Industrial night shifts in a State-socialist economy

Several contexts predetermined how night work would take shape in state-socialist Czechoslovakia. In one form of continuity from the past, the state re-ratified the 1948 ILO conventions banning night work for women and young people in 1950. The government also kept the interwar exemptions from the ban. In the legacy of the World War Two, Czechoslovakia observed postwar labor shortages and declining levels of labor discipline among its people, due to many things including work obligations for the Third Reich during the World War Two, a militarized economy, and the expulsions and displacements of more than three million Czechoslovak Germans in the 1945–1947 period. This deprived Czechoslovakia not only of approximately 20 percent of its prewar workforce, who were mostly skilled workers and technical intelligence.Footnote ⁴

It was precisely these labor shortages that bred night work mandates in Czechoslovakia, especially in the industrial sector, in the immediate postwar period and for years to come. The incorporation of the country into the Soviet economic zone and the implementation of a system of centrally directed 5-year plans from the beginning of 1949 added new problems. The Soviet economic demands assigned to Czechoslovakia (together with the German Democratic Republic [GDR]) as the most economically advanced state of the bloc the function of supplier of equipment (diesel engines, railways, and turbines) for the industrialization of the rest of the bloc, which at the time was predominantly agrarian. Previous orientation toward Western markets was replaced by attention to Soviet bloc markets. This setup forced Czechoslovakia to substantially transform its production structure. Heavy industry took the place of the previously highly developed light industry and services. Sectors such as mining, metallurgy, construction, and equipment manufacturing had to increase their production capacity many times over. For example, in 1958, Czechoslovakia ranked fifth in the world in steel production (behind the USA, the Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and ahead of Great Britain or France). In lignite production per capita, Czechoslovakia was second in the world only to the GDR, and in hard coal production it ranked eighth in the world behind Belgium, the GDR, Poland, Great Britain, South Africa, the USA, and Australia.Footnote ⁵

The newly preferred sectors requested high energy supplies, which resulted in electricity shortages and gave night work one of its state-socialist specificities: many Czechoslovak enterprises had to resort to shifting part or all of its work shifts to nighttime because of power shortages and more even use of a power supply, whether it was deemed men’s or women’s work. Initially intended as a few months’ exceptional measure in the first postwar winter of 1945/1946 (in both traditionally masculine and feminine work spheres), night work shifts were systematically extended until they became semipermanent. As late as the mid-1960s, the Ministry of General Engineering was applying for further exemptions from the ban on night work for its female workers.Footnote ⁶

The frenetic construction of heavy industry necessitated an influx of tens of thousands of skilled and unskilled workers. One source of this labor was apprenticeships for basic skills in manufacturing, which produced very young (with an average age of only 16 years) graduates every year.Footnote ⁷ Another labor force were migrants from agricultural areas, mainly from Slovakia, but also from other Soviet bloc countries like Bulgaria or Poland.Footnote ⁸ Additionally, people from other professions, from civil servants to artists to soldiers, came to work, whether by compulsion or voluntarily. An important source of missing labor was women. They sometimes went straight into previously “typically male” industrial occupations, such as crane operation. In industry, their share increased from 27.5 percent in 1948 to 38 percent in 1960.Footnote ⁹ They also often took up positions in sectors previously dominated by men (who had since left for jobs in industry). For example, in hospitality, the share of women increased from 36.5 percent in 1948 to 65.6 percent at the end of the 1950s. In total, the share of women in the workforce increased from 38 percent to 43 percent between 1948 and 1959, while in the neighboring market economies of the West Germany and Austria, it was 33 percent and 25 percent respectively by 1961.Footnote ¹⁰ The need for a women’s workforce is probably also the reason why the first Czechoslovak Labor Code (in force from 1966) showed a striking continuity with the reviled interwar republic; it enabled women’s night work in essentially similar industries to the interwar regulations.Footnote ¹¹

This swelling of heavy industry, however, prevented investment in infrastructural and technological modernization that could have increased labor productivity and reduced the number of employees and (night) shifts needed. Most of the investment resources were absorbed by the purchase of raw materials such as iron ore because Czechoslovakia did not have enough. Many resources were also consumed by the construction of more production sites. As time passed, the consequences of the inadequate production structure and lack of investment in technology became apparent. A survey conducted in 1959 at the plants of the biggest Czechoslovak machinery producer ČKD showed that the average age of working machines was around 17 years, whereas in Western countries in the same sector it was 11 years. It was not uncommon to work on machines dating back to the Habsburg monarchy, 50 or 60 years prior.Footnote ¹² Slow and breaking machines meant that night shifts were dedicated to repairing them repeatedly or to catch up on missed tasks due to breakdown.Footnote ¹³ In general, overtime and extra night shifts were now among the instruments used to fulfill labor productivity targets set by the central economic plan. This way of using the night work was another state-socialist specificity.Footnote ¹⁴

