Women in a male-dominated brewing world
Even though Carlsberg has employed many women over the years, there was great inequality between the sexes at the brewery in everything from work tasks to pay. A fight the women would not give up on.
When you think of beer brewing, are we right to assume you imagine a male worker before your eyes? But did you know that beer brewing was originally a women's profession?
The first evidence of beer production in Denmark comes from Egtvedpigen from the Bronze Age, who was buried with a mug of beer, just as the women of the Viking Age were also busy brewing beer for the heavy-drinking Vikings. Later, beer brewing became part of the ordinary household, which the women took care of until the 16th century. After this, beer became a commodity and, thus, suddenly a job for men, which later developed into a whole industry. Right up to the 19th century, however, the peasant women still brewed the beer that was drunk in Denmark.
With the beer bottle came the women
Several decades would pass from Carlsberg's founding in 1847 until the first female employees set foot in the brewery. They were considered incapable of the hard work of malting and brewing.
That changed with the beer bottle. After 1870, Carlsberg's export beer was tapped in bottles rather than barrels at the Alliance Bottling Plant, which employed 38 women in 1888.
A risky job
The women could earn relatively well in the breweries compared to other female factory workers. Still, to begin with, they worked under miserable conditions and long working hours, followed by all domestic work at home. Add to that a risky job at the brewery. The women easily cut themselves on shards of glass from the bottles, and the harsh agents in the water of the soft wheel, which was used to wash the bottles, were hard on the women's hands. The bottles were also sealed with a wire tie before the capsule was invented, where there was a high risk of cutting yourself, and the bottles also exploded occasionally.
Maja Regine Olsen started in January 1904 at Carlsberg's Bottling Plant. Here, she talks about her everyday life at Carlsberg:
"It wasn't too good to begin with. Some others and I came across an old hall and had to stand outside in the biting frost, putting bottles over and sweeping horse drops together. After the columns were finished, we came over to the bottling hall. After all, it was manual labour. We hand-strapped and labelled on a small machine. We sang most of the day, even if the machines were running, and it was a good spectacle".
Carlsberg's women organise themselves
At the beginning of the 20th century, 25 women from Carlsberg organised themselves with other women from Copenhagen breweries in the Brewery Workers' Union. Much emphasis was placed on camaraderie and sociability. This laid the groundwork for the fight for a higher real wage, lower working hours, and better working conditions.
In 1906, something historical happened at Carlsberg. Firstly, Old Carlsberg and New Carlsberg were merged into one brewery named Carlsberg Breweries. Secondly, a huge bottling hall was inaugurated with a daily production of at least 1,250,0000 bottles. Around 1912, 352 women and 74 men worked in the bottling hall simultaneously in a 10-hour working day.
Unemployment hits
Most breweries introduced mechanisation of the bottling halls in the 1920s. Almost a third of the women around the breweries became unemployed during the 20s and 30s. Women's work functions were most exposed when new machines were introduced, and the perception of women at the time also came into play - the women belonged in the home and kitchen. The women were fired, and the men were reassigned. Unmarried women who did not have to keep a house, husband, and children were preferably seen at the breweries.
Wartime and the 1950s
At the beginning of the war, many men and women were unemployed around the breweries due to difficulties obtaining fuel and raw materials for the industry. However, the Germans didn't hold back on beer and soft drinks consumption, which increased during the war and kept the wheels turning at breweries like Carlsberg.
After the war in the 1950s, the women at Carlsberg still primarily worked in the bottling halls or with cleaning. The women mainly worked on piecework, and it was often seasonal work that sent them home for long periods over the winter. The women's union worked hard, without success, to equalise the obviously unfair differences between men and women in the breweries.
Childcare continued to be a problem for the female factory workers, which, however, resulted in several breweries setting up daycare facilities for the worker’s children, including Carlsberg, in 1947 with nurseries and kindergartens. Mothers who were breastfeeding were also allowed to leave the brewery and breastfeed their children during working hours.
Equal pay for unequal work
The women at Carlsberg slowly fought for better conditions, culminating in 1971, when the union ensured the same pay for everyone, regardless of gender or geographical location. A huge victory for equality. A few years later, the 40-hour working week was also introduced. Here, a former female employee talks about the fight for equality at Carlsberg in the employee magazine Carlsberg Bladet in 1978:
"When I sit here in my cosy living room at Bryggergården, looking back at all the things my generation helped create to gain the good working conditions that exist today, I am satisfied. And we have contributed to Carlsberg being a good workplace!"
In the following years, women also entered the offices as punch card ladies (digitalisation and data storage at the time), bookkeepers and assistants in the laboratories. And just look today; where we are at Home of Carlsberg are 50% women and 50% men working here.
Sources
Carlsbergs Arkiv
Carlsberg Bladet
De slukkede vores tørst - og gjorde livet lidt rødere. Bryggeriarbejderne og deres forbund 1898-1990, Jørgen Assens, Anette Eklund Hansen, Bjarne Bo Jensen & Margaret Nielsen, 1993.