Workers-peasants in Enterprises

A modern working class recruits its new members from original environments that disintegrate and disappear under the influence of the industrial development that disintegrate and disappear under the influence of the industrial development. In the Yugoslav society those original environments are in the first place villages t. i. agricultural population. Changes of village are very complex. One of the forms of these changes represents an inclusion of individual peasants in modern way of agricultural production through cooperation with the social sector of agriculture. The second form is a transfer of agricultural population in nonagricultural occupations and the break off of all ties with the agriculture. Yet, certain number of peasants continue to work on their land. Thus in the process of the formation of the working class a social stratum, engaged in agriculture and out of agriculture, appears. The author in this article on the basis of own empirical research investigates the social structure of employees in four selected enterprises. They are different according to: a) level of technical equipment measured by a value of the basic means of production per one employed, b) time of the foundation, c) number of employees and d) location — rural or urban environment. These data about the employees were collected: 1) social origination (occupation of parents), 2) occupation before the employment, 3) possession of imovables (agricultural land or house). An analysis of these data showed that in three out of four investigated enterprises exists a category of employed persons with private holdings. In the most cases it is connected with the peasant’s origin of the employed and in one of the four investigated enterprises it is in connection with the peasant-workers status of their parents. A correlation between a location of the enterprise and a proportion of this mixed social category has been established. In enterprises located in urban environments there are less number of employees with private holdings than in enterprises located in rural environments. Thus, dispersion of industry in rural environments causes a relative stabilization of the workers-peasant stratum. In the second part of the article the author considers the intensity of participation of peasant-workers in various bodies of selfmanagement in comparison with »pure« workers and employees and finds out no sharp differencies as it was supposed before the investigation