But how was the state to succeed in bringing night shifts into working and popular culture when they contradicted Marxist principles of decent working and living conditions? The KSČ leaders could not simply order workers to take these shifts; as a result, they tried several strategies during the 1950s to wrap night work in the inconspicuous form of a symbolic mission based on a voluntary decision. Mass culture in particular presented participation in night work as a patriotic task or responsibility in building a new and better postwar world. Contemporary films and literature often referred also to the mass unemployment of the Great Depression, while night work presented proof there was enough work for everyone.Footnote ¹⁵ Unemployment rates in “the capitalist world” were also important data in assessing the economic performance of the State Socialism.Footnote ¹⁶

Initially, calls for night work had a positive response. Some popular culture sources and historian Peter Heumos suggest that some workers could see in night work an opportunity to lend a hand in the country’s postwar reconstruction. Others could have preferred the night work because, at night, factory management was not present on site, so they could also feel more autonomy.Footnote ¹⁷ However, the monetary reform of 1953 decisively cut off workers’ goodwill. The reform deprived most Czechoslovak households of their savings, increased their cost of living, and declined their living standards. Its architects had kept the change a secret until the last moment, and it caught people by surprise. Tens of thousands of industrial workers took to the streets to protest against the reform and the KSČ’s policy. Party leaders responded with repression, but also by strengthening food production and production in consumer industries while lowering prices or keeping them stable. They also promised to improve medical care and housing, and started to look for an economic reform.Footnote ¹⁸

The introduction of bonuses

Before the state intervened with uniform bonuses, workplaces had implemented their own informal practices of rewarding night shift workers. While some factory managers did not even try to convince their workers to come to work at night, others gave informal bonuses, extra leave or holidays, merchandise, or a higher percentage of overtime bonuses in exchange for workers’ consent.Footnote ¹⁹ Uniform, government-stipulated bonuses were thus intended to abolish these spontaneous (and sometimes more expensive) practices.Footnote ²⁰ Additionally, the government promised that night work would be complemented by other supposedly motivational measures in the workplace. The lighting and air conditioning in the workshops was supposed to be improved; a smoother supply of materials, tools, drawings, and gauges ensured; technical services and organization of work rendered more effective; and a supply of hot food at the production site provided.Footnote ²¹ (This would mean, of course, closer control of blue-collar workers by white-collar workers such as foremen, dispatchers, and technicians).

The new system of financial bonuses for night work was implemented on October 1, 1960, for the industrial sector and January 1, 1961, for other selected sectors. The Party leaders tried to present the bonuses as a modern achievement, although for example in the West Germany, with which they liked to compare Czechoslovakia, by that time the financial bonuses were already commonplace.Footnote ²² Sources also show that Party leaders initially tried to avoid financing the bonus system. While the enterprises demanded that the costs be paid out of the state budget, the Party leaders wanted to pass the costs onto enterprises themselves. In the end, they decided on shared costs, with the state budget covering on average more than 53 percent of bonuses in the industrial sector and 80 percent in selected non industrial sectors, while in the building materials production sector it covered the whole cost.Footnote ²³ It was clear that bonuses would be an expensive measure in terms of overall costs, so it was decided to allocate a lower bonus rate of 0.80 Czechoslovak crowns (Kčs) per hour worked at night (compared to another option of 1 Kčs).

According to statistics from 1960, the measure was planned to include 460,000 blue- and white-collar workers representing almost 13 percent of employees in the sectors targeted for bonuses.Footnote ²⁴ The employee in question would need to work at least 5 hours within the time range of 22:00–6:00, and at least 8 hours per shift.Footnote ²⁵ This excluded all hospitality staff and those who worked in intellectual professions (e.g., journalists or filmmakers), where (irregular) night work was also common. However, it is probable that these professions had their own ways of obtaining night work allowances, or were compensated by other benefit systems (as in the case of firemen or health workers).Footnote ²⁶ The staff of nightclubs, restaurants, and bars could have a number of opportunities to make extra money, which often bordered on the black market, or belonged to it.Footnote ²⁷ Only workers in public transport received a bonus for each night hour they worked.Footnote ²⁸ Tables 1 and 2, drawn up for KSČ leaders, allow us to see the workload of the different sectors and professions. These tables also show the breadth of sectors and occupations where night work was used and those who were eligible for bonuses.

