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Abstract
This article is the first study investigating New Zealand’s early legislation in apprenticeship from the perspective of historical institutionalism. It shows that, between 1865 and the 1940s, New Zealand’s apprenticeship system was less liberal in character than it is today, because a collective skill formation regime, involving dual training, was built up. As apprenticeship legislation neither developed as a response to employers’ skill needs nor was promoted by trade unions as a means of labour market control, it was mainly state intervention which brought New Zealand on this track. As a least-likely case of collective skill formation, New Zealand corroborates the view that state intervention and the emergence of a cross-class support coalition are crucial for the creation of collective skill formation institutions.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the tremendous support received from the Department of Politics at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand which hosted me as a visiting fellow to conduct research into New Zealand's economic history. I thank Barbara Brookes, Brian Roper, and John Stenhouse for their advice on New Zealand economic history and political economy and the reviewers of this journal for their very helpful comments.
Notes
1. Please note that between the 1920s and 1940s, the New Zealand apprenticeship system did not perform like the German dual system because apprentices’ numbers, as well as the degree of standardisation and certification of skills were much lower. However, as in Germany, school attendance was made compulsory and employers and unions were involved in the provision and administration of training. New Zealand legislated union involvement in apprenticeship system even much earlier than Germany. In Germany, it was only in 1969 (!) when unions’ participation was introduced into legislation, while in New Zealand corporatist apprenticeship committees were established with the Apprentices Act 1923, thus, more than 40 years earlier. Until the act of 1969, German unions were involved in training only through their role in collective bargaining because apprentices’ wages and working conditions were regulated by industrial agreements between employers and unions (Thelen Citation2004).
2. Historical newspapers articles were searched by using the online database ‘Papers Past’ (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast). This database contains digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals for the period between 1839 and 1945.
3. This act also permitted that farming apprenticeship could be made in the United Kingdom.
4. After the 1999 Labour Government continued with the liberal training approach of the 1980s (Strathdee Citation2003), in recent years there has been prompt government–employers cooperation to deal with skill shortages and the lack of apprentices (Sung, Raddon, and Ashton Citation2006, 67–74). Furthermore, the 1992 Industry Training Act established national Industry Training Organisations (ITOs) to improve skill development at the sectoral level. However, these initiatives are not comparable with New Zealand’s early legislation.
5. Please note that the historical-institutionalist political economic literature on skill formation has a dynamic conception of institutions. It follows Streeck and Thelen (Citation2005, 16) who conceive institutions as ‘systems of social interaction’: ‘What an institution is, is defined by continuous interaction [between actors] … during which ever new interpretations of the rule will be discovered, invented, suggested, rejected, or for the time being, adopted’ (Streeck and Thelen Citation2005, 16; authors’ own italics).
6. Probably, the state’s preferences were also affected by its role as the most important industrial employer of skilled labour, but available primary sources do not allow us to investigate this hypothesis.
7. In response to the Sweating Commission, the Conference of the Trades and Labour Councils had drafted suggestions which entered Reeves’s draft for a new Master and Apprentice Act (Olssen Citation1995, 196).
8. Employers’ criticism is well documented in the Appendix of the Legislative Council (2 November 1898), Labour Bills Committee, Master and Apprentice Bill, No. 6 (Labour Bills Committee Citation1898) and the following newspaper article: Press, Volume LV, Issue 10208, 2 December 1898, 4 (The Master and Apprentice Bill Citation1898).
9. Stromback (Citation2006) uses this expression for the Australian case.
10. The Council submitted its draft to Prime Minister Massey, as well as to the Ministers of Education and Labour (Apprentices, Liability of Employers, Important Amendments of Law Suggested, Deputation to Ministers Citation1918, 4; Trade and Labour Notes Citation1918, 8). The full name of the Council was the Wellington District Council of the New Zealand Federation of Labour.
11. In the report of the Apprenticeship Conference of 1929, it is highlighted that the 1923 Act was prepared and drafted by the tripartite conferences and sub-committee on the basis of a draft bill which the DoL brought into the discussion, but which was comprehensively amended and altered by employers and workers (Apprenticeship Conference: Condensed Reports of Proceedings Citation1929, 2). Looking back on the 1923 Act, Labour Minister WA Veitch at the 1929 Apprenticeship Conference even highlighted that there was no discussion and change to the act when it passed through Parliament and that the proposals were accepted ‘without any comment’ (Apprenticeship Conference: Condensed Reports of Proceedings Citation1929, 2).
12. Preparing the bill, the DoL reviewed legislation in other countries (North South Wales, Queensland, England, US, South Africa, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland) and conducted several studies (Apprenticeship Question 1923).
13. Yet, this reform was a temporary emergency instrument effected through the Industrial Arbitration and Conciliation Amendment Act of 1922, which was initiated by Labour Minister GJ Anderson (Tucker Citation1941, 53; Holt Citation1986, 153).
14. The Labour Party in New Zealand was not founded until 1916.
15. However, Mitchell still opposed school attendance during working hours (Apprenticeship Conference: Condensed Reports of Proceedings 1929: 6).
16. In Australia, the construction sector is an exception since in this trade collective institutions survived (Toner Citation2008). Toner (Citation2008: 417) maintains that the apprenticeship system in the construction sector ‘is a relatively isolated co-ordinated market ‘island’ in a rising liberal market ‘sea’’.