The Problems of the Upper Carniolan Iron Manufacture in the Time of the Carniolan Industrial Company (KID)

Abstract

As a consequence of unforeseen technical progress in the 19th century, the Upper Carniolan forges, owing to their out-of-date technology and exliausted mining resources, found themselves in a hopeless situation. The onIy way out was an association, and so the KID was founded in 1869. By abandoning unprofitable works, selling forest estates and investing Viennese and Berlin capital, the KID hael a new steel-works built at Jesenice and a rolling-mill at Javornik, and, in the nineties of the last century, a most up-to-date iron works with furnaces, a stell-works and a sheet rolling-mill at Trieste. After the First World War the KID could keep only its iron-works at Jesenice; in the thirties this was extended and modernized, and immediately before the Second World War two furnaces were put up. The years 1935-40 were characterized by the Jesenice workmen's fight for their social rights and an increase in wages. The climax was reached in the 1935 strike, which benefited the workmen.