History for Lunch: talk on anarchism in New Zealand (Wednesday 21 August)

This Wednesday (August 21) I will be talking about the colourful radicals of the early labour movement in Wellington – anarchists and the Industrial Workers of the World. As well as organising one of New Zealand’s first anarchist collectives, Philip Josephs and members of the IWW were active in Wellington's working-class counter culture and the Great Strike of 1913. This talks aims to highlight the role of literature, mass meetings and international influences on these events.


At the Wellington Public Library, 12.30pm.

A plea to release interned anarchist Carl Mumme...

 

On this day in 1916 Margaret Mumme, the wife of Somes Island internee and anarchist Carl Mumme, wrote to Minister of Defence James Allen saying two bondsmen were willing to vouch for Carl if he was released. Allen replied that nothing less than a 100 pound bond would do: Margaret replied that they couldn't afford the £100 without borrowing money; that the family was already on assistance from the Benevolent board; and then pleaded with Allen that her 5 children did not understanding why their father was interned. Allen was not moved - it would take another 3 years before Carl was released...

Changes to the Employment Relation Act: what they are and how they will impact you

The changes, set out in the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, are designed to push down wages and undermine hard-won conditions. 

Employers will be able to walk away from bargaining

Employers can walk away from negotiations for collective agreements without a genuine reason to do so. In the recent Ports of Auckland dispute this is what stopped the company's plan to sack all its workers during bargaining.

This change will let employers say they have had enough of bargaining at any point and there will be nothing workers can do. Equally employers will be able threaten to give workers' jobs to someone else while they are bargaining to force them to agree. This tips the balance of power in negotiations towards employers.

New staff will be employed on less pay and worse conditions

Right now, new employees are covered by the collective agreement in their workplace for the first 30 days. This means employers are not allowed to pay less that what is in place. Employees are at their most vulnerable when they are new to the job as they have little bargaining power. This protection is to be stripped away so they can be paid less and open to instant dismissal. Over time this will reduce everyone’s pay and conditions: the Cabinet paper recommending these changes, signed by the Minister of Labour, actually says they, “will enable employers to offer individual terms and conditions that are less than those in the collective agreement”.

Meal and rest breaks

The Bill removes the guaranteed minimum break times, allowing employers to decide how long breaks will be. It also allows employers to decide that breaks can be at the very beginning or end of the working day, and that they can be paid out rather than being taken.

All industrial action will require notice

Unions will have to give notice of all strikes. This will make it more difficult for members to take industrial action for better pay and conditions.

Fines for partial strikes and working-to-rule

Your employer will be able to deduct a portion of your pay for a partial strike, such as not answering the phone or working-to-rule (only doing what is in your contract or job description).

Job protection will be stripped away

At present, the law protects the jobs and conditions of low-paid workers, such as in home care, when a contract changes hands. The government plans to strip away this protection for workplaces with fewer than 20 employees. These workers will have no job security when a contract changes to a new employer.

Employers able to opt out of MECA bargaining

Employers will be able to withdraw from bargaining for multi-employercollective agreements (MECAs) by giving 10 days’ notice at the start of negotiations – this could dismantle MECAs that have brought steady improvements in pay and conditions for union members.

No access to your employment information

If your job is under threat, your employer will be able to withhold information from you if, for example, it refers to another person. This could make it impossible to defend yourself in a disciplinary situation or to challenge a redundancy.

Speak with your co-workers about these changes and what you can do about them. Suggest stop-work meetings to your delegates. Least of all, submissions against the Bill can be made here (closes 25 July): http://union.org.nz/whycutourpay/submission

Dominion Post: Anarchy stitched into Wellington's streets

PHIL REID/Fairfax NZ ORIGINS: Jared Davidson, who has written a book on the birth of Kiwi anarchism, outside 4 Willis St, Wellington.

From the Dominion Post: Anarchy came to New Zealand a century ago this week. The movement arrived via Latvia and Scotland - to a tailoring shop upstairs in Wellington's Willis St.

One hundred years later, the building still has a link to tailoring. You can pick up a man's shirt for $29.99.

But it is probably fair to say there is little anarchism left in lower Willis St today (unless jaywalking counts).

Philip Josephs, a Jewish tailor, started organised anarchism in New Zealand, says Jared Davidson, who has just published Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism and Early New Zealand Anarchism.

Anarchists believe in a society without a publicly enforced government.

There are many moments to which the birth of anarchism in New Zealand could be pinned, such as the trade union strikes of 1913, Josephs' arrival in 1904, and the 1908 Blackball strike on the West Coast.

But a meeting called by Josephs on July 9, 1913 in his first-floor tailor's shop at 4 Willis St, and the formation of the "specifically organised anarchy group" The Freedom Group, are probably the most important moment, Davidson says.

It is thought Josephs, who fled Latvia to Glasgow to avoid persecution, became radicalised as part of the large Jewish working class in Glasgow.

