Sukno, Zapuže

Slovensko (English below):

Po pripovedovanju treh domačinov iz Begunj in okolice:
V Begunjah in okolici je bila od nekdaj doma tekstilna tradicija; pridelovali so volno in sadili lan. S to tradicijo je povezano tudi ime tovarne Elan, po kateri so bile Begunje najbolj znane. Ime je nastalo tako, da so imenu predvojne predilnice Lana, kamor se je po vojni naselilo mizarsko podjetje, dodali nekoliko športnega duha. Predilnica in tkalnica Sukno v bližnji vasi Zapuže je nastala iz dveh predvojnih obratov, Kristanovega in Boletovega, ki so ju leta 1948 nacionalizirali. Dva sogovornika sta v zadnjih razredih osnovne šole v Sukno hodila na počitniško prakso; to je bilo običajno za otroke, katerih starši so delali v tovarni. Od prakse v Suknu sta jima najbolj ostala v spominu ropotanje in slaba malica.

Tovarna Sukno je zaprta že dobrih štiri ali pet let. Na cesto je šlo 300 ali 400 delavcev, mnogi od njih niso dobili odpravnin. Nekateri so se upokojili, kdor je mogel, je šel delat drugam. A zapiranje v teh krajih se je kar vrstilo: Sukno, Elan, Almira.

Po pripovedovanju upokojene delavke Helene Resman in odpuščene delavke Meri Jereb:
Helena Resman se je v Suknu zaposlila leta 1953 in je že 20 let v pokoju. Njena hči Meri Jereb je v Suknu delala, dokleg ga niso zaprli, zdaj pa se preživlja s priložnostnim delom. V Suknu je delal tudi njen brat.

“V tovarni smo pustile najboljša leta,” pravi Helena. Večino let od 35 letne delovne dobe je Helena preživela na stoječem delu, šele nazadnje na sedečem. Delala je v predilnici na fazi mikanje preje. Čeprav so blago »na roke vlekle«, to ni bilo težko delo. Meri je bila klaserka »gotovega blaga«. Delala je na fazi dekatiranje in kosmatenje, ki je zadnja faza po likanju. Kljub temu, da je delo opravljala stoje, delo ni bilo pretežko. V prostoru vsaj ni bilo prahu kot v predilnici ali hrupa kot v tkalnici, kje so ženske glušele. Meri je bila »deklica za vse«, saj je znala delati na vse stroje in je tudi priučevala nove delavke.

Delo je v Suknu potekalo v dveh izmenah, razen v predilnici in tkalnici, kjer so imeli tudi tretjo izmeno. Nočni šiht so imeli predvsem poleti, ko je bila sezona za blago. Delavke so se med sabo dobro razumele. Delavke, ki so živele daleč, je na delo vozil delavski avtobus. Helena je bila znana po jutranjem prihajanju na delo. Ker je stanovala blizu tovarne, je vedno zadnja prihajala na šiht, tako da so se v tovarni šalili: “Helena gre, ura je šest!” Doma so bili pač majhni otroci in vedno je bilo treba veliko postoriti. Delavci iz Begunjskega Elana so delavce iz Sukna zaničevali, cunjarji so jim rekli. V Suknu so bile delavke slabše plačane kot v Elanu, zato je šel marsikdo raje delat v Elan.

V Suknu je bilo veliko starih strojev, nekateri še ostali tam še iz predvojne Boletove tovarne. Sčasoma so stroji zastareli, dela je bilo vedno manj. Sukno je izgubilo tudi dva velika odjemalca, Labod in Muro, za preživetje so delali dodelave oz. »lohn posle« za Nemčijo. Nemci so jim plačevali s starimi stroji. Plače so bile zmeraj slabše, nazadnje pa jih ni bilo več. Leta 1983 je Helena ob upokojitvi še dobila odpravnino, za katero si je kupila pralni stroj. Meri je ob zaprtju tovarne dobila 50.000 SIT od Jamstvenega sklada. Iz stečajne mase niso delavci dobili nič. Novejše stroje so pobrali vodilni delavci, druge so odpeljali v Romunijo in v Makedonijo.

Op.: Tekst je bil prvič objavljen leta 2003 v umetniški publikaciji Singer, glasilo zaprtih tekstilnih tovarn na Slovenskem. Lektoriranje: Alvina Žuraj.

English:

From a conversation with three residents from the Begunje area:
There has been a textile tradition in Begunje and the surrounding area for a long time; people would process wool and grow flax here. The Sukno spinning and weaving factory in the nearby village of Zapuže developed from two pre-war factories, Kristan and Bole, which were nationalised in 1948.

The Sukno factory has been closed a good four or five years. Some 300–400 employees found themselves on the street; many of them did not get their redundancy pay. Some took retirement, and whoever could, went somewhere else to work.

From a conversation with retired worker Helena Resman and laid-off worker Meri Jereb:
Helena Resman started working at Sukno in 1953 and has been retired for 20 years now. Her daughter, Meri Jereb, worked at Sukno until it was shut down; now she earns what she can doing odd jobs. Her brother also worked at Sukno.

‘We left our best years behind in the factory,’ Helena says. For most of her 35 years there, Helena worked standing up; only in the last years did she have a job where she could sit down. She worked on the spinning mill where the yarn was shifted back and forth. Although the material had to be drawn by hand, it was not hard work. Meri sorted the ‘finished material’; she worked in the shrinking and carding phase, which was the last one before ironing. Although she did the job standing up, the work was not too hard. At least the room did not have a lot of dust, like in the spinning mill, or noise, like in the weaving mill, where women would go deaf. Meri was a kind of ‘all-purpose’ girl; she knew how to work all the machines and would also train new workers.

Work at Sukno took place in two shifts, except in the spinning and weaving mills, where there was also a third shift. The night shift took place mainly in the summer, which was the high season for their goods. The women got along well with each other. Those who lived far away were driven to work on the factory bus. Helena was known for coming to work in the morning. Because she lived near the factory, she was always the last one to arrive on her shift, and the others would make jokes like, ‘Helena’s arriving, so it must be six o’clock!” But she had young children at home and there was always a lot to do.

There was a lot of old machinery at Sukno, and some of the machines were still there from the pre-war days of the Bole factory. The machines gradually became obsolete, and there was less and less work. To survive, the factory took on finishing work, ‘out-source’ jobs, from Germany. The Germans paid for the work with old machines. The pay kept getting worse and finally there wasn’t anything anymore. In 1983, when Helena retired, they were still giving out redundancy pay, and she used it to buy a washing machine. When the factory finally closed, Meri got 50,0000 SIT (about 215 EUR) from the Security Fund. None of the workers got anything from the bankruptcy estate. The management came and took away the newer machines, and the rest of the equipment was sent to Romania and Macedonia.

Note: The text was first published in 2003 in the art publication Singer, a Newsletter of Closed Textile Factories in Slovenia. Translation: Rawley Grau.