The permanent laborer without property indisputably occupies a kind of farm-laborer position vis-à-vis the lord of the manor. The system of permanent laborers first developed after the abolition of hereditary serfdom and is a result of freedom of movement. The station of permanent laborer constitutes a contract with the laborer's entire family. He is not employed as personal servant but is reserved for farm work. The system of permanent laborers still carries, as someone expressed it, the eggshells of estate subservience, as the permanent laborer is more or less isolated from the free competition of the labor market. His entire situation is dependent on personal performance and the mercy of the landowner. The system of hiring permanent laborers entails that the lord still gives orders in everyone’s interest without damage to the individual’s personal sense of honor and duty. For usually the permanent laborer has the right, to give one example, to keep a cow, two pigs, two mother geese, 5-6 chickens, etc. He enjoys free room and heating and free doctor’s services and medicine. Besides a fixed allowance of potatoes and grain, he also receives for his disposal some plot for gardening and growing potatoes on the estate fields. By virtue of the threshing right, the permanent laborer is allowed to thresh the grain produced on the estate in return for a share of the yield. It is not unusual that he undertakes part of the harvesting for a specified amount of the harvest. For these benefits, the permanent laborer and his wife have to participate in the work of farming day in and day out. He also has to provide a third laborer, the so-called Scharwerker* or day laborer. Most of the time, the permanent laborer’s own children, once they have had confirmation, are used, or a boy or girl aged 14-18 is hired for this purpose. [ . . . ]
Disadvantageous for the permanent laborer is his great dependence. The permanent laborer has no future; he cannot become anything other than what he is, no matter how loyally he has worked on the estate year after year. If he quits his position on one farm, he has to sign on for work at the next one under similar conditions. We see how reluctantly the young worker** serves as a farm laborer. The accommodation provided for him by the permanent laborer, however, affords him the opportunity to marry early. The day laborer always constitutes an ever-increasing expense for the permanent laborer and is often difficult to find.
* Scharwerker: hard laborer – trans.
** i.e, the Scharwerker – trans.
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