001, pp.83-98;Wright, The Management of Labour, pp.21-4, 33-4, 61-4.N. Balnave ‘Commitment and efficiency through food: Food services in Australian industry, 1890-1965’, inB. Bowden andJ. Kellett(eds), Transforming Labour: Work, Workers, Struggle and Change, 8thNational Labour History Conference Proceedings,Griffith University, 3-5October2003,Brisbane Labour History Association, 2003, pp.22-28.
34.
The Co-operative News, 1March1925, p.12;H. Heaton, Modern Economic History with Special Reference to Australia,Workers’ Educational Association, 1925, p.305;Lewis, A Middle Way, p.9.
35.
Co-operative News, 1March1925, p.12,Heaton, Modern Economic History, p.305;W.K. McConnell, ‘Consumers’ co-operation in New South Wales’, The Economic Record, vol.v, no.9, 1929, pp.263-264.
36.
N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘Localism and Rochdale co-operation: The Junee District Co-operative Society’, Labour History, no.91, 2006, p.49.
37.
Balnave andPatmore, ‘Rochdale consumer co-operatives in Australia, p.19;E. Jensen, Barossan Foundations,Nuriootpa War Memorial Community Centre Committee, 1969, pp.157-170.McConnell, ‘Consumers’ co-operation in New South Wales’, pp.267-269;P. Smith, Fruits of Frugality: Eudunda Farmers, 100 years, 1896 1996,Eudunda Farmers Limited, 1997, p.19.
38.
E. O’Neil, History of the Co-operative Wholesale Society of NSW from 1912 to 1948, p. 19, unpublished typescript, University of Newcastle Archives, B8045.
39.
Ibid., pp.19-23.
40.
Community Co-operative Store (Nuriootpa) minutes, 21September1949(held at the Barossa Community Store, Nuriootpa); Interview with Mary Hatch, Harold Hoffman, Bert Schulz, Former Barossa Community Store Employees, Nuriootpa, 16March2010.
41.
Co-operative News, 1April1950, p.18.
42.
Letter from B. Arrowsmith to A. Clint, 12 December 1966. Alf Clint Papers, Tranby Aboriginal College Archives, Glebe, Sydney, ACP/105.
43.
N. Balnave andG. Patmore, ‘Marketing community and democracy: Rural Rochdale co-operatives in Australia’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, vol.13, no.1, 2010, p.72; Interview by Greg Patmore with Trevor Mandry, former assistant manager, Collie Co-operative, 20 June 2007;Lewis, A Middle Way, pp.218-219;K. Webber andI. Hoskins, What’s in Store? A History of Retailing in Australia,Powerhouse Publishing, 2003, p.29.
44.
Australian Financial Review, 8March1993, p.20;Balnave andPatmore, ‘Localism and Rochdale co-operation’, pp.64-5; Interview with Mary Hatch, Harold Hoffman, Bert Schulz, Former Barossa Community Store Employees, Nuriootpa, 16 March 2010;Sydney Morning Herald, 11March1993, p.4.
45.
Lewis, A Middle Way, p.xvii;O’Neil, History of the Co-operative Wholesale Society, pp.29-30, 49.
46.
Lewis, A Middle Way, pp.105-6;H. Radi,P. Spearitt andE. Hinton, Biographical Register of the NSW Parliament 1901-1970,ANU Press, 1979, p.21.
47.
Co-operative News, 1January1931, p.1.
48.
Lewis, A Middle Way, pp.94, 167, 182-5.
49.
E. Morris, ‘Clint, William Alfred (1906-1980)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol.13,Melbourne University Press, 1993, pp.444-445;N. Loos andR. Keast, ‘The radical promise: The Aboriginal christian co-operative movement’, Australian Historical Studies, vol.25, no.99, p.290.
50.
W.A. Clint, ‘“Aboriginal Co-operatives”, in ABM Christian Community Co-operative Ltd,Tranby Co-operative School.February23-271959, p.1
51.
NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, Aboriginal Women’s Heritage: Ballina and Cabbage Tree Island, 2007, p.48.
52.
