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HOB-NAILED BOOTS IN THE LOWLANDS
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turning
out their wares furiously and shipping them abroad in dread of the
rumored German invasion, Belgium (which virtually means Antwerp)
exported 399,806 carats, with a value of $21,733,478, while The
Netherlands cutters were able to account for an export of only 77,422
carats with a value of $4,454,205. In 1940, in spite of the invasion,
Belgium's figure was 242,326 carats, and that of The Netherlands was
34,337 carats.
Yet,
although claiming fewer workers, the diamond cutters of Amsterdam long
have been members of one of the best-organized unions of its kind in
the world. It is called the Algemeene Nederlandsche-Diamantbewerkers
Bond (generally known as the ANDB, the cutters having adopted the
initials long before the advent of the New Deal). Before the war it
had on its membership rolls almost every active cleaver, sawyer,
cutter, and polisher in Amsterdam. They enjoyed a thirty-eight-hour
week, insurance against sickness, unemployment, and death, with a
monthly pension for workers retiring after the age of sixty-five.
But
the wages were something else. Although before the depression they
might have received from $18 to $40 a week, depending on whether they
were cleavers, polishers, sawyers, or cutters, after the depression
wages dropped and never went up again. Thus diamond workers in
Amsterdam, right up to the war, received on an average of $10 a week,
and not more than $178 week.
Yet that is better than what the Antwerp cutters received —an average of less than $8 a week. The reason was that Antwerp diamond workers were less highly organized. There were
two unions working against each other: the Algemeene Diamantbewerkers
Bond van Belgie (the CIO of Antwerp) and the Christelyk Belgisch
Diamantbewerkers Bond, a conservative group and, as its name suggests
(translated it
(101)
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