Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Social Movements - 1. Labour Questions and Social politics - Labour Conditions and Workmen's Wages. By B. Nyström
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
<350
v. social movements.
the bottom. The State Authorities are now investigating the conditions of life
and of labour of this working class, which is compelled to spend a great part
of the year in put-up timber shanties and to subsist on what is frequently
wretchedly cooked and extraordinarily monotonous fare. The more and more
imperative need of a well-qualified and settled body of forest labourers has in
recent times occasioned certain measures on the part both of the State and of
private forest-owners with the object of procuring a supply of steady labour by
supplying the workmen with small holdings (egna hem), and by providing them
with constant occupation.
Workers engaged in Industry, Trade, and Transport. From 1870 to 1910
that portion of the population which subsisted on industry, trade and transport
has increased from 20 % to about 45 %. That this desertion of the country
and abandonment of an agricultural mode of existence for the life of the cities
has often been greater than the needs of industry have actually called for is
proved inter alia by the reports of the public labour exchanges (arbetsförmedling)
which show with the most perfect clearness the radical difference between the
labour market in agriculture, on the one hand, where there is practically always
a steady and abundant demand for labour, and the industrial occupations, and
the like, on the other, where the supply of labour is as a rule greatly in the
excess.
Whereas in agriculture there still survive considerable remnants of the ancient
patriarchal relations between master and servant, in industry the contrast between
employer and employed is coming more and more sharply into evidence. Whereas
the apprentice formerly lived in his master’s house and accompanied him in his
work, nowadays their relations to one another may be typically expressed by the
principle which an actual collective agreement in the furniture-making branch
formulates in the words: "Employers and workmen are not bound by one
another longer than the period for which the agreement with regard to each
particular piece of work is in force." According as handicraft and small
establishments are being ousted in one domain after the other by industry and big
establishments, these class distinctions are rendered more and more acute; for,
whereas in -the crafts employers and independent workers without labourers are
stated actually to exceed the employees in numbers (in 1910 63 000 and 54 000
respectively), in the entire manufacturing industry there are on an average
26 workmen to a factory, and in the large industry about one hundred workmen
to every establishment. If moreover we take into consideration that about 75 %
of the entire working personnel occupied in larger industry are engaged in the
service of joint-stock companies, it will be readily realized how impersonal the
relation between industrial employers and their workmen is bound to be.
The number of workers engaged in industry, trade, and transport is at the
present moment rather above than below 500 000. Out of this half million about
335 000 (inclusive of 46 000 grown-up women and 44 000 persons under 18
years of age) fell in 1911 to manufacturing industry and mining; these 335 000
again are estimated to have been distributed as follows: 4 % in the stone
industry, 5 % in the mining industry, 12 % in the iron industry, 11 % in the
mechanical works, 15 % in the timber industry, 4 % in the wood pulp industry,
12 % in the textile industry, and 37 % in other industries.
Whereas the rate of wages in the agricultural market is determined in the
main by the local supply and demand of labour, in the case of industry wages
and conditions of employment are also greatly affected by the line of policy
adopted by the employers’ associations and trades-unions. (Cf. below). The results
of these negotiations and contests of these parties have in extensive measure
settled by "collective bargaining" (kollektivavtal), and these trade (collective)
agreements at present govern wages and conditions of employment in a great
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
