Immigration and Production Line Margins in the 1950s Vehicle Building Industry

In the 1950s, the Australian automotive industry exerted pressure on the Common wealth government to import southern European labour on a mass scale. The employers' aim was to overcome severe labour shortages on the production lines, particularly in the areas where Australian-born and non-Mediterranean immi grant men were generally reluctant to work. Prior to and during the early part of this decade, the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation (since January 1993 the Automotive section of the Automotive, Metal and Engineering Union) were exploit ing the labour shortages in the industry to strengthen their claim for the introduc tion of a uniform, semi-skilled, second-class tradesmen's margin for production line workers. Two major car makers were already paying this semi-skilled wage to line workers. The mass recruitment of southern European labour by the vehicle building industry was one of the factors undermining the production line workers' claim for this semi-skilled margin. The other important factors were Commissioner Galvin's rigid views about the marginal rates and comparative wage justice and the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation's organizational weakness and remote ness from its members.