There are large holes in what is known about Josephs, Davidson says.

"These guys, they never kept records. They never thought about being documented in the future."

Even Josephs' own grandchildren, many still alive, "knew he was kind of a leftie but they didn't know much else", Davidson says.

His arrival in New Zealand on March 7, 1904 is known, as is the fact he was ordering and distributing anarchist literature from Britain within three months of arrival. Various addresses - Aro St, Taranaki St, Johnsonville, Willis St, Cuba St - are documented.

Also known is that there was a growing militancy among the New Zealand trade union movement, which would lead to the Great Strike in 1913.

It led to Josephs calling a meeting on July 9, 1913 in his shop to form the Freedom Group.

Socialist publication the Maoriland Worker previewed the event thus: "A matter that should have an effect in clearing the somewhat misty atmosphere in this city is the movement to form an Anarchist Group in Wellington . . . we understand that this will be our first Anarchist group formed in the history of New Zealand."

A week later it was reported that weekly meetings would be held at 8pm each Wednesday at Josephs' Willis St shop.

"Those interested will always find a warm welcome, and visitors are invited to take part in the discussions," the paper said.

Billed as "where one is equal to another, where no criminals, no officials, and no authority exists", the meetings grew to attract about 120 people and moved to the Socialist Hall in Manners St.
Meetings had "real anarchist style", it was reported.

There was "dancing and ditties", Davidson says. People sat down to decorated tables arranged, in true anarchic style, with no chairperson. There were readings, speeches, and musical entertainment.

 

But most importantly, there was talk.

Topics included: "Has political action been beneficial to the working class?", "Is religion a barrier to progress?" and "Does woman recognise her independence?"

By the time the Great Strike began in October 1913, the Freedom Group was well established.

The strike, which started with waterside workers in Wellington but ended up with 16,000 unionists on strike nationwide, ended after a militia of farmers on horseback - known as Massey's Cossacks - rode into town to violently break the strike.

During the strike Josephs would discuss his anarchistic beliefs near Queens Wharf in Wellington. The Freedom Group reputedly fought the "Cossacks".

"The activism of Josephs and others like him, whether from the soapbox or through the mailbox, played a key role in the establishment of a distinct anarchist identity and culture in New Zealand and abroad," Davidson says.

Barry Thomas, a modern-day anarchist who spent years living just around the corner from Josephs' former Aro St home, reckons anarchy is still alive.

The "artist-provocateur" and Aro Valley Community Council secretary is trying to introduce a "revolutionary decision-making software" to the council that will mean all can have their say.

The technology, which grew from the recent Occupy movement, is, he says, essentially the great-grandchild of what Philip Josephs started a century ago.
- © Fairfax NZ News

100 years of anarchism in New Zealand celebrated today

A Jewish tailor and fox terrier owner; a Wellington carpenter and staunch family-man—not your typical anarchist-cum-bomber stereotypes. Yet one hundred years ago today, Philip Josephs and Carl Mumme were two founding members of the Freedom Group—one of New Zealand's first anarchist collectives.

"Although the image of a cloak-and-dagger figure dressed in black springs to mind" notes Jared Davidson, author of Sewing Freedom: Philip Josephs, Transnationalism & Early New Zealand Anarchism, "anarchists such as Josephs and Mumme were everyday people. They were active in their trade unions, on the street corners, and in their communities." What set them apart, says Davidson, was "their critique of coercive relations, wage slavery, and a vision of a more equitable and humane world."

The Freedom Group was formed on 9 July 1913 at Philip Josephs' tailor shop, on the first floor of 4 Willis Street, Wellington. “A matter that should have an effect in clearing the somewhat misty atmosphere in this city is the movement to form an Anarchist Group in Wellington,” wrote the radical labour newspaper, the Maoriland Worker, “for it will provide those who accept the Anarchist philosophy with the place where they belong… we understand that this will be the first Anarchist group formed in the history of New Zealand.”

Little material exists on the Freedom Group and its members, but as Davidson argues, "the emergence of the Freedom Group in 1913 signified a real advance in New Zealand anarchist praxis." As well as importing popular pamphlets from the around the globe, the Freedom Group held regular discussion nights on a range of radical topics.

"So popular were these talks" writes Davidson, "they were soon moved from Willis Street to the larger Socialist Hall at Manners Street."

On one night in September 1913, 120 people attended an anarchist social event the likes of which had never been seen in New Zealand. Billed in the “form of an Anarchist-Communist society, where one is equal to another, where no criminals, no officials, and no authority exists,” attendees could enjoy short speeches, readings of prominent authors, recitations and musical entertainment, “enjoying for at least one evening the benefits of a perfectly free society.”

Freedom Group co-founder Josephs was also involved in the Great Strike of 1913—another centennial marked this year—by expressing "his views publicly from a platform in the vicinity of the Queen’s wharf.” Rumour has it that the Freedom Group also engaged in running scraps with special constables during the strike.

