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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labour conditions and workmen’s wages.
641
procuring cheaply, such articles as milk, corn, potatoes, and the like, necessaries
of life which the industrial workman is obliged to buy retail at a high rate, as
well as the fact that the industrial workman has to devote a very appreciable
portion of his income to the rent of a dwelling which the agricultural labourer
has assigned to him by his employer rent-free.
Sailors. With regard to the working conditions and wages of sailors see the
detailed account in the section on Shipping and Navigation (Part II).
Workmen in the Public Service. It is an extremely characteristic feature of the
economic life of the past few decades that the State and the cities have been tending
in increasing measure to enter the field of commercial and industrial enterprise
with the object of itself satisfying a growing share of the economical and
hygienic needs of the population. A natural consequence of this development has
been that the State and the Commune at present are appearing on the scene
as employers on a large scale both directly, and indirectly with contractors as
middlemen. It is outside the purpose of this article to enter in detail into the
conditions of the workmen only indirectly employed in the public sen-ice,
especially as in Sweden — in contradistinction from what is the case in
certain foreign countries — it appears to be quite the exception that the State
or the Communal Authorities take into consideration the social aspect of the
contracting system, and by means of clauses in the contracts or in other ways
endeavour to preclude that such contracts, whose natural effect is to offer a
premium to the lowest bidder, shall exercise an injurious influence on the wage
conditions of the workmen employed in the work in question. It is proposed
here only to deal with the working conditions for the workmen directly engaged
by the State and the Communes.
Although these workmen belong to widely diverging occupations and trades,
nevertheless their conditions of employment present great points of resemblance,
which are due to the character of their employer (the State, etc.), and the
conditions under which they are engaged. It should particularly be noticed that in the
public service the economic conflict of interests which marks the relation
between the private employer of labour and his workmen comes into play only
in a very minor degree; for in a public institution the wages of the personnel
can be nicely adjusted, without its being necessarjr to pay the same attention
to the economic staying power of the enterprise and to the yield of a profit,
as in the case of private enterprises. The corollary of this is that strikes and
lock-outs ought not to occur in public institutions and in public works, especially
as they are, as a rule, of such a nature that a strike in them would entail
consequences fraught with danger to the community.
As regards the different categories of workmen in the public service, a
distinction should at the outset be made between State and communal workmen.
As to the workmen engaged in the service of the State, a smaller number
of them are employed in dockyards, workshops and factories, as a rule ranging
under the military authorities, whereas the bulk of them work for the account
of the big communication services. Thus the State Railways Board, the
Telegraph Board, and the Board of Waterfalls together employ about 36 000
persons, most of whom are to be regarded as manual labourers. These State
workmen, however, do not form a homogeneous body, but are divided up into
a great number of groups, limited by distinctions in the method of
engagement, and by work and wage conditions determined by the väring nature and
responsibility of the work. At the top of the scale stand the regular line staff
of the State railways, the telegraph line repairers belonging to the Telegraph
Service, and the like. This class of workmen are in most oases on a par with
subordinate officials: they have a permanent position, they are entitled to a
pension, and they are in receipt of wages in accordance with a scale determined
41—133179. Sweden. I.
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