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
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v. social movements.
of remuneration for their work performed in the traditional way and in the
traditional time, received a wage partly in money and partly in kind, frequently
by the grant of what was called "barnsäd" (that is, so and so much corn adjusted
to a certain extent according to the size and needs of each family). Nowadays
conditions of employment in the majority of the Swedish iron works are
regulated by a national trade collective agreement concluded in 1908 between
the Järnbruksförbundet, the Iron Works Federation and the corresponding
trades-unions. This agreement rests on the basis of wages paid solely in cash,
fixed under the explicit assumption that the workmen should surrender all
claim to such advantages as free lodging, free fuel, contributions in aid of rent,
potato beds, and the like. In case a workman should nevertheless desire to
have a free dwelling, free ground, or the like assigned to him by the company,
he will be obliged to submit to the estimated value of the said advantages being
deducted from his wages.
In default of complete wage statistics, it seems nevertheless possible to obtain
a rough idea of the standard of wages in different occupations on the base of
the data as to the average value of the days of work lost owing to the General
Strike of 1909. These figures will be found in the report on that conflict
issued by the Board of Trade. For the total number of 285 000 workmen
engaged in industry, trade, and transport covered by the Report, the average
income per day is 3’52 kronor, though the figures vary greatly in the different
occupations. The lowest wages are met with in the industries which employ
female labour to a large extent, as for example the textile industry (2-32 kronor),
the tobacco industry (2’6o kronor), the book-binding industry (2’62 kronor), and
others. High wages are encountered above all in the more distinctly season
trades, in which work of great amount can only be obtained during a particular
part of the year, as for instance in the painters’ trade (5’04 kronor), the building
trade (4’69 kronor), the stevedores’ trade (4’oi kronor). In industry in the strict sense,
a high average of daily wages is found in those branches which make high
demands on the individual training of the workmen, for instance the hatters’
trade (4’49 kronor), newspaper printing (4mö kronor), and so forth.
An important consideration in determining the level of the wage is whether
the occupation in question is one in which the wage is meted out according to
the time taken without regard to the work accomplished, or one in which the
wage is calculated according to the work accomplished without reference to the
time taken. Finally the amount of the wage is determined to a great extent by
the local cost of living. In those national trade (collective) agreements which
regulate the conditions of employment for the whole of Sweden in certain lines
of occupation, due consideration has been paid to this matter: different scales of
wages have been drawn up not only for different classes of workmen, but also
for different places, an endeavour being made to adjust the wages to the local
costs of living.
If one takes the 285 000 workmen and distributes them according to town
and country, it will be found that the average income per day is 3’56 kronor
for the 157 000 workmen out of that number who belong to towns, and 3’48
for the 128 000 workmen in the country. That the difference is not greater is
due to the fact that the data emanating from the country almost solely have
regard to big industrial establishments, where the wages and costs of living for
obvious reasons keep poised at the same level as at equivalent establishments
in the towns.
When we compare this average wage for the industrial workmen of the rural
districts with the simultaneously prevailing daily wages for agricultural labourers,
which can be estimated at 2’28 kronor, one must take into consideration the
fact that the agricultural labourer has the possibility of himself producing, or of
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