Josephs had been in constant contact with notable international figures such as Emma Goldman since 1904. Later, during the First World War, it was letters to Goldman and the distribution of anti-war literature that saw the home and office of Josephs raided by Police.

Carl Mumme, a German naturalised in 1896, also felt the wrath of the National Coalition Government. In May 1916 he was taken from his workplace and interned on Somes Island due to his anti-militarist views. The ex-Freedom Group speaker was finally released back to his wife and five children in October 1919—11 months after the war had ended.

According to Davidson, this and other anarchist activity shows that "the activism of Josephs and others like him, whether from the soapbox or through the mailbox, played a key role in the establishment of a distinct anarchist identity and culture in New Zealand and abroad—a culture that emerged and enveloped simultaneously around the globe." Not only did anarchist exist in New Zealand; they were a part of some of our most tumultuous industrial disputes, and conveyed a uniquely radical message to workers across the country.

"At the very least, the Freedom Group was obviously a visible and vibrant feature of Wellington’s working class counter-culture, and the facilitator of thought-provoking (maybe even politically changing) conversation."

The Freedom Group's struggle for social change—for a society based on people before profit—linked New Zealand to the global anarchist movement of the day. It also signaled the first of many anarchist collectives to play a vibrant part in the history of the New Zealand left.

http://sewingfreedom.org

Pantomime posters, censorship & archives

This rare photograph shows a poster advertising the pantomime 'Sleeping Beauty' in Christchurch, 1920. "So impressed was I with its vulgarity and indecency" wrote Christchurch Tramways Board member Frank Thompson, "I had in photographed." He then mailed it to the Department of Internal Affairs, who, after the Cinematograph Film Censorship Act was passed in 1916, resumed responsibility for film censorship.

Although the full-colour poster was not advertising a moving picture, Thompson objected that "from the waist upwards the woman is naked save for two small plates over the two breasts," and hoped the DIA could take action. G. Anderson from the DIA replied on 15 July that "the Government is at present considering the question of introducing legislation to enable some form of censorship to be exercised over cinematograph picture posters."

The photograph itself is from a larger series of records dealing with objectionable film posters; some of which actually contain the posters themselves. As well as being visually interesting, the series highlights the increasing importance of film in New Zealand culture, and early attempts to control their content. It also captures a rare glimpse of historic Christchurch that - due to the earthquake of February 2011 - no longer exists.

Archives Reference: IA1 Box 1313 13/11/16

Philip Josephs: "Down With Russian Tyranny!"

Here's a picture of a young Philip Josephs, taken in Glasgow sometime before leaving for New Zealand. From Sewing Freedom: 

"As well as establishing a small tailor shop at 64 Taranaki Street, Josephs quickly bolstered the ranks of the [Wellington] city’s radicals, involving himself in solidarity demonstrations against the injustices suffered by his fellow Russian workers during the 1905 Revolution. At the same time as Parisian and London workers gathered in their hundreds to hear Russian anarchists like Kropotkin speak on the massacre of Bloody Sunday and the situation in Russia, Josephs was bringing the horrors of his homeland to the workers of Wellington. On numerous occasions Josephs publicly voiced his disgust at the oppressive nature of the Russian government—describing from the platform at one mass meeting the “wretched conditions of the Working Class in Russia.” “Doloi S Russki Samoderszavie!” (Down With Russian Tyranny!) also featured Josephs as a main speaker, where he “spoke with force and earnestness on the evening’s theme… explaining something of the revolutionary propaganda, and describing some of the scenes of horror that incited the revolters to count no odds in their struggle for freedom.”

Wellington Film Screening: An Injury to One

Join us on Friday June 20th at 7pm to watch An Injury To One, screening at the Peoples Cinema, Wellington (57 Manners St).

AN INJURY TO ONE provides an absolutely compelling glimpse of a particularly volatile moment in early 20th century American labor history and the effects of mining on the community of Butte, Montana.

The Anaconda mine in Butte has become the largest environmental disaster site in the United States. It’s open pit is a cocktail of contaminated materials: a century after the era of intensive mining and smelting the area around the city remains an environmental issue. Arsenic and heavy metals such as lead are found in high concentrations in some spots affected by old mining, and for a period of time in the 1990s the tap water was unsafe to drink due to poor filtration and decades-old wooden supply pipes. AN INJURY TO ONE looks at this disaster through it’s history of labour struggle — the mysterious death of Wobbly organizer Frank Little and the Speculator Fire of 1917. Much of the extant evidence is inscribed upon the landscape of Butte and its surroundings. Thus, a connection is drawn between the unsolved murder of Little, and the attempted murder of the town by a company in search of profit.

