Workers at Southern Cross Biscuit factory in the early 1900s
Monday is Labour Day - and a holiday. Liz Wylie checks out why Labour Day means a day off work.
IT IS the annual holiday that working people yearn for throughout the short winter days - time to plant the spuds and get the garden in order, take a first swim of the season or head out of town for a break.
Labour Day has been a national holiday in New Zealand since 1900 and was "Mondayised" in 1910, giving everyone in the country a long weekend to celebrate but what is it we are celebrating and why?
The man credited with kicking it all off was English migrant Samuel Parnell and he did it way back in 1840.
Arriving at Port Nicholson (now Wellington), Parnell was in the enviable position of coming to a new country with a skill that was in great demand.
Carpenters in London at the time worked 12 to 14 hour days and Parnell had argued that the hours were too long but had been unsuccessful in instigating union action to have them reduced.
Arriving in New Zealand, he was asked by shipping agent George Hunter to build a store on Lambton Quay.
Parnell agreed to do it but said he would work for no more than eight hours a day.
"We have 24 hours per day given us, eight of these should be for work, eight for sleeping, and the remaining eight for recreation and in which for men to do what little things they want for themselves" said Parnell.
Given the shortage of skilled labour available in the colony, Hunter had little option but to agree to the terms.
Not content to accept the conditions only for himself, Parnell told all new migrants arriving at the port not to work more than eight hours a day.
At a workers' meeting held in October 1840, it was agreed that the working day should last for eight hours and anyone accepting less would be tossed into the harbour.
The following year, road builders in Hutt Valley went on strike when ordered to work longer hours and the eight hour day became the norm.
The road builders' action was not the first recorded strike action in New Zealand.
In 1821 in the Bay of Islands, Maori timber workers stopped work because they wanted to be paid in money or gunpowder, instead of food.
New Zealand's first big nationwide strike in 1890 saw workers at ports around the country go on strike, initially in support of Australian unions.
On October 28 that year, Labour Day was celebrated for the first time with parades in all the main centres.
A highlight of the Wellington parade was the appearance of an elderly Samuel Parnell, who died a short time later.
The Liberal Party government, led by Whanganui's own John Ballance, was elected the following year.
Still the longest serving government in New Zealand history, they would govern until 1912 and establish the basis of the later welfare state, with old age pensions, votes for women and develop a system for settling industrial disputes, which was acceptable to employers and trade unions as well as introducing Labour Weekend.
Labour Day parades and picnics continued for a few decades and according to an advertisement in the Wanganui Chronicle from October 18, 1921 the town celebrated in a big way with a Labour Day Carnival and "People's Popular Picnic" held at the racecourse.
Picnics, it seems, remained a popular Labour Day activity and the Whanganui Regional Museum has a sizeable photographic collection of local people enjoying alfresco dining.
In a story published in the Chronicle in 2012, Liz Hamblyn wrote that picnics were organised by workplaces as well as churches and schools.
Public Labour Day picnics and carnivals seem to have ceased after the 1920s and have disappeared from living memory.
Dave Vallely, who was secretary for the Labour Elecorate Committee in Whanganui for 37 years, said he does not recall attending Labour Day picnics but he does remember boarding riverboats to go to Hipango Park for Labour Party picnics.
"Those picnics were great, we ate potted rabbit and salmon with a glass of cold beer.
"It was all about celebrating leisure and family time."
He remembers the closing of the East Town railway workshops in 1986 as a sad time for Whanganui workers.
"They employed around 450 workers and they trained a lot of young people.
"It was a real blow to the community when they closed down."
Mr Vallely said there have been, and still are, some very good employers in Whanganui and one that existed before Labour Day was the Southern Cross biscuit manufacturing plant.
The business, started by Mr Dustin at Wicksteed Place in 1886, had an onsite flour mill and all the biscuit tins were made by a tinsmiths department on site.
The business was sold to a consortium in 1900 although the name was retained.
The business outgrew the Wicksteed Place site and in 1902 a new up-to-date factory was built at Murray's Foundry.
The factory was destroyed by fire in 1910 but was quickly rebuilt in brick by the well known local firm of Russell & Bignell.
The biscuit factory remained in production until 1959 when it was sold to Griffin and Sons Ltd.
Photos from the museum collection show a large group of smiling workers in front of the factory and flour mill.
Whanganui, along with the rest of New Zealand, would have been affected by the 1951 wharfies (waterside port workers) action of refusing to work overtime, in protest over a low pay increase.
Employers locked them out of the workplace, and the government banned union meetings and publications.
Other unions supported the wharfies, and 22,000 people were out of work for five months.
As we celebrate the 126th anniversary of Labour Day, resident doctors at Whanganui Hospital have participated in a national strike over work hours this week.
There were 700 Whanganui education staff taking part in a series of national stop work meetings last month.
They are opposing a government funding proposal that they say will adversely affect working conditions and threaten jobs.
Affco Imlay workers recently celebrated an Employment Court win against their employer after Affco appealed the court's earlier ruling that refusing to employ workers who did not sign individual contracts amounted to unlawful lockout.
When the working week resumes on Tuesday, some Cavalier Spinners employees in Whanganui no longer have jobs to go to.
The company has worked to support the affected staff in this instance but it is a tough time for 23 workers and their families.
It seems a great pity that New Zealand, once a world leader in industrial relations, should be dealing with disputes like these in 2016.
We may be a very different country from the one Samuel Parnell knew but it seems his offer of eight hours work for a fair day's pay is still a good one.
