History of Labour Intermediation. Institutions and Individual Ways of Finding Employment (19th and early 20th centuries)
The Production of Work (ERC-Starting Grant); Department of Economic and Social History; University of Vienna, Vienna 27.11.2009-28.11.2009, University of Vienna
Deadline: 30.06.2009
Questions of labour market and labour intermediation have been a political concern in most European countries as well as the USA and Canada since the late 19th century. In contemporary debates, public labour exchanges have been depicted as a tool to cope with the confusing complexity of labour markets and to match the supply and demand of labour more effectively. On the one hand, labour intermediation was designated to provide adequate labourers for employers. On the other hand, providing employment opportunities for those in search of employment was seen as a tool of social policy in the fight against poverty. In this context, a new understanding of being out of workemerged: "unemployment" was conceived as an integral aspect of labour markets and therefore as an outcome of economic processes. As a result, public labour exchange came to be and is still commonly regarded as an inevitable requirement of modernization.
However, public labour exchange did not just coordinate or regulate a given labour market but also participated in the historical creation of labour and segregation of labour markets. Public labour exchanges fundamentally contributed to the codification of practices of work by imposing new categories of wage labour and of being out of employment.They established formal criteria of classifying occupational skills and employability. Public labour intermediation defined acceptable as well as unacceptable employment according to training, career, age, gender and nationality. While selectively including some practices in labour markets, it excluded other practices as well. Thus, it contributed to the creation and differentiation of national workforce and a segregated labour market. By defining regular employment, it helped impose a particular distinction between formal and informal (or casual) work, between the "real" economy and a shadow economy. Finally - in respect to unemployment benefits - it aimed at distinguishing those willing and able to work from those deemed "work-shy".
Up to now, only a few studies have asked how public labour exchanges contributed to the emergence and differentiation of nationalized labour markets. Previous research has mostly focussed on the political aims and formal regulations of labour intermediation. By contrast, we know little about how labour exchanges functioned practically and what it meant to be subjected to those practices. It would, however, be quite misleading to assume that explicit aims and rules mirror actual practices in labour intermediation.
Moreover, we have to reflect on the practical impact of public labour exchange in seeking jobs and the position of exchange within the variety of forms of intermediation. Public labour offices have always been only one of many possible ways of finding employment or employees, but they have not necessarily been the dominant one. According to contemporary and recent estimates, informal practices of finding employment with the help of kin or other social networks, newspaper ads or direct inquiries have been important job search practices. Job placement by commercial mediation, charitable organisations, trade unions or associations has been quite common as well. However, in debates of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, "irregular" forms of labour intermediation were often criticized as ineffective. They were not only accused of failing: (1) to organize the labour market effectively; (2) to prevent migration into the cities; or (3) to provide reliable data on labour markets. Abuses and fraud against people in search of a job were seen as common. To prevent this, public control of intermediation was put into practice.
Still, particularly as public labour exchange was emerging, there was no political consensus that labour intermediation should be a monopoly of the state since control of intermediation was seen as a way to control wages, labour conditions and strikes. As international comparison shows, a state monopoly of labour intermediation was the outcome of conflict-laden historical processes, but not an inevitable effect of modernization.
The workshop we have planned aims at comparing practices of labour intermediation and ways of finding employment in the 19th and 20th centuries across a variety of countries. Historians as well as researchers in other disciplines (such as sociology, anthropology, economics) are invited to participate.
At the workshop, questions such as the following should be addressed.