Letter from A. Clint to J. Trotter, 20.12.1971. Alf Clint Papers, Tranby Aboriginal College Archives, Glebe, Sydney, ACP/132.
53.
Balnave andPatmore, ‘Localism and Rochdale co-operation’, pp.61-2; Barossa Community Store, Notice of Annual General Meeting: Concise Annual Report 2009, pp.3-4, 29.
54.
The Albany Advertiser, 29November1968, pp.11, 14, 16.
55.
C. Rhodes, McClae. The Centenary History of the Macleay Regional Co-operative Limited. 1905-2005,Macleay Regional Co-operative, 2005.
56.
D. Bisset andD. Crossley, ‘Organising a food co-op’, inM. Smith andD. Crossley(eds), The Way Out: Radical Alternatives in Australia,Lansdowne Press, 1975, pp.217-220.
57.
Manly Food Co-operative,http://www.manlyfoodcoop.org/Home.html(accessed 9 Feb 2010).
58.
L. Cutcher andM. Kerr, ‘The shifting meaning of mutuality and co-operativeness in the credit union movement from 1959 to 1989’, Labour History, no.91, 2006, pp.31-46;Lewis, People Before Profit.
59.
Lewis, People Before Profit, p.43.
60.
Cutcher andKerr, ‘The shifting meaning of mutuality’, pp.37-9.
61.
C.O. Turner, ‘One day’s stoppage in twenty years’, Personnel Practice Bulletin, vol.XV, no.2, 1959, p.21.
62.
ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, pp.20-21.
63.
If profit was made in any half-year after all contingencies had been provided for, at the direction of the Council it would be carried to reserve and used in the business, distributed among customers, or used for any ‘benevolent or philanthropic purpose’, Ibid, p. 11.
64.
Ibid., p.11;Eklund, ‘“Intelligently directed welfare work”?’, 1999, p.140.
65.
E. Eklund, ‘“Intelligently directed welfare work”? Broken Hill Associated Smelters and attempts to create company loyalty at Port Pirie, 1915-1925’,Paper presented to the Fifth National Conference of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, 1997, pp.8-9;Eklund, ‘“Intelligently directed welfare work”?’, 1999, p.140.
66.
G. Blainey, The Peaks of Lyell,St. David’s Park Publishing, 1993, p.225.
67.
G. Blainey, The Rush That Never Ended: A History of Australian Mining,Melbourne University Press, 1978, p.306.
68.
Blainey, The Peaks of Lyell, p.226.
69.
Ellem andShields, ‘Making a ‘union town’.
70.
G. Reekie, ‘“Humanising industry”: Paternalism, welfarism and labour control in Sydney’s big stores 1890-1930’, Labour History, no.53, November1987, p.14; Bank of NSW Archives, 82-26, 1105, Address by the General Manager, 17/4/51; Advisory Council of Science and Industry (ACSI), Welfare Work, Bulletin No.15, Melbourne, 1919, pp. 30, 60, 61; Noel Butlin Archive Centre, Australian National University, Tooth & Co, N20/2292, Welfare Scheme, 8/12/26.
71.
F.R.E. Mauldon, ‘Cooperation and welfare in industry’, inD. Copland(ed.),‘An economic survey of Australia’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November1931, p.186.
72.
ACSI, Welfare Work, pp.76-79.
73.
‘IWD (Industrial Welfare Division), Report of Activities for the Fortnight Ending 14/8/43’, Australian Archives (hereafter AA), Series SP 113/1, 180/4/2; Wright, The rise of modern labour management, p. 57.
74.
Memorandum for The Secretary, Department of Munitions, from R.G. Baxter, Director, IWD, 24 May 1943, AA, Series SP113/1, item 560/2/2; Memorandum from the Minister for Labour and National Service, 28 September 1942, AA, Series SP113/1, item 560/2/2.
75.
Memorandum to the Director-General, Dept. War Organisation of Industry, Melbourne, from Deputy Director, Department of Labour and National Service, Sydney, 13/1/44, AA, Series SP 113/1, item 560/2/1; Memorandum for The Director-General, Dept. War Organisation of Industry, Melbourne, 13/1/44, AA, Series SP 113/1, item 560/2/1.
