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.