Archival footage mixes with deftly deployed intertitles, while the lyrics to traditional mining songs are accompanied by music from Bonnie Prince Billy, Jim O’Rourke, The Dirty Three and Low, producing an appropriately moody, effulgent, and strangely out-of-time soundtrack. The result is a unique film/video hybrid that combines painterly images, incisive writing, and a bold graphic sensibility to produce an articulate example of the aesthetic and political possibilities offered by filmmaking in the digital age.

“An astonishing document: part art and part speculative inquiry, buzzing with ambition and dedication. Takes us from the 19th century to the eve of the 21st, from Butte as land of frontier promise to Butte as land of death and environmental destruction. Travis wields avant-garde graphics and archival ephemera like a lasso, and his shots of modern-day Butte are allusive still-lifes that defy time and place. This is stirring, must-see stuff.“— Austin Chronicle

Entry is Koha!

Sewing Freedom book launch: Wellington, 15 May

Jared Davidson, AK Press, and the Museum of Wellington City & Sea invite you to the launch of Sewing Freedom, a new book on early anarchism and labour history in New Zealand.

“Sewing Freedom works on several levels. It is a meticulous biography, a portrait of an era, a sophisticated discussion of anarchist philosophy and activism, and an evocation of radical lives and ideas in their context. Davidson has designed a fresh, crisp book with visual impact, nicely enhanced by Alec Icky Dunn’s wonderful sketches... This beautifully-executed book tells an important story in New Zealand’s political history.” - Chris Brickell, Associate Professor of Gender Studies at Otago University and author of Mates and Lovers


ABOUT THE BOOK:

Sewing Freedom is the first in-depth study of anarchism in New Zealand during the turbulent years of the early 20th century—a time of wildcat strikes, industrial warfare and a radical working class counter-culture. Interweaving biography, cultural history and an array of archival sources, this engaging account unravels the anarchist-cum-bomber stereotype by piecing together the life of Philip Josephs—a Latvian-born Jewish tailor, anti-militarist and founder of the Wellington Freedom Group. Anarchists like Josephs not only existed in the ‘Workingman’s Paradise’ that was New Zealand, but were a lively part of its labour movement and the class struggle that swept through the country, imparting uncredited influence and ideas. Sewing Freedom places this neglected movement within the global anarchist upsurge, and unearths the colourful activities of New Zealand’s most radical advocates for social and economic change.

More information on the book, a sampler, and reviews, can be found at www.sewingfreedom.org

ABOUT THE LAUNCH:

WHEN: Wednesday 15 May - 5.30PM

WHERE: The Boardroom, Museum of Wellington City & Sea, Queens Wharf, Jervois Quay

Books will be on sale for $15 cash on the night.

Free entry. Nibbles and drinks provided.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Jared Davidson is an archivist at Archives New Zealand, a member of the Labour History Project, and author of Sewing Freedom. His first book, Remains to be Seen: Tracing Joe Hill's Ashes in New Zealand, was published in 2011.

Barry Pateman is an anarchist historian, Kate Sharpley Library archivist, and Associate Editor of The Emma Goldman Papers (USA). A prolific editor and writer, he has been involved in a number of projects and publications, including Chomsky on Anarchism, A History of the French Anarchist Movement, Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, and Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Mark Derby is the Chair of the Labour History Project and an extensively-published writer and historian, having worked for the Waitangi Tribunal; the PSA; Te Ara, the online encyclopedia of New Zealand; and as South Pacific correspondent for Journal Expresso, Portugal's leading newspaper. His books include The Prophet and the Policeman: The story of Rua Kenana and John Cullen, and Kiwi Companeros, on New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War.

http://www.akpress.org/
http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/
http://sewingfreedom.org/

Sewing Freedom is at the printers!

Chartist Movement: Labour history talk in Wellington, 6 March

Those of you who live in, or happen next week to be in, Wellington may be interested in the following public talk by Les Kennedy, a British labour historian.

Les Kennedy is a Labour Historian from the UK. He will give a talk on Wednesday 6 March at 6.30 in the Mezzanine room at the City Library, Victoria Street.

Although he is very knowledgeable about the Tolpuddle Martrys, the focus of his talk will be the Chartist Movement.

Les Kennedy has been a life-long trade unionist, his membership of NASUWT, the largest teachers’ trade union in the UK goes back over 37 years and in that time he has been a school representative, local negotiating secretary, national executive member and regional organiser.

He has also worked for the Trades Union Congress where he was responsible for setting up an adult learning centre in Cornwall.

He taught history to 11 to 18 year olds in a state secondary school for 30 years and has also taught adult evening classes. For the last four years he has organised the Radical History school for the TUC at the annual Tolpuddle Festival where he has delivered a number of talks. He has also talked across the UK and most recently at the Workers’ Fest in Hobart, Tasmania.

Les is now retired and lives in Cornwall with his wife Rosemarie and he actively pursues a keen interest in trade union matters.