Table 1. Summary of the number of workers and executed night shifts in March 1960 in industrial and preferred sectors

Source: Resolution of the 116th meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (22/9/1960), Report on the proposal of night-shift bonuses. Number of the night shifts per worker per month is author’s calculation.

Table 2. Preliminary data on the number of workers and executed night shifts in other sectors of the national economy

Source: Resolution of the 116th meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (22/9/1960), Report on the proposal of night-shift bonuses. Number of the night shifts per worker per month is author’s calculation.

In terms of scope of the economic activities, available statistics for 1959 show that 80 percent of Czechoslovakia’s industrial production sites relied on some form of night work, whether it was regular shifts, shift changes for energy reasons, or the need to maximally use the rare modern machinery.Footnote ²⁹ In the industrial sector, the average of night shifts per blue- or white-collar worker was 8.66 per month. Partly due to the lack of workforce and modern technologies, and partly to overloading workers in the fuels and energy sector, mining, and heavy machinery, the average worker took on ten to twelve night shifts per month. The necessity “to fully utilize the production capacity and fulfil the planned tasks” imposed night shifts in the opencast coal and ore mines, where “work is carried out continuously, i.e. [sic] even on Sundays.”Footnote ³⁰ Many shifts here had to be moved to nighttime because of the use of energy-intensive machinery, typically “hardening plants, furnaces, chemical plants, surface treatment, energy plants, heat treatment, melting processes, and so on.”Footnote ³¹ According to the report of the production sites of the Ministry of General Engineering in 1959, 5 percent of the workers worked the night shift in this sector. Meanwhile, the electricity consumption was a full 23 percent compared to 38 percent (and 70 percent of the workers) on the morning shift and 39 percent (and 26 percent of the workers) on the afternoon shift.Footnote ³²

The high number of night shifts per worker in the raw materials sectors, which were included under the preferred industries, corresponded to the Cold War competition between the blocs. The number of almost eleven night shifts per worker of the Central Geological Office points to an important economic contradiction. Its employees had the task of searching for raw materials on the territory of Czechoslovakia that could be used for production in prioritized industries instead of importing them, which was in line with the Soviet economic doctrine of autarky. Czechoslovakia was poor on raw materials and payments for them siphoned off funds that could otherwise have been invested in modernizing industries and increasing their productivity, which among others could have reduced night work. The available raw materials, such as coal, were rapidly depleted by intensive mining. Second, night shifts in radioactive research, almost seven per worker per month, point to the Cold War arms race and the development of the atomic military arsenal.

In the selected nonindustrial occupations, workers took on an average of 8.34 night shifts per blue-collar worker per month. Those working in building materials production took on more than eleven shifts per worker (largely because of the KSČ leaders’ promise after the 1953 monetary reform that a massive wave of housing construction would improve people’s living standards).Footnote ³³ Relatedly, the pharmaceutical industry counted approximately 11.5 night shifts per worker because of the governments promise to improve the production of medical supplies, and antibiotics and vaccines (some for export).Footnote ³⁴ The production of bandages and plasters, and medicine packaging, was typically performed by women.Footnote ³⁵ The bonuses touched other “female” nonindustrial occupations, such as “night cleaners in large factories, work in central catering plants or factory canteens with three-shift operation, in the number-crunching service, in the operation of packaging machines and in the night delivery of goods [for the purpose of Trade],” ranging from six to almost nine night shifts per worker per month.Footnote ³⁶

The economic effects of bonuses and workers’ reactions

To see the impact of the bonuses on the appeal of night shifts and everyday economic life, Table 3 shows both average salaries and prices of goods. On an individual level, the bonus meant a potential income addition of 50–90 Kčs per month (3.7–6.6 percent), depending on the number of shifts.Footnote ³⁷ In 1961, the earned sum from night work bonuses could help in purchasing some basic merchandise, such as bread or butter or small consumer goods such as clothing, shoes, or alcohol. But if one wanted to save the sum of bonuses to buy a bigger or more valuable commodity, extra money quickly lost its appeal. A bicycle, for example, would cost a worker approximately 6–13 months of night shifts bonuses. A radio would require 2.5 years; and a washing machine or refrigerator would cost 3 years of night work bonuses. Moreover, if someone could afford these products, they had to wait an additional several months or years before it was their turn because of a constant shortage of consumer goods in the state-socialist economy.

