Cost of living in German towns

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 866449027

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-93831

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Cost of living in German towns

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1908

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (LXI, 548 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

PLAUEN. 407 time as can be spared from household duties, and as the only needful qualifications are patience and care the scale of remuneration is low, so that a mother, assisted by her children and using all her spare time, cannot earn more than Is. 3d. to Is. §d. in a day. It has been estimated that, in and around Plauen, there are altogether from 50,000 to 60,000 workpeople wholly or partly dependent upon the lace and embroidery industry, and that from 2| to 3 million pounds’ worth of lace and embroidery are produced in the district in the course of a year. The present report, however, is concerned more particularly with the adult male workpeople employed in the chief industries of Plauen, and these number only 7,689 among the 23,907 workpeople employed in the factories and work shops subject to inspection on May 1st, 1906. Of these 7,689 men (over 21 years of age) 4,091 are employed in the textile industry, leaving some 3,600 to be distributed among the remaining factories and workshops in Plauen. Many of the men have their homes in one or other of the surrounding villages, their practice being to come to Plauen on Monday morning, work in town all the week and return to their homes in the country late on Saturday night. While in town they rent a bedroom, the usual weekly charge for this accommo dation (which includes coffee and roll in the morning) being 2^ marks or, say, half-a-crown. An attempt to secure a uniform scale of wages for the lace and embroidery industry was made in 1905 by the local branch of the German Federation of Textile Operatives, but failed owing to the opposition of the employers, and the same result has attended the few efforts made from time to time by the work people in other trades. It would seem indeed that the preponderance of the female element among the occupied working classes of Plauen has created an environment unfavourable to the development of strong labour unions and consequently of collective bargaining in the fixing of labour conditions. The total membership of the Trade Unions affiliated to the Plauen Trades Council (Gewerkschaftskartell) in 1906 was about 4,200, distributed among the various groups of trades as follows :— Group of Trades. Membership of Trade Unions. Building Metal-working and engineering Textiles ... Printing and allied trades Wood-working ... Food, drink, and tobacco Other ... ... ... ••• Total 1,482 673 1,100 208 231 54 449 . 4,197 With the single exception of the printing trade, in which the minimum wages and maximum hours of labour are determined by the agreement in force throughout the greater part of Germany, standard rates of wages are unknown in Plauen. For almost every trade, however, there exists a.rate which is recognised as locally current. The following Table shows the wages current in various occupations at October, 1905, together with the number of hours per week usually worked. In the case of the building trades, the figures are based on data furnished by the senior masters (Obermeister) of the various trade guilds. The weekly rates have been computed by multiplying the current hourly rate by the number of hours usually worked per week. The wages shown for the printing trade are the minimum rates as fixed for Plauen by the general agreement operative throughout the greater part of Germany. In the textile industry where men are paid exclusively on the piece-wage system, it has been necessary to obtain from the leading firms returns based on their pay-sheets and showing the amounts most usually earned in a full week exclusive of overtime at October, 1905. The data set out in the following Table are based upon the returns so obtained.

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