The details of the meeting are:
6.30pm to 7.30pm

Wednesday 6 March
Mezzanine Floor meeting room
Wellington Public Library
Victoria Street
Wellington

Inside story: Alec ‘Icky’ Dunn on his illustrations for Sewing Freedom

Printmaker, writer and Justseeds member Alec Dunn shares his process for illustrating Sewing Freedom. More of his amazing work can (and should) be viewed at his own blog: http://blackoutprint.tumblr.com/

About a year ago I received an email from Jared asking if I’d be interested in illustrating a book he was working on about early New Zealand anarchism. I knew Jared through political art circles, and knew him to be a great designer, producing sharp and tight graphics. I also knew him to be thoughtful about his practice. His politics, graphics, and writing informed one another. So when he asked me to participate in this book I was flattered and agreed right away.

I got a copy of the text, read through it, and began making notes about what stuck out to me visually for each chapter. I did some preliminary sketches and sent these to him as well as a list of ideas for other chapters, just to see if we were on the same page. I originally envisioned the illustrations as sitting on top of the chapter title. I wanted simplistic black and white drawings, and I wanted them to float above the words, no borders, and going full bleed to the edge of the page. That was the first idea at least. I had two, kind of wildly different, approaches to doing this: one was line drawings of the landscapes that Philip Josephs moved through, throughout his life; the other idea, heavily influenced by Gerd Arntz (the German socialist graphic designer who helped create pictograms), would have been a series of generic looking people to represent the different industries and persons involved in the anarchist movement in New Zealand at the time.

We ended up veering more towards the landscapes. And from there I started assembling reference and source images to work from.

The first one I did was of an agitator speaking before a crowd. I didn’t have a New Zealand source image for this (the image above is from London), but I am familiar with the time and setting and have looked at plenty of pictures from my hometown (Portland, Oregon, US) from the same era. The thing that I always liked about images from protests of that period was the hats. In all those old photographs everyone has a hat, and at labor protests and rallies it was just a sea of hats. So I went with this and decided to make the hats as abstract as possible, with the only delineation being the various hat bands and shawls. The speaker to me was a secondary consideration (and he inadvertently ended up vaguely resembling Josephs).

From there I worked in order of the book (and chronologically followed Josephs’ life). I did a google image search for ‘Liepaja, 1900, Harbor’ and found a nice colorized postcard. My drawing you can see is almost a direct reproduction. I really liked the pattern of the ship masts and the implication of emigration.

For the Gorbals neighborhood in Glasgow, I did the same thing, though I may have searched ‘Gorbals, tenements, slums, 1900′. There were a few nice pictures, but the line of tenements, their specific roof-top constructions (I don’t even know the purpose of those bastion-like elements), and their chimneys reads to a very specific geographic place to me.

I didn’t want them all to be landscapes, so for the next one I focused on his history as a tailor. In any of the images of labor protests from that era there are always a few fabulously-embroidered banners that people are carrying, with symbols from their unions or mottos of their organizations. This one I just did free form.

And finally I wanted to do a picture of the Te Aro neighborhood in Wellington. I’ve never been to New Zealand, so I used google again, although this time I did street view to find the street where Joseph’s lived. I have a print by Kathe Kollwitz in my apartment called the Four Men In A Tavern, and it’s a silhouette of conspiratorial men. This was an inspiration, I imagined a night scene in Joseph’s house, people plotting something or discussing a pamphlet. Something about this wasn’t working though, but I sent the sketches to Jared to see what he’d think.

At this point Jared began sending me photos to look through (he wasn’t neglecting me before—I think we agreed to see what was working before I got any specific images from him). There was a great backyard shot of Te Aro that I used as a basis for the final Te Aro drawing and I added in a guy having a smoke and woman hanging laundry.

Jared sent me a ton of images from New Zealand’s Great Strike of 1913. I tried to go back to an almost flat image of a banner and a man marching—but it kind of sucked! I liked the action of the picture of the cops charging and took the drawing from there. At this point, I still thought that these images would float above the chapter titles.

The Runanga Miners’ hall was pretty straight forward.
At this point I think Jared decided to go full page with these, and my random dimensions (mostly, but not all, horizontally based) changed to standard (vertical) page dimensions (though, by then, there weren’t that many left to do).

For the chapter titled ‘Workingman’s Paradise’ I wanted some kind of imagery based on the pictures of miners and lumberjacks that Jared had sent me. I loved this one picture with a bunch of lumberjacks (and one little kid) standing around a giant stump with a banner that said “Lucky Hit”. This ended up being the basis of the image I drew, but I went in a little different direction.

And the final image I made was of Josephs himself. Jared sent me a portrait of the agitator as a young man (he was handsome one!). I did a few sketches of this. The one I liked—I think the hatching fit in with the more architectural drawings—made him look a little sinister (whereas in the picture he looks kind of charming and pensive). I changed the background on this but it didn’t really change it much. I’m a little embarrassed to say that I eventually threw it into illustrator and abstracted it out a little, which I liked! and which also softened the image some.