76.
Correspondence to N. Curphey, Esq., Secretary, Victorian Chamber of Manufactures from E.J. Holloway, Minister for Labour and National Service, 5/5/44. AA, SP 113/1, 560/2/2.
77.
‘Window displays’, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 573/1/1, Part II; ‘Case Review’, 17 March 1945, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 573/1/1 Part II; ‘Photographs of Cafeterias – Private Industry’, Minute from B.R. Bennett, Senior Inspectorate, DLNS, to Area Controller, Food Services Branch, Sydney, 9/2/45, SP 146/1, 573/1/1 pt II; ‘Distribution of Reference Material’, 22 May 1947, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 572/8/8; DLNS Minute, 26/3/45, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 573/1/1; Correspondence to Mr. Vance Palmer from Baxter, Director, IWD, Sydney, 17/4/44, AA, SP 146/1, 573/1/1, Part II.
78.
Items 572/8/8; 574/2/4; 574/3/2, AA, Series SP 146/1; ‘Distribution of Reference Material’, 22/5/47, AA Series SP 146/1, item 573/3/3; ‘Review Digest of “Amenities in Wartime Factories”’, Circular, 2 February 1946, AA, SP 146/1, 572/5/3, Part II; Correspondence from J.P. Carrington, Acting Assistant Director, IWD to General Manager, Bradford Cotton Mills, 12 September 1946, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 575/3/13.
79.
P. Griffin, ‘Employee welfare in a textile company’, Personnel Practice Bulletin, vol.22, no.1, March1966, p.23.
80.
J.S. Bridge, ‘Welfare in a medium-size Australian factory’, Personnel Practice Bulletin, vol.15, no.2, 1959, pp.12-13;N. Shaw, ‘Works canteen controlled by employees’, Manufacturing and Management, May15, 1947, p.424.
81.
File 15/47 Metropolitan Rochdale Co-operative Society Ltd – Annual Returns. State Records Office of Western Australia.
82.
For example, the Colonial Sugar Refining Company began to realise that conditions in parts of their older factories were not as good as they could have been, and the initiative was subsequently taken to build new dining rooms, along with other amenities, Colonial Sugar Refinery, South Pacific Enterprise: The Colonial Sugar Refining Company Limited,Angus and Robertson, 1956, p.268.
83.
C.P. Mills andG.H. Sorrell, Federal Industrial Laws, 4thedn,Butterworths, 1968, p.237.
84.
Shaw, ‘Works canteen controlled by employees’, p.425.
85.
Griffin, ‘Employee welfare in a textile company’, p.27.
86.
‘Recreation Club David Jones’, Minute, 15September1949, AA, Series SP 146/1, item 582/2/14.
87.
Wright, The Rise of Modern Labour Management, p.192.
88.
H.V. Wallage, ‘Welfare without waste’, Personnel Practice Bulletin, vol.24, no.2, 1968, p.142.
89.
Correspondence from Managing Director of Bradford Cotton Mills Ltd, Sydney, to Acting-Asst. Director, IWD, DLNS, Sydney, 16 September 1946, AA, SP Series 146/1, item 575/3/13;Griffin, ‘Employee welfare in a textile company’, p.27; Bradford Cotton Mills, Annual Personnel Report, Footscray Mill, July1955-June1958, Private collection of Chris Wright.
90.
Shaw, ‘Works canteen controlled by employees’, p.429.
Biographies
Nikola Balnaveis a Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Western Sydney. Her main focus of research is currently co-operatives in Australasia. Nikola is the federal president of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.
Greg Patmoreis the Professor of Business and Labour History in the School of Business at the University of Sydney. He is currently writing with Nikola Balnave a history of the Barossa Community Store in South Australia. He also has an ARC Discovery Grant to examine forms of non-union employee representation in Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the USA during the interwar period.
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LABOUR HISTORY
Number 100 • 1 May 2011
Pages: 145 - 166
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Copyright 2011 Australian Society for the Study of Labour history.
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Published in print: 1 May 2011
Published online: 24 October 2022
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