Betas Thanassis
Department of History-Archaeology and Social Anthropology, University of Thessaly, 2015
Type: Dissertations

The objective of this study is to indicate and investigate the dimension of labor in a particular tobacco industry. The research, through the study of the industry’s archives, focuses on the work place as well as on the primary agents of labor, the male and female workers. The Matsaggos Tobacco Industry, such as the city of Volos, does not only stand for an ideal frame, but also for a specific study case of various aspects of the Greek labor strata in the post war period. Issues concerning the labor strata continue to challenge and keep historical research occupied, while the interest is now being orientated to new domains that, until now, have drawn little attention from Greek historiography. In specific, while studying the archive of an industry, historical research had the opportunity to trace, to describe and explain the world of labor by putting a line of questions: what kind of labor was being carried out, in which way and by whom. By which factors and in which way, work relations, the apportionment of labor, the rewards, validity, power and relations of authority were being regulated? How, finally, a particular position in the production process associates with other parameters? (e.g ethnic, gendered, technological apportionment of labor etc.). As a consequence, the biggest part of the chapters of this thesis focuses exactly on these questions. The contribution of new, previously unexplored archival material, such as that of the Matsaggos tobacco industry, has been valuable in order to approach these issues.
The thesis is divided in two parts: the first focuses on tobacco, the primary material of the tobacco industry. We discuss about the formation of the international tobacco market in the 20th century and also about the territorial and commercial elaboration of tobacco in the Greek Tobacco Cities. Later in the first part, we discuss about the manufacturing of handmade tobacco products in the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th, in Greece and internationally. We also discuss about the consequences and reactions provoked by the mechanization of cigarette making in the early 20th century. The last chapter of the first part focuses on the emergence of the cigarette industry, both internationally and locally, from the first years of its formation until the first post war decades. The second and the largest part of the thesis focuses on the Matsaggos tobacco industry. In the following chapters we can see the history of the particular industry (origin of capital, management strategies and technological investments), the profile of its workforce (the origin of the male and female workers, the age of the workers, how long did they stay in business, the professional mobility and the spatial spot of the Matsaggos workforce in the city of Volos), the formation of the labor market in post war Volos. The study then focuses on the particular work place: the organization of labor, its division and rewards, the methods of manipulating and imposing discipline on the workforce, the forms of protesting and claiming rights in the Matsaggos industry and, finally, the tracing of the living experience of the industry’s male and female workers. These are the issues discussed in the rest of the chapters of the second part of the thesis.
Both the study of labor in a big tobacco industry, such as the Matsaggos industry, an important branch of the Greek industry, and the productive elaboration of the industry’s archive aspire to enrich the historical landscape of Greek labor and additionally, to be included into the wider frame of historiography by offering new historical data. At the same time, as long as most chapters of this thesis focus on the post-civil war period, this study is expected to contribute to the wider field of Greek post-civil war history. The post-civil war period, while has been, until now, approached by social scientists, sociologists and economists, has received little attention in the past, from historians who mainly focused on politics and economic reconstruction. Not until very recently post-civil war social history has begun to receive attention from historians and social anthropologists. Finally, we need to mention that this study also contributes to the field of local history.

Supervisor: Christina Agriantoni