THE HISTORY OF TUNGSRAM 1896-1945 - MEK

V97 TUNGSRAMStatusSkilledworkerTrainedmaleTrainedfemaleUntrainedlabourer1938-19391939-19401940-19411941-19421943-Aprilaverage hourly wages in Pengos0.830.580.480.460.840.600.490.470.980.710.560.551.220.860.640.681.350.930.660.80If we compare these figures with the ones showing thesituation on 1 December, 1933, we will find that thehourly wage of a skilled worker in 1938—1939 was lessthan it had been in 1933; the same applied to thetrained male workers, while the hourly wage of trainedfemale workers remained unchanged. Nevertheless,the substantial difference between the hourly wages ofmen and women did not disappear; on the contrary, itgrew wider as the war went on: the hourly wage of themen went up by 35 filler, as opposed to the 18 filler payrise which women received in the same period. Skilledworkers were getting the most: a 52 filler pay-rise.Since TUNGSRAM did not contribute much to the warindustry, its wages began to fall behind the nationalaverage. Male skilled workers, for example, were paidonly 94 percent of what workers earned in the factoriesbelonging to the Steal Works, while the trained maleworkers of TUNGSRAM took home even less: 77percent of what their counterparts were getting in thesteal industry.The general pay rises issued by the governmentplayed a major role in the growing wages. A sevenpercent wage rise was ordered on 7 October, 1940,followed by a further 8 percent wage rise on 1 May,1941, and then came the national inflationary compensationof 30 percent in the summer of 1943. However,even these repeated wage rises could not counter theprice rises which accompained the war. The realwages per capita only increased until 1940; in 1943these already fell behind the 1939 figures by 20percent.The wages are not the sole indicators of the positionand the current circumstances of the working class.Workers were not indifferent towards the environmentin which they had to do their job, either.In the early 1920s the sight which greeted the visitorsentering the workshops (the tinting, the staining or thespiral corroding workshops, for example) was shocking.The strenuous physical work was done by sicklycoloured and wasted figures in rooms filled withpoisonous gases, with minimal or no ventilation at all.The manual pressing of the glass inserts of the incandescentlamps required an immense bodily effort. Onecould often witness female workers and mechanicswith mutilated hands, working on the newly fittedpress machines which still completely lacked all kindsof protective gear. The technology of incandescentlamp and radio valve manufacturing presented awhole list of potential dangers: explosion, fire hazard,pollution of the work halls and the environment bypoisonous gases and vapours which were either left tofloat inside the factory halls until escaping through theairing passages or were artificially ventilated into theatmosphere without any neutralization and pollutedthe air of the immediate neighbourhood. The workhalls were over-crowded and far too low built ingeneral, making the ventilation of poisonous gasesdifficult; the majority of the machinery were operatedwithout protective equipment; electric hazard wascaused by the complete lack of earthed circuits; thevarious high-voltage equipments were fitted withoutthe minimum of safety precautions. It was only in thelate 1920s that a campaign against the various healthhazards was launched by the staff of the MachineWorks Department in an almost spontaneous fashion.It was also the time when the complete automation ofthe production of vitrit-glass took place followed bythe semi-automatization of the inside frosting process.In the production of incandescent lamps the individualpress machines were replaced by machine-lines whicheliminated the extremely hazardous manual feeding.