Hours, holidays and a stoppage
Three documents from the time give a glimpse of work at Beens before and during its years at the corner: a notice about a factory holiday, a newspaper item about late work, and the reports of the 1923 stoppage.
A holiday, and a late night
In August 1918, before the firm came to the corner and while it advertised from Coolsingel 56, Beens shut its works for a four-day holiday, from the 25th to the 28th. It put the closure in the paper, so that no upholstery or cabinet work would be done outside the house in the meantime; the office and warehouses stayed open.
The same notice appeared again in De Maasbode on 24 August.
Right beside it on the page, Kam & Van Rhijn of Schiedamschesingel 9 (telephone 3384) ran the same notice word for word, next to Beens's Coolsingel 56, telephone 13625: both firms were closing for the same four days, a small piece of coordination.
In November 1920 the socialist daily Voorwaarts reported on upholsterers working for the firm at Westersingel 68. They had worked several evenings until eleven at night, even though the law had by then introduced the eight-hour day. On a Friday evening, the newspaper reported, the Labour Inspectorate called and recorded eight violations of the Labour Act.
> Violation of the Labour Act. > > Upholsterers, employed by Been's home-furnishing firm [woninginrichting] in the premises at Westersingel 68, had — despite the statutory introduction of the 8-hour working day — already worked several evenings until 11 o'clock. The Labour Inspectorate [Arb. Inspectie], informed of this, paid a visit on Friday evening and established a set of eight [achttal] violations. > > It is to be hoped that both employer and journeymen will receive such punishment that henceforth their appetite for breaking the law will vanish.
Struck, 12 March 1923
When the strike came, it was the whole trade's. On the morning of 12 March 1923 the Rotterdam furniture-makers and upholsterers stopped work, on the advice of their three cooperating unions.
THE ACTION IN THE FURNITURE-MAKING AND UPHOLSTERY TRADE. This morning the strike broke out here in the furniture-making and upholstery trade on the advice of the three cooperating organisations. The trade is almost completely at a standstill. The following employers are involved in this dispute: N.V. Allan & Co.; N.V. Eckhard; Maas; Breedveld; Gesscher & Kemper; Westerhof en ten Bosch; N.V. Beens' woninginrichting [furnishing firm]; N.V. Gogarn; Speelman; Godschalk; A. G. Sluyter; Toebosch; Lieshout; Carree; Peiffer. Over 250 journeymen are on strike. The strike was decided at a meeting held on Saturday because no agreement had been reached with the employers' organisations on the term of the one-year contract and the fixing therein of the 48-hour working week. This morning the strikers assembled. A strike committee has been formed consisting of the boards of the three cooperating organisations.
The trade lay almost entirely still. De Maasbode listed some fifteen employers as involved in the dispute, and N.V. Beens' Woninginrichting was named among them, alongside houses like Allan & Co., Eckhard and Maas. Its factory was the Rochussenstraat 169 works . The same report gave more than two hundred and fifty journeymen out across the trade that morning; that is a figure for the whole struck trade, not for the corner alone. The report in Het Vaderland on 13 March was more direct: at Beens's, no work was done.
Terms, refusal, ballot
The dispute, as the reports describe it, was about pay, the one-year contract and the forty-eight-hour week. On 13 March the employers in the masters' association set out their terms: a ten per cent wage cut for the first three months, a further ten per cent for the three after, and the forty-five-hour week extended to forty-eight.
THE STRIKE IN THE FURNITURE TRADE. The number of strikers in the furniture trade at Utrecht amounts to 133, of whom 62 organised in the modern [union], 25 in the R.K. [Roman Catholic] one, 23 in the Christian union, plus 23 unorganised. The strike affects 14 employers. At Delft the furniture-makers', upholsterers' and paperhangers'-assistants have gone back to work on the new terms, without a contract. At Rotterdam, work has not resumed with the employers affiliated with the employers' association. They had put a contract to the journeymen, in which a 10 per cent wage cut was proposed for the first three months to come, and the same wage cut again for the following three months. At the same time the 45-hour week was to be changed into a 48-hour working week. About 250 workers have not resumed work on those terms. At Been's [Beens] home-furnishing firm, Allan and Co., Gogarn, Maas, Eckhard, and some smaller employers, no work has been done. The strikers have held a meeting at which it was resolved to continue the strike for as long as it takes until the employers come with other terms. *** The firm Pander states that the claim put about by the workers — that some old workmen who presented themselves at the firm yesterday morning were turned away — is made up out of thin air. Those who presented themselves went to work as usual. [N/A — separate item follows, not translated: "FROM ROTTERDAM. Extension of the Keilehaven gasworks" (municipal gasworks-expansion debate; unrelated to the strike).]
The strikers met, refused the terms, and resolved to hold out until the employers offered something else. On 11 April they met again, in separate Rotterdam meetings, and voted to accept the employers' new proposals, by written ballot. The strikers affiliated with the modern, Christian and Catholic unions accepted the proposals, with a promise that there would be no reprisals afterward.
