The working day on the mountain mines of Siberia in the late XIX - early XX century

The working time is a major factor in the relationship of workers and employers. The reduction of working time has always been one of the main demands of proletariat. In turn, industrialists aspired to get the most surplus value by lengthening the working time. The method of studying of working day in capitalist enterprises developed and applied by Marx. In the first volume of his major work «Capital» he devoted an analysis of the day in eight chapters, in which he outlined a number of issues for the study of the day: the number of workers and the public holidays in a year and a week, working hours, breaks, time for meals; night work, the procedure shifts, cleaning machines, cleaning procedures, penalties and rules regulating the working day, the duration of the application while the «power couple», the working time of children and adolescents, the presence of schools for them, child labor laws, industrial recovery and longer working day, time on the road to the workplace and back. Russian historians have paid much attention studying the working days of industrial workers in Russia. This article analyzes the dynamics and the structure of working day in mines of Siberia in the late XIX-early XX centuries. Such documents as mining inspection reports, correspondence mountain grades, study of gold mining districts of Asiatic Russia, carried out under the program of the Siberian railway provide enough information about workday miners in Siberia at the time. There is a tendency to reduce working hours in all industries, while maintaining a large spread of indicators based on professions and forms of payment. The workers at the time rate had larger shifts than the miners at the piece-rate pay. The road to the workplace, the distribution of work and overtime assignments occupied the substantial part-time. The average of working time in the mines of Siberia in 1897-1898 was equaled to 10.1 hours, in 1906-1907 - 9.3 hours, in the years 1912-1916 - 9.7 hours. In steel mills and coal mines working hours were less subject to change. In the late 19th century it was equaled from 9 to 10 hours, an average of 9.75 hours, in 1901-1904. - 10.5 hours, in 1905-1908. - 10 hours, in the years 1910-1914 - 8-10 hours, an average of 9 hours. The number of working hours in the mining industry in general, reduced from 12-13,5 hours in 1895-1896 to 9,7-10 hours in 1913-1914. The working day in the mining industry in Siberia was on average the same that in European Russia, respectively - 12,8-14,2 13,0-13,5 hours and hours in 1913-1914. A few number of workers aspired to get the 8hour workday in Siberia, most of them were in the gold (up to fifth in 1906-1907.).

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