“The guild […] manufactures nothing, nor produces any artifact”: Barcelona's Seven Maritime Cargo Handling Guilds, c.1760–1840

Abstract

By studying the guilds of the seven maritime cargo handling trades of Barcelona, this paper aims to contribute to the relatively limited, but growing scholarship of port labour during the late artisan phase, and of service-sector guilds in general. It examines the relationship between occupational and organizational cultures, the types and means of inculcating human and social capital, and the formal and informal determination of qualification in view of the different guild responses to liberalization and abolition. Unlike guilds in the secondary sector, these corporations were organized horizontally among masters and had neither journeymen, nor apprentices in their respective trades. Some of them provided services individually while others worked collectively. They generally prohibited internal and external employment schemes, and many of them used a turn system or another to level work opportunities. One of these guilds transitioned directly into a trade union; others became owner associations or dissolved into unorganized competitors. The period studied covers the flexibilization of the labour market through progressively advancing liberal reforms of monopolistic guild privileges and the formal abolition of Spanish guilds in 1836. Comparisons with other European ports further highlight the multiplicity of considerations for understanding occupational and organizational cultures and the trajectories of guilds in the service sector.

From Corporations to Companies: The Development of Capitalism in Maritime Cargo Handling in the Port of Barcelona (ca. 1760–1873)

“…In the case of port labor in Barcelona, these guilds monopolized labor and work processes, provided mutual aid, and, importantly, guaranteed the safe conduct of the goods and covered losses. 28 While guilds in manufacturing and commerce operated under the jurisdiction of local, municipal authorities (with a royal or local justification) in Spain, the main governmental authority for understanding port labor is the Navy. Spain operated a national naval registration and recruitment scheme called the Matrícula de Mar (Matriculate of the Sea).…”

“…The occupational and organizational cultures of the guild corporations that organized and controlled that labor were largely derived from the collective nature of their service provision. 1 Even so, the bifurcation studied here of these basically egalitarian, horizontal organizations of guild-brothers into employees and owners is illustrative of the guild-based transition to capitalism.…”