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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10 BERLIN. without compensation stands in the way of its disappearance in Berlin. The practice of sleeping in formerly prevailed here, but it has been abolished, to the satisfaction of both employers and workpeople. Of other workpeople, bakers in private employment earn as a rule 27s., with 3s. supplied in kind, while bakers in co-operative concerns earn 35s. There are many small button factories, for the most part employing ten or a dozen workpeople. Workers in horn and mother-of-pearl earn 32s. per week, in composition, 26s., and in metal (mostly girls), 18s. Wages in the building trades have steadily increased of late years, until in most branches the rates now prevailing are the highest in Germany. All the rates are hourly and are regulated by agreements. The agreement of the hod carriers introduces the reciprocal principle, by requiring minimum work in return for minimum wages ; 26 bricks must be carried at a time to cellar, ground floor, and first story, 24 to the second and third stories, and 22 to the fourth and higher stories. It is possible to follow the course of bricklayers’ and carpenters’ wages for a series of years. In 1879 the usual rate of pay in each case was from 4d. to 4^7. per hour. According to the central unions of these trades later rates have been as follows, the rates since 1899 being fixed by agreements :— Bricklayers. 1885 1890 1895 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 72d. 7-5 d, 7-8(7. 7- 8d. 8- ld. 8-4d. 8- 7(7. 9- 0(7. Carpenters. 5- 1 d. 6*0 d. 63d. 6- 3(7. 7- 8(7. 7-8(7. 7- 8(7. 84(7. 84(7. 8- 7(7. 9- 0(7. A comparison of these rates suggests that the higher price of labour is an equal factor with the higher price of land in causing the increase in rents which has occurred during recent years. Side by side with this increase in the rate of wages there has been a decrease in the number of hours. Prior to 1870 the rule was eleven hours daily, but by 1872 the ten-hours day had been introduced ; the years 1896 to 1899 saw the struggle for a nine-hours day, embodied in the wages agreement of the latter year ; the masons are now agitating for a day of eight hours. A large number of home industries afford occupation for a host of work people of both sexes in Berlin and neighbourhood. The principal industries which are in part or altogether carried on in the homes of the workers are various branches of the clothing industry, the manufacture of linen underwear, of hats caps, ties, feathers, and flowers, the tobacco, boot and shoe, leather and paper goods industries, the manufacture of baskets and sticks, and the cigar and cigarette industry. It is estimated that the home workers of all classes kreativ exceed 100,000. In 1905 the Berlin Chamber of Commerce instituted an investigation into the extent, character, and conditions of these home industries, as a result of which it was found that female workers—to a large extent married—greatly predominate, further, that the home work is to a very great degree unskilled and that it is a means of livelihood to a large number of physically deteriorated workers who are unsuited to factory employment. The two most striking peculiarities of the clothing trade are that it is seasonal, as a consequence of which earnings are very irregular, and that it is overwhelmingly in the hands of middlemen. The latter word ' is the obvious rendering,, of the German term " Zwischenmeister,” for though the word “ sweater ” is quite familiar to persons engaged in this trade there is a reluctance to allow that any analogy exists between the Berlin “ middleman ” and the " sweater ” of the London East End. It is only rarely that clothing manufac turers have workshops of their own, and where they exist it is for the^ making of high-class goods of a special kind. Virtually the whole trade is in the hands of the middlemen, with whom their employers make contracts at the beginning of

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