Growing participation in wage labor and industry brings women’s issues to the forefront of the workers’ movement in Yugoslavia.

‘The Position of Working Women in Yugoslavia’ by Vera Novak from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10 No. 10. February 25, 1930.

The chief forms and methods of capitalist rationalisation in Yugoslavia are the following: displacement of the labour of men by women’s labour; displacement of the old and more qualified workers by younger labour power and unskilled workers; intensification of Labour; lowered wages; longer working day etc.

Official statistics give no exact information of the number of working women engaged in industry; however, from the material given below it is clearly seen that women are being drawn into the industrial process in ever increasing numbers, often squeezing out the working men. These figures cover women engaged in industry, handicrafts, and also domestic workers and trade clerks.

The number of insured women in 1923 was 84,797 (19,7%); in 1924 93 464 (20,3%); in 1925 101,242 (21,7%); in 1926 107,631 (22,7%). The highest percentage of women workers, according to 1929 figures are in the following branches of industry: textile: 57,5%; food trades: 39,5% paper industry 39,3%; poligraphic: 31,9%; clothing industry: 27,2%; chemical industry: 19,2%; stone-breaking and brick-making: 16,1% and so on.

Over half of the insured women are under 23 years of age, one-third less than 20, and two-thirds younger than 27 years of age.

The average nominal wage in 1926 was 24.71 dinars for a men and 19.41 for a woman: in 1927 men received on an average 26.52, and women 19.99 dinars: in 1928: men 27.35, and women 20.44 dinars. From this table it is obvious that beginning with 1926 the difference between the wage of men and women has constantly increased.

If we take the average wage of a working man in London in 1914 as 100, then the actual wages in Yugoslavia are as follows:

London in 1929: 107 dollars; in 1927: 106 dollars, in 1928: 110 dollars.

Belgrade in 1926: 30 dollars; in 1927: 31 dollars; in 1928: 31 dollars.

Fifteen percent of the insured women earned less than 10 dinars 18 cents a day; 52% earned 11.60 to 20.30 dinars daily.

By the law covering working hours introduced by the militarist-Fascist regime of General Zhivkovich, the 10-hour day in trade and handicraft undertakings has been introduced. For industry the law is still in force for the 8-hour working day, although the workers actually work 10 and more hours. As for trade and handicrafts, the given law is of no significance in their case, because several additional laws and regulations have been introduced, giving shops and handicraft undertakings the right to remain open 12 and more hours daily, and these hours can be lengthened at the will of the master.

Sunday work is prohibited, but the latter paragraphs of this law allow many exceptions, including cleaning and tidying of buildings, “if such work cannot be completed on a weekday”. Night work is prohibited for women, but here again there are many exceptions. The law provides for one hour’s rest after 8-hours work, but this regulation is rarely observed. Cases are known (certain knitting workshops in Zagreb) where young girls work from 7 in the morning to 6-7 at night, with only a half-hour break.

Apart from the prohibition of night work for women in Yugoslavia, there is no legislation protecting working women. Women are used for carrying heavy weights in the factories, they are to be found working in mercury and lead factories, and in pits (4 25% of the underground workers in mines are women), in which they carry sacks of cement, salt, flour. In the building trades, women carry the building materials, climbing high among the scaffolding.

According to the law for the protection of mothers and children, the mother has the right to receive relief from the insurance company for 14 days before and after birth. But this relief is so small that the mothers work up to the last minute, and they are carried from work to the hospital or home direct, in order to return to work again after 10 days, or often earlier.

The hard living conditions of the toiling masses and the lack of care in connection with the work of women and the protection of mothers and children, results in a high death rate among children. On an average in Yugoslavia about 20% of the children die annually, i.e. about 50,000 suckling babes. According to the statistics of the war Ministry, 33.63% of the total number of male children born die before reaching the age of 20.

In Yugoslavia there is no unemployment relief. There are only labour exchanges, controlled by the Government, which give out relief for unemployed entirely irregularly and as they will. The insurance companies provide the necessary means for these payments, and together with other payments collect dues from the labour exchange.

In 1927, 127,898 men and 14.174 women were registered as unemployed. These unemployed were in receipt of 1,869,427 dinars during the year 1927, which amounted to 48.79 dinars to each unemployed.

It would be difficult to describe the lack of social rights of the working women in every respect. There are not infrequent cases in Yugoslavia where the owners beat the women. Suicides among the working women are almost an everyday occurrence, being the result of unemployment, insulting behaviour on the part of the owners this characterises the position of the working women and their lack of social rights more than anything else.

There are no official figures concerning the agricultural workers. All the following data, relating to the Voevodina province, give an idea of the position of this category of working men and women.

In 1900 the population of Voevodina was 1,352,844; of this number 899,641 earned their living in agriculture, 425,747 doing so independently. Actually 107,700 earned their livings by hired labour. In 1927 the actual wages (money earned and wages in kind) amounted to 56,80% for men and 53,64% for women, of the 1913 wage. The working day lasts from dawn to dawn. There is no trace of social insurance. The agricultural labourers in case of sickness or other mishaps, are left entirely to themselves. Pregnant women are also uncared for, and receive no relief (in Voevodin in 1922, the number of newborn babies that died amounted to 24.13% in 1914 to 27.54%).

The activisation of the working women goes ahead together with the growth of the percentage of women working in industry, with the increased capitalist rationalisation and the worsening conditions of the whole working class and in particular the working women. Instances of the participation of working women in the economic struggles of the men, in circumstances of a regime of bloody terror, the regime of military Fascist dictatorship, such instances are particularly indicative of the growing activity of the working women of Yugoslavia.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n10-feb-25-1930-Inprecor-op.pdf