The strike in the furniture trade. Awaiting the outcome. AMSTERDAM, 11 April. — We are informed: As a result of yesterday's conference between the representatives of employers and workers in the furniture- and upholstery trade, it can be reported that: 1st. The employers have brought their wage-reduction offer back down to 10 pCt., under which the wage in the first municipal [wage] group would come to a minimum of 70 cents per hour for cabinet-makers and of 68 cents per hour for upholsterers. The workers' union boards wished to settle for 72 cents for cabinet-makers and 70 cents for upholsterers. 2nd: the working hours in the contract become 8½ hours per day and 48 hours per week. For overtime hours 20 pCt. extra pay is paid. Of these overtime hours the employers still demand a maximum of 200 per year and 10 per week, whereas the workers' union boards wished to allow no more than 180 per year and 10 per week as the maximum; 3rd: the minimum wage for routine workers remains fixed at 3 cents per hour below that of the skilled workers. A mixed commission will try to reach agreement on a definitive settlement of these wages. 4th: all strikers return to their posts. Where this is not directly possible for reasons of a technical nature, it shall be the case within three weeks at the latest. An exception to this had for the time being to be made for some manufacturers in Waddinxveen, of whom it is not yet certain whether they will join an eventual definitive agreement; 5th: the agreement is entered into for the term of one year. As appears from the above, the parties have not yet agreed on the wage and the number of overtime hours. The decision on accepting the employers' latest offer or continuing the strike will be taken as soon as possible by the striking staff. This morning the striking cabinet-makers and upholsterers met here in town in "Handwerkers Vriendenkring" [Craftsmen's Friendship Circle]. There, notice was given of the above-mentioned results of yesterday's conference. We understand that the majority of the Amsterdam strikers spoke in favour of the employers' proposals. The final decision will depend on the judgement of the Union's other branches. In Rotterdam. ROTTERDAM, 11 April. — This afternoon meetings were held here in town of striking cabinet-makers affiliated with the Modern, Christian and Catholic unions, at which the outcome of the conference held in The Hague with the employers' organisation was communicated. At that conference, the employers stated, as already reported, that they would settle for a 10% wage reduction instead of 13%, as they had originally proposed. They refused, however, to introduce the 48-hour working week, the four holiday days, [and] the continued payment for Christian holidays. The sick-benefit payment was maintained, while the percentage for overtime was set at 20. The meetings decided, after a written ballot, to accept the new employers' proposals. In other places, too, these proposals will be submitted for the strikers' approval. THE HAGUE, 11 April. — By Friday evening at the latest, the committee of representatives of the employers' organisations must be informed whether the offer from the employers' side is accepted. It has further been agreed that, if the employers' conditions are accepted, no reprisal measures will be taken after the strike is called off.
According to the Rotterdam paragraph, the employers reduced their proposed cut from thirteen per cent to ten, kept sick benefit and set overtime at twenty per cent, but refused the forty-eight-hour week, four holiday days and paid Christian feast-days. The national paragraph gives wage floors of seventy cents an hour for cabinet-makers and sixty-eight for upholsterers, against the unions' seventy-two and seventy. It also reports an eight-and-a-half-hour day, a disputed overtime ceiling of two hundred hours a year against the unions' hundred and eighty, and all strikers back at their posts within three weeks at the latest.
The settlement was reported on 14 April, and work would resume the following Monday, the 16th. The terms were a ten per cent cut, with the fourth wage class and the forty-eight-hour week kept. Overtime carried a twenty per cent premium, and the collective contract was fixed for a year with no reprisals. The two reports do not agree about the forty-eight-hour week. The Rotterdam account of 12 April has the employers refusing it, while the settlement of 14 April records it kept .
According to what the "Tel." [De Telegraaf] has learned, the conferences between the employees' organisations and the employers' committee from the furniture trade have resulted in the strike now being a thing of the past, and work resuming next Monday. The conditions now agreed come down to the following: all wages are being reduced by 10 pct., the 4th wage class continues to exist, the 48-hour working week is retained, overtime hours are paid an extra 20 pct., the new collective contract is being entered into for a period of one year instead of three months. The employers will take no reprisal measures. Originally the employers' proposals amounted to a 30 pct. wage reduction for ordinary workers and 23 pct. for experienced (routined) workers, an unlimited working week, 10 pct. extra for overtime, and abolition of the 4th wage class.
The settlement report is a national one. It gives 16 April as the return to work; if that date applied in Rotterdam, the stoppage lasted about five weeks.
The wider story, of the unions and employers' bodies of the trade and the national collective agreement they reached a few years later, belongs to , together with the 1907 settlement. What is particular to this address is small and exact: a holiday notice, the reported late working hours, and its stoppage during the 1923 strike. All three concern one firm, whose story is told in .