In the book, the processes through which the labor market was shaped and the industry of Piraeus developed are examined, while the workers who worked in the textile factories, from the late 19th century to the Interwar period, come to the forefront.
In the textile factories, the numerical fluctuation of a large part of the workforce, which was constantly hired and fired, occasionally and irregularly, depending on the orders, was a fundamental element of flexibility for the businesses, but it required specific technology and a high degree of mechanization. Piecework wages, subcontracting systems, fines, and the extension of the duration of the working day constitute the various methods by which productivity was increased and work discipline was maintained.
Wage labor constituted a decisive experience for the men and women of the city in the new social relations of industrial capitalism. The labor experience was also defined by gender, which played an important role in the division of labor, the formation of skills, the structure of daily wages, and the expression of collective action. The focus on the gender dimension of wage labor allows for the emergence of power relations between social classes and within classes.
The study challenges established historiographical views, proposes a different way of reading social and economic history, and utilizes archives of industrial enterprises in order to focus on the labor process itself in the production spaces.