PECULIAR FEATURES OF NON-FERROUS METAL INDUSTRY AND METALWORKING IN PROTOTOWN CENTRES IN CENTRAL PREDURALYE

In her research M. G. Ivanova raised various questions concerning the Middle Age history of Udmurtia. One of them is the question of origins of prototown settlements which were craft, trade and political centres on the territory. The Idnakar settlement used to play the key role among the prototowns of the day. In her work a lot of attention is paid to craft activities characterization, among others non-ferrous metalworking. Very similar cultural and historical processes may be observed on the territory of Central Preduralye - its Udmurt and Perm areas. Today’s research shows that metal workers in Central Preduralye produced copper alloys, cast ingots and exported these as trade goods. Alongside furskins, metal as a strategic raw material was one of the most sought-after trade items. Local artisans made some impressive achievements in non-ferrous metalworking - metal casting, gold-work, and copper smithy. Non-ferrous metal industry and metalworking, traditional among the Finno-Ugrian population, was much less dependent on craft centres of large feudal states than thought previously. However, it was clearly under the influence of these centres. Local production of various everyday items and decorations using non-ferrous materials is confirmed by many traces of mass craft production in prototown centres, and in Idnakar in particular. It is brightly manifested by the large number of specialized workshops that have been found across the Perm Region in recent years. Today it is beyond any doubt that there were in Central Preduralye regional centres of copperware production - particularly of cauldrons - as well as a peculiar Bulgar-Kama gold-work school whose items have peculiar unique features. Thanks to large-scale research at key Middle-Age sites, our views changed dramatically on specific features of metalworking in Central Preduralye and the import ratio on these territories among the unearthed Middle-Age artefacts.

Upgrading in Automotive Global Production Networks: Workers’ Power in South Africa

The introduction of the concept of social upgrading was a welcome development in the study of Global Production Networks (gpn s). We argue that although social upgrading is primarily a result of labour agency rather than automatically trickling down from economic upgrading, without economic upgrading social upgrading will not be sustainable. We show how it was through the use of their structural power, the development of associational power through building a national industrial union, the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa, and institutional and societal power, that workers realised social upgrading improvements in the automobile industry in South Africa. The rights consolidated in legislation and the institutions established were the result of workers using their power in strategic ways. We argue for an alternative approach to social upgrading that foregrounds workers power as a crucial determinant of social upgrading. This, we conclude, will require a labour-led development path.

Metal-smithy, Bead-making, Gemstones, Jeweller’s Weight, Trade-permits, Tax-stamps: Indus Script’s Semasiography Partly Decoded

This paper claims to have partly decoded the Indus script. It not only explains how the brief formulaic inscriptions found on seals and tablets helped in taxation and trade control, by recording taxed commodity-types, licensed commercial activities, tax-rates, mode of tax-payment, license-issuing entities etc., but also decisively identifies several semasiograms signifying metal-smithy, lapidary-works, related metrology and taxation. It shows how the sign resembling a “blowpipe inside a crucible”, repeatedly occurs in inscribed seals/tablets discovered from workshops of metal-workers, goldsmiths and bead-makers, and directly occurs on certain inscribed gold and copper implements. Crucibles and blowpipes being ancient smelting tools, their ideograms ( , , ) denoted gold-smithy in Egyptian hieroglyphs too. Moreover, certain Indo-Aryan and Dravidian words for metal-smith directly translates to “blowpipe-blower”. Thus archaeological, script-internal and linguistic evidence confirm that sign signified precious metals and metal-smithy in different contexts. Similarly, fish-like signs ( , , etc.), which repeatedly occur in inscriptions discovered from bead-makers’ and jewelers’ workshops across Indus settlements, arguably signified meanings associated with gemstones, bead-making and related metrological standards. Interestingly, in Proto-Dravidian, “mīn” means fish, shining, bright, and gemstone. Moreover, Indus valley’s eye-patterned gemstone beads were famous as “fish-eye beads” in Mesopotamia. The gemstone related fish-signs sometimes co-occur with , possibly because, the bead-makers and goldsmiths, who physically shared same workshops, were part of related trade license and taxation mechanisms. This paper also claims that the frequent terminal signs symbolized different volumetric ( ) and weight-based ( ) metrological units used in revenue collection and thus metonymically signified certain tax categories. Specifically, the terminal arrow-like sign , which mostly co-occurs with gemstone and gold-smithy related semasiograms, arguably symbolized a goldsmith’s balance, and metonymically signified tax-payments and trade-permits associated with precious commodities. Since ancient assay balances generally used arrow-like pointers for precise weight measurement (a comparable balance is discovered from Harappa), Indic words for assay balance (eṣaṇī, nārācī) are often etymologically rooted to arrow-words. This study claims that sign (allograph ), symbolized the abrus precatorious seeds, the traditional Indian jeweller’s weight, and metonymically signified goldsmith’s weight system and treasury. Many other related conjectures of this study significantly advance our understanding of Indus script.

