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 workpeople
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 manufacturers
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
