No. 33, March 17, 1869

Report on the Miners’ Provident Societies of the Miners in the Coalfields of Saxony. *

The very first wage regulation to hand, e.g. that of the Niederwürschnitz Company, shows us the general situation of the miners in the collieries of the Erzgebirge. The weekly wage for adult miners is between 2 thlr. and 3 thlr. 12 sgr. 6 pf., and for boys between 1 thlr. 10 sgr. and 1 thlr. 20 sgr. The weekly wage of the average miner is about 2 thlr. 20 sgr. On demand, the workers must hire themselves out for piece-wage. The wage regulation sees to it that piece-wage can scarcely exceed the ordinary day-wage. Every worker, you see, must give his month’s notice on the first day of each month. If he therefore refuses to work for piece-wage under the terms offered, he is compelled to do so for at least 4 to 8 weeks. It is simply laughable, under such circumstances, to babble of regulation of piece-wage by mutual agreement, of free contract between worker and capitalist!

The wages are paid in two instalments: an advance payment on the 22nd of the month, and the balance of the preceding month’s wages on the 8th of the following month. The capitalist therefore withholds the wages owed to his workers on average for three full weeks – a lordly forced loan, all the more agreeable because money is made with it, but no interest is paid for it. – The men’s shifts are as a rule twelve hours, and the above-mentioned weekly wages apply to 6 twelve-hour days. The twelve-hour working day includes two hours (two half-hours and one whole hour) for meals, the so-called *Aufsetzzeit*. In urgent work the shifts are eight hours (i.e. 3 shifts in 48 hours per man) with a half-hour for meals – and even six hours. In the latter case no *Aufsetzzeit* at all is permitted.

The foregoing already furnishes a dismal picture of the situation of these miners. To understand their state of serfdom, however, it is necessary to scrutinise the statutes of the miners’ provident societies. Let us take these statutes for the collieries of I. the high and mighty Prince Schönburg, II. the Niederwürschnitz Company, III. the Niederwürschnitz-Kirchberg Company, and IV. the United Lugau Companies.

The income of the miners’ provident societies consists: 1) of entrance fees and contributions from the workers, fines, unclaimed wages, etc., and 2) of contributions from the capitalists. The workers pay 3 or 4 per cent of their wages; the masters pay, in I., 7 gr. 5 pf. per month for each contributing miner; in II., 1 pfennig for every bushel of coal sold; in III., an initial deposit of 500 thlr. to establish the provident fund, and otherwise the same contributions as the workers; finally, in IV., as under II., but with a founding contribution of 100 thlr. for each of the united companies.

Does not a touch of friendly harmony between capital and labour steal over us here? Who would still dare to drivel about an antagonism of their interests? But, as the great German thinker Hansemann has said, in money matters sentiment ceases. The question therefore arises: What does the magnanimity of the “high works-owners” cost the worker? Let us see.

The capitalists contribute as much as the workers in one case (III.), and considerably less in all the others. In return they demand the following rights. Regarding the ownership of the provident fund:

I. “The members of the provident society have no right of property in the provident fund; nor may they demand from the fund anything more than the benefits to which they become entitled according to the statutes in a case arising, and in particular they may not petition for the division of the fund and its assets, not even if the operation of one or another works should cease. Should the operation of the Princely Schönburg collieries in Oelsnitz cease entirely, then – after settlement of existing claims – ‘the princely works-owner has the disposal of the remainder.’”

II. Should the case arise that the Niederwürschnitz Coal-Mining Association were to dissolve, the provident fund association must likewise be dissolved simultaneously. The directorate has the disposal of the assets then remaining. The members of the provident society have no property in the provident fund. – III. as under II.

IV. “The provident fund is regarded as the inalienable property of the now living members of the society and those entering in the future. … Only if the unexpected case should occur that all the participating coal-mining associations were to dissolve and the provident society association therefore had to be dissolved” – well, in this unexpected case one expects that the workers would divide any surplus among themselves. By no means! In this case “the directors of the associations that dissolve last have to submit proposals to the royal district administration. The latter authority, however, decides upon that utilisation.”

In other words: the workers pay the greater part of the contributions to the provident fund, but the capitalists arrogate to themselves the ownership of this fund. The capitalists appear to give their workers a present. In reality the workers are compelled to give a present to their capitalists. With the right of ownership, control over the fund naturally falls to the latter.

The head of the fund committee is the manager of the colliery. He carries out the main administration of the fund, decides all doubtful cases, fixes the amount of fines, etc. He is followed closely by the provident society clerk, who is also the treasurer. He is either appointed by the capitalist or, if elected by the workers, requires his confirmation. Next come the ordinary members of the committee. They are generally elected by the workers, but in one case (III.) the capitalist appoints three of these committee members. What the committee actually amounts to is shown by the provision that it “shall hold a meeting at least once a year”. In reality the head is master. The committee members serve him as stooges.

This gentleman, the head, i.e. the manager of the works, is a powerful lord in other respects too. He can shorten the probationary period of new members, grant extra relief, and even expel workers (III.) whose reputation seems offensive to him, while always able to appeal to the capital-lord, whose decision is final in all affairs of the provident society. Thus Prince Schönburg and the directors of the joint-stock companies can alter the society’s statutes, raise the workers’ contributions, curtail sick relief and pensions, hedge claims on the fund with new obstacles and formalities – in short, do whatever they please with the workers’ money, subject only to the confirmation of government authorities that have never yet shown that they even wish to become acquainted with the situation and needs of the workers. In collieries III. the directors even reserve the right to expel from the provident society any worker whom they have had prosecuted and who has been – acquitted!

And for what advantages do the miners subject their own affairs so blindly to the arbitrary rule of others? Let us hear!