Finally, Jared took the original image of the generic tailor ran with it and, I think, made a great cover.

Work and class...

From The Problem with Work, available at libcom.org 

"The difference between the concepts [work and class]* is perhaps most starkly posed when work understood as a process is compared to class conceived in terms of an outcome that is, as a category (whether explained by reference to ownership, wealth, income, occupation, or forms of belonging) designed to map patterns of economic inequality...

... Iris Young once argued in favor of substituting the Marxist category of division of labor for class as a primary analytic of Marxist feminism. In this classic contribution to second-wave Marxist feminism, Young describes at least two advantages of this methodological shift. First, the division of labor has at once a broader reach than class and allows a more differentiated application. Not only can it be used to register multiple divisions of labor by class as well as by gender, race, and nation, but it can, as Young explains, also expose "specific cleavages and contradictions within a class" (1981, 51; emphasis added) not just along the lines of gender, race, and nation, but also, potentially, of occupation and income...

 ...Like the division of labor, the category of work seems to me at once more capacious and more finely tuned than the category of class. After all, work, including its absence, is both important to and differently experienced within and across lines of class, gender, race, and nation. In this sense, the politics of and against work has the potential to expand the terrain of class struggle to include actors well beyond that classic figure of traditional class politics, the industrial proletariat. Consider too the second advantage noted by Young: "The category of division of labor can not only refer to a set of phenomena broader than that of class, but also more concrete." Unlike class, by her account, the division of labor "refers specifically to the activity of labor itself, and the specific social and institutional relations of that activity' proceeding thus "at the more concrete level of particular relations of interaction and interdependence in a society" (51). By this measure, whereas class addresses the outcome of laboring activity, the division of labor points toward the activity itself...

...Here too there are similarities between Young's interest in the category of division of labor and my focus on work: after all, work, including the dearth of it, is the way that capitalist valorization bears most directly and most intensively on more and more people's lives. This politics of work could be conceived as a way to link the everyday and sometimes every-night experiences of work its spaces, relations and temporalities; its physical, affective, and cognitive practices; its pains and pleasures to the political problematic of their present modes and codes of organization and relations of rule. Although the category of class remains analytically powerful, I would argue that its political utility is more negligible. The problem is that while the oppositional class category of the industrial period the "working class" may accurately describe most people's relation to waged labor even in a postindustrial economy, it is increasingly less likely to match their self descriptions. The category of the middle class has absorbed so many of our subjective investments that it is difficult to see how the working class can serve as a viable rallying point in the United States today. A politics of work, on the other hand, takes aim at an activity rather than an identity, and a central component of daily life rather than an outcome...

...So in the end, I am not saying that we should stop thinking about class, but rather that focusing on work is one politically promising way of approaching class because it is so expansive, because it is such a significant part of everyday life, because it is something we do rather than a category to which we are assigned, and because for all these reasons it can be raised as a political issue. By this account, work is a point of entry into the field of class analysis through which we might be better able to make class processes more visible, legible, and broadly relevant and, in the process, perhaps provoke class formations yet to come."

 *work here is understood as including unwaged and reproductive work.

Labour History Project Newsletter 55

Check out the latest available newsletter of the Labour History Project (New Zealand), featuring a range of recent and current research, feature articles, news, reviews and more. Includes articles on the Socialist Cross of Honour, the Runanga Miners Hall, political folk music in New Zealand, and more.

Socialist Cross of Honor: markings of a working class counter-culture

Socialist Cross of Honor #5

 Reproduced from the LHP Newsletter #55.

In July 1911 William Cornish Jnr, a young conscientious objector from Brooklyn, Wellington, stood before Magistrate Riddell on charges of refusing to register under the Defence Act of 1909. Amended in 1910 and finally enforced in April 1911, the Act required compulsory registration of all men between the ages of 14 and 30 as an “attempt to re-organize [New Zealand’s] defence forces along the lines agreed to at the Imperial Naval and Military Conference” held in London in 1909.1 Cornish Jnr, having “no intention of obeying the law” and “prepared to take the consequences,” refused to pay the £4 fine. Instead, he was sentenced to 21 days in jail—becoming, according to Ryan Bodman, the first Pakeha political prisoner in the nation’s history.2

William Cornish Snr shared his son’s sentiment and echoed the rumblings of an antimilitarist movement gathering momentum—a movement angered by creeping militarism and state curtailment of liberty. “What is this terrible offence for which my son is punished?” wrote Cornish Snr to the Evening Post. “He refuses to register himself like a dog. A dog registered and collared!” He concluded defiantly:

My son is told to defend his country. He has got to defend his father’s property. And how much property has his father got? None. Nine-tenths of the working class—the class I belong to—have no property; therefore it means that the ruling class—the capitalists—have got the cheek and impudence to ask the sons of the workers to defend their property… I am happy and proud to be the father of such a noble son who has the courage to say: No! No! No!”3

Harry Cooke, son of the New Zealand Socialist Party’s (NZSP) Christchurch secretary Fred Cooke, was another young objector who said “No! No! No!” to the fine and was sent to jail. He was not the last. Backed by antimilitarist groups like Louise Christie’s Anti-Militarist League and Charles Mackie’s National Peace Council, along with working class bodies such as the NZSP, the Federation of Labor and the Passive Resisters’ Union (PRU), youths across New Zealand were refusing registration and compulsory military training in large numbers. By 1913 the Maoriland Worker, which started a ‘Roll of Honour’ on the jailing of Cornish Jnr, had 94 names listed (many with double sentences), while prosecutions under the Act had reached a figure of 7030.

Yet despite the statistics, antimilitarist ‘shirkers’ and ‘anti-defenders’ were in the minority—a movement on the margins of a highly conformist culture. They were often ridiculed by the mainstream press—“we have precious little sympathy with the silly, notoriety-craving youths,” wrote one scathing editor.4 Therefore, the support of collective associations like the NZSP and the PRU formed an important part of resisting militarism in its various forms, and dealing with the reprisals. With the creation of these associations came a working class counterculture with its own institutions, values and symbols, a “means of defining and winning space within the social structure.”5 Newspapers, banners, badges, slogans, songs, social events, physical spaces and social relationships were just some of the ways working people expressed their solidarity. PRU members wore distinctive red, white and gold badges on their jackets, published the spritely Repeal and had their own hockey team “with bright red uniforms and big crowds to watch them on Saturday which highlights the popularity of their cause.”6 The NZSP had its halls, Sunday schools, stationery (“the red flag and Socialist motto being very prominent”) and in 1912 even considered purchasing their own van.7

So when Cornish Jnr and Harry Cooke were imprisoned, the communities of which they were a part rallied together in true countercultural fashion. Although a demonstration planned at the prison gates was foiled when Cornish Jnr was released an hour early, the Wellington socialists threw two receptions for him at the Socialist Hall. The first, attended by a crowd of over 300, saw Cornish Jnr receive a medal from the Runanga Anti-Conscription League—possibly the first celebratory medal of its kind in the history of the New Zealand labour movement. Speaking on behalf of the League, Robert Semple “congratulated Cornish on defying an immoral law” before presenting him “with a handsome gold medal, which bears the following inscription:—‘Presented to W. Cornish, junr., by the Runanga Anti-Conscription League. 26/7/11.’”8 The following night saw Cornish Jnr receive a second medal – the Socialist Cross of Honor:

The design of this cross is based on the Victoria Cross. On the centre shield are engraved the name of the NZ Socialist Party, the number and the name of the boy. In the centre are a red flag and the words ‘Anti-Militarism’ and at the bottom is written ‘For Courage’”9

Cooke received his Socialist Cross in a similar ceremony a month later, presented by the Christchurch NZSP in front of a crowd of 200.

Cornish Jnr, as pictured by Bloomfield

Cartoonist William Blomfield, well known for his anti-socialist satire, was quick to jump on the paradox of anti-militarists receiving medals. His drawing of a menacing Cornish Jnr—medals abreast and Union Jack torn in his hands—is like a patriotic poster gone awry. All the elements are there: flags, conscription posters and medals portrayed in a way to stir even the mildest patriot, but for all the wrong reasons. The paradox was not lost on the NZSP. “Many may ask why the Socialist Party is initiating the military authorities and their barbaric symbols of slaughter,” wrote Fred Cooke. “We answer that our cross is symbolical of peace and brotherhood, and in after life the boys who have gained them can justly boast of striking a blow for liberty and fraternity.”10 Indeed, as the British cultural theorist Raymond Williams has pointed out, the crucial difference between the elite and the working class in cultural terms was not “language, not dress, not leisure… but between alternative ideas of the nature of social relationships.”11 The Socialist Cross may have been a medal originally based on militarist conquest, but in the hands of the working class its social value was immensely different.

It is not known how many of these unique medals were produced. By mid-1912 the NZSP was appealing for funds to keep the practice going: “there are a number of crosses in the course of being finished, and by appearances we shall require a larger number than was anticipated.”12 References to the Socialist Cross disappear from the Maoriland Worker after June 1912 and they are missing from collectors-catalogues such as Leon Morel’s Catalogue of Medals, Medalets, Medallions of New Zealand, 1865-1940. It appears none are held in any cultural heritage institutions, making them even rarer [Edit: in August 2014 Te Papa relocated one in their collection: http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Object/113904].

