ABSTRACT
The long-run development of Bremen's maritime labour market in the modern period can only be understood against this background. The selective introduction of labour-saving methods of cargo-handling ultimately reduced many dockworkers to little more than unskilled labourers. The increasing casualism of dock labour in Bremen, as in many other European ports, was invariably associated with a static earnings curve, irrespective of the changing level in nominal wage rates. In terms of welfare entitlement, many of the traditional guild organisations associated with dock work, such as the Kuper and Maskopirager had developed their own sickness insurance funds which continued to operate after the formal dissolution of the city's guilds in 1862. Employer organisations, such as the Bremen Lagerhausgesellschaft, responded to the threat of increasing unionisation by pursuing a selective, integrative strategy, specifically in relation to 'permanent' workers.