Table 3. The financial effect of night shift bonuses on the wages of industrial workers in 1960–1961

Example of purchase power of chosen commodities. Established on numbers retrieved from the Statistical Yearbook of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 1961.Footnote ³⁸

Bonuses, according to many, could not even offset the negative social impacts of night work. Irregular leisure time prevented individuals from engaging in activities in their neighborhood or in their families. Moreover, “inadequate housing conditions or the social needs of other family members did not provide them with sufficient peace of mind,” which undoubtedly led to a number of domestic conflicts.Footnote ³⁹ This was true in the West as well as in the East. Historian Malte Müller, in his text on workers in the metallurgical industry in the Ruhr area in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s–1970s, states that many of the workers blamed night work for the breakup of their families and divorce. Therefore, it became more important for them to reduce working hours.Footnote ⁴⁰ In Czechoslovakia, the so-called (male) worker-farmers, who made up about one-third of the Czechoslovak industrial workforce, were probably the loudest contingent against night work. Besides their profession as industrial workers, they used small pieces of land to grow crops for their family’s needs. They complained that night shifts disrupted their daily rhythm, which included spending the afternoon tending to these gardens. While some workers protested actively, others used their night shifts to sleep, play cards, drink alcohol, or have sex if management’s eyes were absent or elsewhere.Footnote ⁴¹

As a result, two pronounced groups entered the night work force and earned these bonuses. Heumos gives an example of the Škoda Steel and Metallurgy Works, where 90 percent of the night shift staff around 1960 were unskilled workers and (political) prisoners.Footnote ⁴² Registers of the National Security Corps, which at the time fulfilled the function of police, confirm this. They also show that many night shift workers were criminal recidivists. Often, these people had been in trouble with the law since a very young age, originating from broken families. They usually claimed a basic or low education due to the KSČ’s early 1950s efforts to quickly bring the workforce to heavy industry by lowering school year requirements.Footnote ⁴³ The elder recidivists usually had criminal records because of life complications due to complicated divorce or family relations or bankruptcy during the Great Depression. While serving their sentence, these people usually worked in the lowest positions in mines, steel works or big construction works, which were not attractive for skilled workers. Some of them remained working there after their release.Footnote ⁴⁴

A second important group of night shift workers were women. They often actively opted for night shifts, despite their ban, and even refused to accept other jobs despite efforts of production sites to convince them to quit. A brochure printed for trade Union and economic experts stated in 1969: “If women refuse to be transferred to other jobs, they must be constantly told how night work has a negative impact on their health and social tasks; this does not compensate for the extra pay for night shifts, which is usually the aim.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Journalist Barbora Šťastná affirms that the women who took on night work comprised the poorest households, an argument confirmed by archival material from the National Security Corps. These women were mostly divorced, with small children. Their ex-husbands did not pay alimony, and there was no means to force them to do so. Some were single mothers or wives of workers who had died or been maimed as a result of work accidents. For these women, night work was a way of solving two problems at once: even a low bonus was noticeable in their budget; for a monthly bonus, one could buy two pairs of children’s shoes. In addition, they were able to combine work with their childcare. On returning from a shift, they could take their children to nursery or school. After a short rest at home, they could then pick up the children in the afternoon.Footnote ⁴⁶ Some women resorted to informal night work, most frequently to prostitution. In some cases, a woman would combine formal work in a factory with the informal work of prostitution.Footnote ⁴⁷

Women’s active opting for night shifts is not surprising given how they had reacted to interwar bans on their night work in the food industry and other spheres of “soft” or consumer production. Now, in this “bonus” era of labor shortage, they could take on night jobs previously reserved for men. And when it comes to the borderlands around Czechoslovakia, historian Ondřej Klípa points to a specific group of women who in the 1960s voluntarily took on night or overtime shifts, and worked on holidays: Polish women working in the textile factories in the Czechoslovak regions neighboring Poland. Unlike Czechoslovakia, the still largely agricultural Poland suffered from a labor surplus, so Polish women went to work in positions that even Czechoslovak women refused in favor of better paid jobs.Footnote ⁴⁸

Overall, the bonus system resulted in inconsistent victories. According to one 1965 survey by the Central Council of Trade Unions, the distribution of workforce had changed very little from the 1950s. In 1959, 73.5 percent of workers worked the morning shift on the state average, 19.4 percent the afternoon shift, and 7.1 percent the night shift. By 1965, the proportion on the morning shift had fallen to 70 percent, the proportion on the afternoon shift had risen to 22.5 percent, and the proportion on the night shift had risen by only 0.4 percent (Table 4).

Table 4. Participation at the respective shifts

Source: Retrieved from Peter Heumos: “Vyhrňme si rukávy, než se kola zastaví!” Dělníci a státní socialismus v Československu 1945–1968, Praha 2006, p. 29 and Stručný statistický přehled 1945–1960, 84.