So imagine my surprise when, after giving a talk on New Zealand’s labour movement at Occupy Christchurch (in walking distance of the PRU’s former headquarters, the Addington Railway Workshops), I was approached by a man named Walter Dobbs claiming to have PRU badges in his possession. At that stage I had no idea any such medals existed, and assumed Walter simply meant the gold PRU badges worn by its members. Instead, in his Addington storage unit, he presented me with not one but two Socialist Crosses. A cross with the faded inscription #24 was in poor condition, but the Socialist Cross of Honor #5, given to PRU founder James Kirkwood Worrall after imprisonment on 5 March 1912, was as good as new. 

The Worrall brothers wearing their PRU ribbons

Walter also had transcribed copies of Worrall’s letters from Ripapa Island in Lyttelton Harbour, an internment camp for conscientious objectors. Marched through Lyttelton at the point of bayonets, Worrall and other resisters were shipped to the island in June 1913 where they soon refused to clean weaponry and carry out military drill. “They were placed on half-rations, to which ten of the PRU members responded with a hunger strike.”13 As well as letters to his mother describing the hunger strike and island conditions, Worrall and Reg Williams managed to get an impassioned plea to the Labour Unity Conference being held in Wellington, causing the entire group of over 400 delegates to march on Parliament and demand a hearing with Prime Minster William Massey:

It is now the morning of July 2, and ten of us have refused the fifth meal offered us. Three of our number are ill, one seriously. It makes no difference, however, as we have decided that unless we are allowed to return to the barrack room and given our full rations, we will be carried off the island dead, or as near dead as our tormentors will allow us to get… Our message to you, our comrades, is to fight hard. No quarter! No compromise! No surrender! We are prepared to play the game to the last: all we ask is for you to do the same. Let the world know that this little country is game enough to challenge the power of the military autocracy which is threatening to overwhelm the world, and is ruining the workers of the world.14

Massey called an immediate Cabinet meeting and the following day promised the conference that conditions on the island would be improved, military drill would not be enforced and inquiries into all complaints would be made. Although not the unconditional release originally demanded, the hunger strikers and resulting publicity had won their point.15

These letters give a rare insight into the fraught activity of antimilitarists like Worrall and highlight the importance of both collective and family support, the latter being a key but under-examined institution.16 “With your letters time passes fairly quickly,” wrote Worrall to his mother, just after the hunger strike,

I received Father’s note, and was very disappointed that he could not come across… I hope that Father left the fruit across there, because I feel fit to eat some. Perhaps you may be able to come another day this week—try, anyway, because I want Father to see the place. Don’t forget to make things hot outside. I will write more soon. Don’t worry, we will win yet. Don’t forget the fruit. W Hooper and I are waiting for it.17

Likewise, the Socialist Cross and corresponding letters shown to me by Walter highlight how much important archival material relating to the labour movement exists in private collections, its value often unknown to their owners. Sadly, in a time of cuts and mergers, archival outreach is often the last thing on a heritage minister’s mind. That is why labour history and accounts of our working past are important—the continuation of a working class counter-culture held dear to those that struggled to create it. As Fred Cooke wrote in 1911, “in the future, when working-class history comes to be written, our Cross will be held in high esteem.”18



ENDNOTES

1. R.L. Weitzel, ‘Pacifists and Anti-militarists, 1909–1914’, New Zealand Journal of History, 1973, p.128.
2. Maoriland Worker, 14 July 1911; Ryan Bodman, “‘Don’t be a Conscript, be a Man!’ A History of the Passive Resisters’ Union, 1912-1914”, Masters Dissertation, University of Auckland, 2010, p.8.
3. Evening Post, 10 July 1911.
4. Marlborough Express, 7 April 1913.
5. Bill Osgerby, as cited by Alan Howkins. ‘Labour and Culture: mapping the field’ in John Martin & Kerry Taylor, (eds.), Culture and the Labour Movement: essays in New Zealand Labour History, Dunmore Press, 1991, p.26.
6. Maoriland Worker, 28 June 1912. Special thanks to Ryan Bodman for pointing this out to me.
7. NZ Truth, 5 August 1911.
8. Maoriland Worker, 11 August 1911.
9. Maoriland Worker, 25 August 1911.
10. Maoriland Worker, 12 April 1912.
11. Howkins. ‘Labour and Culture: mapping the field’, p.25.
12. Maoriland Worker, 12 April 1912.
13. Bodman, ‘Don’t be a Conscript, be a Man!’, p.21.
14. NZ Truth, 5 July 1913.
15. Bert Roth, ‘The Prisoners of Ripa Island’, Here and Now, November 1954, p.18.
16. Melanie Nolan, ‘Family and Culture: Jack and Maggie McCullough and the Christchurch Skilled Working Class, 1880s-1920s’ in Culture and the Labour Movement, p.164.
17. James Worrall, letter to his mother, 2 July 1913, private collection.
18. Maoriland Worker, 25 August 1911.