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

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432 SOLINGEN. electric power, used not only by the grinders, but also by other workmen tor their smaller machines ; and by the extension of the tramways, which enable the work to be conveyed to and from the employers by the women and children. From the point of view of the employer the system has some incidental advantages ; he can increase or decrease (according to the state of trade) the amount of work which he gives out more easily than he can increase or decrease the number of employees in his factory ; and, moreover, the burden of insurance payments is much less, since he does not contribute for home workers, who bear the cost alone. Even the largest factory owners employ much domestic industry : there are practically no factories in which all the processes for the production of any particular article are carried on. The largest cutlery firm of all employs 900 workpeople in the factory and 1,500 in the home industry. The evils which seem inseparable from home labour appear in Solingen also—the absence of adequate inspection, the excessive hours of labour (often a consequence of the low rates of earnings), amounting not infrequently to 13 or 14 hours daily, the unrestricted employment of women and children in subsidiary processes, and the unhealthy housing conditions where, as often happens, the work is carried on in the dwelling-rooms. The men are organised in a number of unions, the chief being the Solingen branch of the Socialist Metal-workers’ Union, which in 1906 had about 3,500 members in the town and the surrounding district, divided about equally between home and factory workers. This union includes workmen of all branches, but there are a large number of other unions of various degrees of importance ; the tendency hitherto has been for the workmen of each branch to organise themselves independently, and to act with little regard for the others ; thus there are separate unions of the sword-hardeners, sword-grinders, table-knife grinders, scissor-grinders, pocket-knife-grinders, razor-grinders, pocket-knife cutlers, &c. There are also “ Christian ” (Roman Catholic) unions, but these at present are weak. The existence of so many home-workers and the great number of small masters render trade union propaganda and combination difficult. It may be noted here that the high degree of specialisation character istic of the Solingen industry has the result that a workman does not easily turn to new work, and that he is very stationary and slow to seek employment elsewhere. The returns of the trade unions of metal-workers show that in times of good and bad trade equally there is a remarkably small movement of labour to and from towns like Solingen and Remscheid. The employers are organised in the Association for the Protection of the Economic Interests of the Solingen Industry, which is composed solely of factory owners, and the Employers’ Union, which aims at including all employers in its ranks. There are also societies (more or less effective) of the employers in various branches, and a Chamber of Commerce. The normal hours of work in the factories are from 7.0 a.m. to 7.0 p.m. with three intervals of a quarter of an hour in the course of the morning, an hour and a half at mid-day, and a quarter of an hour from 4 to 4.15 p.m. The morning and afternoon pauses are for " coffee,” and the great majority of workmen go home to dinner. The tramways encourage this practice to some extent, for a monthly ticket can be obtained for 7s., which for only four journeys a day on week-days works out at rather less than Id. a journey ; but most workmen live near enough to the factories to be able to walk to and from their homes. Piece-work is the general rule in the Solingen industry, and for most of the branches there are wages-agreements, which are often extremely minute and complicated ; thus in the agreement of the table-knife grinders, there are some 200 different items. This system of wages-agreements, it may be noted, is more than a century old ; the earliest was sanctioned by the Government of the Duchy of Berg in 1789. The range of earnings in the same occupation is often very great, depending on the skill of the workman and the quality of the work which he has to do, and also, in the case of the home-workers, on the number of hours they choose to work, and the amount of assistance which they can get from members of their families. Further, in the case of the home-worker who

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