Persisting problems and conflicting tendencies

The Communists, though they initially implied that night work was a temporary measure, did not end the practice, but rather, expanded and standardized it—at midcentury. An important obstacle to night work’s complete eradication in Czechoslovakia was a lack of substantial economic reforms. Beyond the bonus structure for night work and a few other measures, the Czechoslovak economy in the 1960s was still charged with the same tasks as at the moment of its incorporation into the Soviet economic zone in 1949. These industrializing and production mandates, however, gradually became obsolete in the Soviet bloc itself as individual states in the bloc industrialized and could now produce many products themselves. In addition to Czechoslovakia losing its place as a center of industrial production for other states around them, it still had to spend large sums on raw materials, which resulted in fewer funds to modernize industrial plants. As a result, night shifts continued to be used to catch up with productivity, while the very products being made became obsolete, declined in quality, and piled up in warehouses. In 1963, the Third Five-Year Plan collapsed, leading to a renewed search for economic reform. Czechoslovakia did not emerge from this search until the collapse of State Socialism in 1989.Footnote ⁴⁹

Another tendency pulling against the promise of eradicating night work was, paradoxically, the promise to improve living standards. The promise to improve the supply of food and consumer goods after the 1953 currency reform protests meant an increase in production in the consumer, food, and pharmaceutical industries or trade, the precise spheres where many women were employed at night. As a result, late into the 1960s, and likely until the collapse of State Socialism, many Czechoslovak industries had to constantly request further exemptions from the ILO’s ban on women’s night work.

Another tension keeping night work in place was a parallel pressure to shorten the work week for all. The end of Stalinism and Nikita Khrushchev’s ascension to the leadership of the Soviet Union transformed Cold War military tensions into economic competition between the blocs. In terms of everyday life, this race was manifested in the competition for welfare and benefits, including a shortened workweek and more work holidays.Footnote ⁵⁰ For example, in 1956, the Federal Republic of Germany introduced a 45-hour workweek in the Metallurgical industry and the Trade Unions started a campaign for a 5-day and 40-hour workweek.Footnote ⁵¹ In 1956, Czechoslovakia shortened its workweek from 48 to 46 hours. Then, from the end of 1958 at the latest, there was a project to further reduce the workweek to 42 hours and possibly establish a 5-day workweek. The introduction of bonuses furnished a good opportunity. The plan was to link the introduction of bonuses with this shortening.Footnote ⁵² In the West Germany, this shortening could be afforded thanks to the ongoing economic boom produced by successful postwar reconstruction, but in Czechoslovakia, each shortening presented another strain on total labor productivity and thus an increase in the need for night work.Footnote ⁵³ As a result, the most common model of the workweek in Czechoslovakia by the mid-1960s was still 46 workhours and 6 workdays.Footnote ⁵⁴ It was only in 1968 that the 5-day workweek could be instituted in some industries. Discussions about further shortening of the worktime accompanied the KSČ until the end of its rule in 1989.

The implementation of night shift bonuses points to the specificities—or more concretely contradictions—of night work in the state-socialist Czechoslovakia. Ironically, the state-socialist regime that the KSČ leaders built up was deeply dependent on night work. Keeping night work to the “minimum necessary” still covered a wide range of sectors and professions, and they did not anticipate that the economy was as energy-intensive and overstretched as it was. Despite Party leaders’ original ideals, pragmatism became the order of the day (and night). The financial bonuses that were introduced were already too low from the beginning, and failed to attract the primary targets (skilled men in heavy industry), who ultimately chose not to work at night at all. Women’s active clamoring for night shifts came as a surprise to experts and Party leaders, even though it was obvious that night work was logical and important financial aid, given their personal circumstances. On the contrary, they kept the patriarchal discourse from the beginning of the century about the protection of women for the good of society, as mothers of the next generation. This shows how little Party leaders knew of women’s lives and economic situations, or how much they refused to acknowledge them. In addition, despite the declarative efforts of the postwar Communists to distinguish their government from the interwar “liberal capitalist” republic, the arguments to exclude women from night work, as well as their motivations and reasons to take up night shifts, displayed many continuities. In fact, they kept the patriarchal discourse from the beginning of the century about the protection of women´s health for the good of society (as mothers of the next generation).Footnote ⁵⁵

The case study of Czechoslovak night work illuminates the potential consequences of over-prioritizing one sector (heavy industry) to meet the mandates of a larger entity, at the expense of modernization in wider infrastructure and technology for a state’s citizens. The willful inattention to needed reforms in other spheres, combined with concerns of inadequate labor forces overall, has remained an evergreen topic in Czech public debates, up until the present.