Modernization of production

the Viennese metal- and machine-building industry (1900–1914)

Abstract

Using the example of the Viennese metal- and machine-building industry, the paper analyses the modernization of production by means of mechanization and reorganization of work. This process was started by the management and stimulated a change in industrial relations between 1900 and 1914. The development began in the electrical industry by taking over the patterns of organisation from German trusts, by which the largest Viennese factories were controlled. lt spread relatively fast into the other parts of the metal- and machine-building industry which produced under unfavourable conditions and growing international competition. The positive attitude of the social- democratic Metal Workers Union to modernize backward Austria socio-economically by means of technical progress and industry was decisive for the course of the process. In exchange for taking part in the collective regulation of wages and work conditions the union therefore agreed to help decreasing the workers resistance against the growing pressure of work and the requirements of performance. But even in the new structures of production the position of the skilled organized workers remained strong enough to make the management join the politics of collective bargaining.