daily wage was about 15 zlotys. However, a skilled worker operating the drill could make even 70–80 zlotys a day.
The quantitative estimation of brush-making production is also difficult to determine. One major shipment of brushes could vary in the range of half a million items of various types. There were periods (September–October 1941), when the ghetto was making about 25,000 brushes daily. As prices of individual brushes differed, it is hard to determine the value of total exports. It may, however, be assumed that at the peak of deliveries, the ghetto manufactured brushes worth about 3 million zlotys per month.
While in carpentry the work and pay conditions were virtually unregulated, and individual workshops could and did depend on entrepreneurs who unscrupulously exploited every opportunity, the situation [24] was different in the brush-making trade. This was because of greater independence in obtaining raw materials, as well as the cohesiveness of the occupation itself. The brush-makers of Warsaw, with few exceptions, were able to take a pretty strong stance against entrepreneurs. The Section of Brush-makers of the Jewish Craftsmen Union appointed a Labour Group to represent manufacturers in contacts with entrepreneurs. Such circumstances forced erstwhile competitors to form associations; there was a period of struggle for working conditions and, above all, for prices, in which the Labour Group had some success. Finally, this organisation monopolised commissions to some extent, creating a cartel of a kind, which divided incoming orders between different workshops according to production capacity. Had not entrepreneurs and representatives of the Kraków company done all they could to secure their direct relationship with the accounting officer, and had not elements from the former “Thirteen” penetrated into the brush-making trade, it is possible that the Labour Group, as a fairly strong organisation, could have reached the end customer on their own.
The Labour Group took on the entirety of production. A member’s share amounted to 100 zlotys, which in total constituted the nucleus of working capital to purchase raw materials. At the same time, the Group helped less wealthy workshops to become independent from the entrepreneur and wholesaler of raw materials. A member of the Group who was “assigned” a commission could also get a referral to a wholesaler, where he would collect the required resources on the Labour Group’s account. Accounts were settled after the delivery was completed.
