ABSTRACT
From the start of mechanized cotton mills in the 1820s, industrial relations in Ghent were tense. Long strikes occurred regularly, and most of the textile barons had a reputation of being hard-liners, while cotton weavers were known for their ‘spirit of independence’. At the end of 1893, the co-op set up a tailors’ workshop that manufactured ready-to-wear goods by means of the most modern equipment, trusting to be able to compete with foreign products. The rise in clothing prices, and stagnating or at least modest real-wage increase of Ghent workers may help explain this weaker growth of sales. For a Ghent linen worker, ‘workers are better dressed, at a lower cost, although the quality of cloth has deteriorated’, while for a worker from Liege, ‘there is a vile rivalry between (women) that spreads a taste for luxury’. However, the dress store was also intended to take advantage of people’s desire to have better clothes.
