LEIPZIG. 303
trade unions affiliated to the Leipzig Trades Council {Gewerkschaftskartell)
numbered some 54,000 members, or, say, one in every 10 of the population of
the town. With the exception of Berlin and Hamburg, no other German city
possesses so large a body of organized labour, and besides Berlin and Hamburg
there are only two other German cities, viz., Nuremberg and Bremen, where
the proportion of organized labour to total population is greater than in
Leipzig.
It should be added that the figures given above with regard to Leipzig
relate only to what are called the “ free ” trade unions, and that with the addition
of the Hirsch-Duncker (anti-Socialistic) unions the total number of organised
workpeople in Leipzig would be somewhat larger. As might be expected under
these circumstances, the number of trades in which the conditions of labour are
regulated by collective agreements is larger in Leipzig than in most German
towns. As a rule the operation of such agreements in Germany does not
extend to the great industrial establishments, and is in the main confined to
trades in which the employers are organised in guilds and have attained the
status of master craftsmen {Handwerksmeister) by passing through the stages
of apprentice and journeyman in the service of a guild member. Leipzig
furnishes some notable exceptions to this rule, and in the printing and allied
trades, in bookbinding, in certain of the wood-working trades, and in the
breweries, the existing agreements are operative in large and small establishments
alike. All these agreements specify a minimum rate of, time - wage to be
paid to qualified men, and the number of hours which shall constitute a day’s
work, and from these data it is possible to calculate a standard weekly rate of
wages. Where the time-wage system predominates, as it does in the building
trades generally, the rate so calculated may be taken as representing the
predominant weekly rate of wages of men throughout the trade. This is not the
case, however, in the other trades, where piece-work is the rule and time-work the
exception. There the amount earned in a full week, without overtime, as shown
by the employers’ pay sheets, is usually greater—in many cases considerably
greater—than the amount obtained by multiplying the standard rate per hour
by the number of hours constituting the regular working week. The relation
which some of the standard weekly time rates bear to what is actually earned
on piece-work in a full week (without overtime) may be seen from the following
examples based upon particulars extracted from the pay sheets of leading
employers of labour in certain industries of great local importance.
Engineering and Metal-working.—Patternmakers—who belong to the
Woodworkers’ Union—are entitled, under the terms of their agreement, to
24s. 4d. for 54 hours on time-wage. Of five of the leading machine-making
firms who furnished returns to the writer only two worked 54 hours, while
two others worked 57 and one worked 60 hours per week. In one of the
establishments working 54 hours the patternmakers earned 27s., and in the
other 28s. 11 d. in the full week. In the establishment which worked 60 hours
the patternmaker’s earnings were only 25s., while in the two establishments
working 57 hours the majority earned 29s. 8d. and 34s. respectively. Regard
being had to the relative importance of the firms, the predominant piece earnings
of patternmakers lie somewhere within the range of 27s. and 34s. in a week
of 54 to 57 hours.
Typefounders, under their agreement, are paid 27s. 6c?. for a week of
54 hours when on time-wage. A return from one of the largest firms employing
this class of labour in Leipzig, however, showed the average earnings for 1905
to have been 30s. Qd. per week of 54 hours. This figure was arrived at by
dividing the year’s wages-bill for typefounders by the total number of days
worked by that class, a full record being kept of the time worked by each man
during the year. The resulting average day’s earnings was then multiplied
by 6 to obtain the earnings for a full week.
Printing Trade.—For hand compositors on time-wage the agreement
provides a rate of 27s. for a week of 54 hours in Leipzig. The average
earnings of 50 such compositors employed by the large firm referred to above
were, however, found to be 33s. per week of 54 hours in 1905, while of 20 hand
compositors employed by another (but less important) firm the majority were
•returned as having earned 30s. per week of the same duration in October, 1905
