The work year in the mountain mines of Siberia in late 19th - early 20th centuries

One of the fundamental problems of the economic situation of wage workers is working time. Eight-hour working day was considered as a radical improvement of working conditions. The reduction of working time had always been one of the main demands of proletariat. In turn, industrialists aspired to get the most surplus value by the lengthening of working time. In the works on the history of working class studying the issue of working time is traditionally paid close attention to (monographs by E.E. Cruze, Yu.I. Kiryanov, etc.). The development of issue of working time requires detailed and systematic statistical material. The researchers of the economic situation of workers in Siberia use the materials of mining inspectorate. This paper deals with the dynamics and the structure of the work year of the miners in Siberia in late 19th - early 20th centuries based on the official departmental reports. The feature of Siberian mines was seasonality. Metal and salt production plants (with a break for the last repair), gold and silver-lead mines, coal mines, some large quarries for extraction of limestone worked all the year round. Most of the mines, small mines and quarries, and salt lakes were developed seasonally, usually in the summer. The average work duration of the mines was low and amounted to half a year. However, dividing the company by the duration of the working season and the number of workers, one can make a conclusion that a group of mines, working over 270 days a year amounted to 67.2% of all workers in 19151917, and mines equipped with dredges - 73.4% of all workers. The reduction of seasonality created the conditions to form the permanent body of workers. Operating mines in Siberia with the annual cycle of work (317 days) in the late 19th - early 20th centuries usually worked 305 days, missed 3 days, had 9 sick days. In July 1914, according to enterprise management responses to the questionnaires by the Mining Department, the company worked 24.1 days, the workers - 21.1 days, the main professions (cutters, drillers, dredgers) - 20.5 days. Before World War I the workers of coal mines of Siberia had 3.3 days less at work per month than the miners of Donbass, in 1916 it was one day less. The workers of gold mining companies worked more days per year than the workers in other industries in the country, the former worked about 284 days, the latter - 260-275 days. Consequently, the glitter of gold urged the gold miners and the workers, but on the whole the Siberian miners lived by the same rules as the miners throughout Russia. Seasonality of production declined, norms and traditions of relationships of workers and employers were established.

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