Transformation and decline of Sawng: The socio-cultural effects of migration and the changes in intercommunity relations in Calcutta c.1870–1930

Sawng, one of the famous street performances of nineteenth-century Calcutta, was later used as one of the ‘weapons’ of the nationalist movement in the early twentieth century. The leaders of the nationalist movement appointed songwriters or playwrights from elite and educated communities, but the people who performed sawng on the streets of Calcutta came from slum areas. Though these people were from different labouring communities, sawng was known as Kansariparar Sawng (the sawng of the bell metal workers) or Jeleparar Sawng (the sawng of the fishermen). This article focusses on the effects of demographic changes on the socio-cultural world of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Calcutta. It also focusses on the impact of migration from 1876 to 1931 to understand the reasons behind the decline in the performance of sawng. The article also tries to unpack the complexity of different caste groups which took part in these popular street performances.

Voluntarism, Corporatism and Path Dependency: The Metalworkers’ Unions Amalgamated Engineering Union and IG Metall and their Place in the History of British and German Industrial Relations

Germany and Britain have served as models of either corporatist or voluntarist industrial relations. The more recent typology of ‘varieties of capitalism’ then identified Britain as a model case of a ‘liberal market economy’ while Germany was portrayed as a (state) ‘co-ordinated market economy’. The mainstream of German-language labour history also tells this success story. Some research on the evolution of co-determination has portrayed its subject as a long-standing trait of German capitalism, with predecessors dating back as far as 1848. With its focus on the history of two key trade unions in core industries of Britain and Germany, the British metalworkers’ union the Amalgamated Society of Engineers / Amalgamated Engineering Union and the German Metal Workers’ Union / IG Metall, this article questions both exceptionalism and continuity. It argues that a path dependency exists in the structure of both unions and the industrial relations around them—but that this never came close to a linear evolution of voluntarism or corporatism. On closer examination, the history of both unions includes localist as well as centralist practices. From the 1890s both unions were part of collective bargaining with strong employers’ associations; especially after 1945 both were open to corporatist compromises. For West Germany only, such a compromise was found in the early 1950s, and not before, while in Britain that same compromise was attempted but failed during the crucial years between 1965 and 1979. Therefore, to quote Stefan Berger, this article argues that ‘similarities between the British and the German labour movements have been underestimated’.

An Early Dynastic Crucible from the Settlement of Elkab (Upper Egypt)

During excavations in the spring of 2015 in the settlement of Elkab, a complete and almost intact crucible was discovered on the floor level of a Second Dynasty building. This article describes the crucible and its archaeological context, it explores the design of the crucible in comparison with contemporary crucibles of a corresponding style and it foreshadows the character of on-going research. The crucible has the shape depicted in Old Kingdom tomb metal-working scenes. Its profile became the hieroglyphic ideogram denoting metal-workers implying it was an iconic implement, although this is currently the only example of this kind of crucible from Egypt. Indeed, this is the earliest complete crucible for melting copper yet found anywhere.

Major risk factors and cardiovascular disease prevalence among petrochemical workers

Objective. Based on the assessment of occupational and non-occupational risk factors, development of preventive measures for the reducing of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) prevalence among petrochemical workers. Material and Methods. A total of 2,634 petrochemical workers have been examined. To identify modified and unmodified risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, comprehensive hygienic and clinical laboratory studies have been carried out. Results. The obtained results have shown a higher riskfor the development of cardiovascular disease among operators as compared to metal workers for instrumentation and automation repairs. Based on the assessment of risk factors, preventive measures implemented at personal and corporative levels have been developed.

Gender and Wartime Work

During World War II, women were heavily recruited for scientific and technical jobs across the united states. Many assumed roles previously allotted to men, serving as welders, riveters, sheet metal workers, crane operators, ship fitters, and chauffeurs, to name just a few. Between 1941 and 1944, over 6.5 million women joined the workforce; over 10 million were already working outside the home in 1941 (Pidgeon vi). The Brooklyn Naval Yard, featured in Manhattan Beach as the workplace of Anna, Nell, and their friends, also saw an increase in women workers, albeit a somewhat modest one. By 1944, according to The New York Times, women represented 4,000 of the 65,000 workers at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, not counting office workers (“Women Help Build Carrier”). While women represented just 6% of the industrial labor force at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, women represented 11.5% of all shipyard workers in 1944, according to the United States Department of Labor (Hirshfield 481).