1) In case of illness they receive medical treatment and weekly relief – in collieries I. to one-third of their wage, in III. to half the wage, in II. and IV. to half the wage, and where the illness is caused by accidents during work, to one-half and three-quarters of the wage respectively. 2) Invalids receive a pension, according to their length of service, and hence according to their contributions to the provident fund, of from one-sixth to one-half of the last-earned wage. 3) On the death of a member, his widow receives assistance of from one-fifth to one-quarter of the pension to which her husband was entitled, and a tiny weekly dole for each child. 4) Funeral-money for deaths in the family.

The illustrious prince and the enlightened capitalists who drew up these statutes, and the paternal government which confirmed them, owe the world the solution of a problem: If a miner on the full average wage of 2½ thlr. per week is half-starved, how can he live on a pension of, say, ¹/₂₀ of this wage – that is, 4 sgr. per week?

The tender consideration of the statutes for the interests of capital shines brightly from the treatment of mining accidents. With the exception of works II. and IV., no extra relief is granted if illness or death is caused by accidents “in service”. In not a single case is the pension increased when invalidity results from mining accidents. The reason is very simple. This item would swell the fund’s expenditure alarmingly and very soon reveal to even the dullest eye the nature of these capital-lordly gifts.

The statutes imposed by the Saxon capitalists differ from Louis Bonaparte’s imposed constitution in that the latter is still forever awaiting its crowning conclusion, whereas the former already possess it – namely in the following article, common to all of them:

“Every worker who leaves the service of the society, whether voluntarily or under compulsion, thereby quits the provident society and forfeits all rights and claims, both on its fund and on the money which he himself has paid in.”

Thus a man who has worked 30 years in a colliery and contributed to the provident fund loses all his so dearly bought pension claims as soon as the capitalist sees fit to dismiss him. This article turns the wage-worker into a serf – binds him to the soil, exposes him defencelessly to the most despicable maltreatment. If he is no lover of kicks, if he resists the beating down of his wage to the hunger-point, if he refuses to pay arbitrary fines, if he even insists on official inspection of measures and weights – he always receives the same monotonous answer: Be off, but your fund contributions and your fund claims do not travel with you!


* The General Council of the International Working Men’s Association has resolved that the following report by Karl Marx, Secretary of the General Council for Germany, shall be published both in the English original and in a German translation.

Translation of the Report by Friedrich Engels on the Miners’ Provident Societies

It seems paradoxical to expect manly independence and self-respect from people in so abject a condition. Yet these miners, it must be said to their credit, count among the foremost champions of the German working class. Their masters are therefore beginning to feel great unease, despite the enormous hold that the present organisation of the miners’ provident societies gives them. The most recent and vilest of their rules (III, dating from 1862) contains the following grotesque proviso against strikes and combination: “Every member of a miners’ provident society shall at all times be content with the wage falling to him under the wage regulations, shall never lend himself to joint actions aimed at enforcing an increase of his income, let alone cause such actions by seducing his comrades.” — Why have the Lycurguses of the Niederwürschnitz-Kirchberg Coal Mining Joint-Stock Company, Messrs B. Krüger, F. W. Schwamkrug and F. W. Richter, not also deigned to decree that from now on every coal buyer “shall at all times be content” with the coal prices fixed by their own high-born hands? This really beats the “restricted subject’s intellect” of Herr von Rochow.

As a result of the agitation among the mineworkers, a provisional draft statute for the unification of the provident societies of all Saxon coal mines has recently been published (Zwickau, 1869). It is the work of a workers’ committee under the chairmanship of Herr J. G. Dinter. The main points are: 1) All miners’ provident societies are to be united into a single common provident society. 2) Members retain their claims as long as they reside in Germany and pay their contributions. 3) A general assembly of all adult members constitutes the highest authority. It appoints an executive committee, etc. 4) The masters’ contributions to the miners’ provident fund shall amount to half the contributions paid by their workers.

This draft by no means expresses the view of the most intelligent Saxon miners. It comes rather from a section that would like to reform with the permission of capital. It bears the stamp of the impractical on its forehead. What a naive supposition, indeed, that the capitalists, hitherto unrestricted masters of the miners’ provident societies, will hand over their power to a democratic general assembly of workers and nonetheless pay contributions! The fundamental evil lies precisely in the fact that the capitalists contribute at all. So long as this lasts, the management of the miners’ provident fund and the miners’ provident society cannot be wrested from them. In order to be genuine workers’ societies, the miners’ provident societies must rest exclusively on workers’ contributions. Only in this way can they transform themselves into trade unions, which protect individual workers against the arbitrary will of individual masters. Can the insignificant and ambiguous advantages offered by the capitalists’ contributions ever outweigh the condition of bondage into which they thrust the worker back? Let the Saxon miners always consider: whatever the capitalist pays into the miners’ provident fund, he saves just as much and more on wages. Societies of this kind have the peculiar effect of suspending the law of demand and supply to the exclusive advantage of the capitalist. In other words: through the extraordinary hold they give capital over individual workers, they depress wages themselves below their ordinary average level.

But are the workers then to make a gift of the existing funds to the capitalists — after, of course, compensating for acquired rights? This question can only be resolved in court. Despite royal and official confirmation, certain articles of the statutes fly in the face of the universally valid principles concerning contracts. Under all circumstances, however, the separation of the workers’ money from the capitalists’ money remains the indispensable precondition for any reform of the miners’ provident societies.

The contributions of the Saxon colliery owners to the miners’ provident funds contain the involuntary admission that capital is, up to a certain point, liable for the accidents that endanger the wage-worker’s body or life during his performance of labour, at the place of work. But instead of allowing this liability to be made, as is now happening, the pretext for an extended capitalist despotism, it behoves the workers to agitate for the legal regulation of liability.