Workers’ Health and Healthy Workers: Hospitals and Insurances in Czechoslovakia's Industry, 1918-1939

• In Event: The Cost of National Liberations: Post-Imperial Transitions in East Central European Business Realms

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction of public and private healthcare administration under the First Czechoslovak Republic. Looking at the Baťa company in Zlín, it explores how businesses moved within and exploited the public framework of healthcare provision to advance private sanitary and care facilities. Following the end of WW1, the transition to the new sovereign state fueled hopes of implementing the social policies that Czech politicians and trade unions had been demanding for decades. Indeed, by the mid-1920s, the extent of social protection available for Czech citizens surpassed European standards. It guaranteed insurance across employment sectors, where most countries still excluded access to agricultural workers and most workers outside of industry. However, financial constraints, political priorities, and local realities slowed ambitions of healthcare expansion. Industrial growth exerted pressures where cities and towns could not keep up with the demands of a rapidly growing economy. Businesses intervened to create hospitals and sanitary facilities, complementing the emerging proto-infrastructure of national welfare. In the process, they enhanced its reach and priorities while strengthening localized pockets of private power and control.

Author

• Bianca Centrone, Princeton University