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Kōrero: Unions and employee organisations

Compulsory conciliation

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Compulsory conciliation

Neither the employer kneeling on the left nor the pipe-smoking worker on the right appears very comfortable in this 1894 cartoon. William Pember Reeves, minister of labour and of justice, brings them together under his newly-formed compulsory arbitration system, a world first which provoked much discontent but survived in some form for the next 80 years.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library

Reference: A-312-8-005

by Ashley Hunter

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Erik Olssen, Unions and employee organisations – Reviving the unions, 1890–1913, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/cartoon/22260/compulsory-conciliation (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Erik Olssen, i tāngia i te 4 February 2010.