My Italy

Palermo is the largest city in Sicily, with more than 200,000 residents living here.

Since it is the capital, Palermo is also the political and economic center of Sicily, and most of the island's decent companies are located here.

Sicily's famous factories in Italy, such as Bonic Bicycle Factory and Charlton Winery, are all in Palermo. Of course, a thermal power plant can also be added.

The Palermo Thermal Power Plant, with an installed capacity of 90KW, is currently the source of Palermo’s Western scenery. Because a large part of the electricity generated here is used by the city government for lighting.

Yes, because the Palermo factory had doubts about the use of electricity, Palermo became the first city in Italy to adopt electric lighting.

The dim gas street lamps were replaced and converted into lamps capable of lighting with electricity. Not to mention, since the introduction of electric lights, the night view of Palermo has become much more beautiful. The bright lights shine farther, making citizens like to get out and walk more.

Forsighted businessmen also discovered business opportunities, and they asked the city government to connect electric lights for them to attract more potential customers who came out to hang out. Moreover, they are willing to pay the installation costs to the city government out of their own pockets, as well as the electricity bills.

Originally used as industrial electricity, it was used by civilians. Fortunately, the voltages of the two are not different, so there is no need to add a transformer. I don’t know if this is luck or misfortune.

It’s not that all electricity in Palermo is used by civilians. There are still several companies trying to change the power from steam engines to motor drives.

Among them, Bonic Bicycle Factory, as a large electricity consumer in Palermo, has the most experience in the use of electricity.

Jon Bonik, the boss of Bonik Direct Depot, sat on the boss's chair, holding a cigar in his hand, listening to the reports of his subordinates.

"Boss, based on our observations this month, using electricity as the power source has reduced our factory expenses by 8%. I think switching to electricity is very beneficial to our factory, which can reduce our costs."

After listening to his subordinate's report, Bonick smiled slightly. "I know this."

He was convinced that electricity was superior to steam engines, otherwise he would not have made his factory the first in Palermo to abandon steam engines and switch to electricity.

However, he can just listen to the fact that electricity is more cost-effective for now. He still has a plan to implement. "So how did the workers react to the overtime plan we prepared?"

Faced with Bonick's inquiry, his subordinate immediately answered. "At present, workers are generally very willing to accept your offer of overtime. After all, they only work two hours of overtime every day, and they can get an income of 10 lire per month. This is simply a gift to them."

After hearing his subordinate's words, Bonik immediately spoke. "In this case, starting from next week, the factory will need to work 12 hours. If someone is unwilling to do so, then let him go home."

"Boss, what should the government do if you do this?"

Faced with the inquiry from his subordinates, Bonik smiled. "Governor Antonio has left, and those people he promoted have lost their backers. I have already gotten to know the new Governor Cabrera. He is a more traditional official, so we don't have to worry."

Well, after Antonio went to East Africa to serve as governor, the good environment in Sicily he created began to be destroyed. Considering the interests of the people of Sicily at that time, Antonio was very considerate of them. He issued a decree requiring factory employees not to work more than ten hours. The original intention is to allow workers to have their own rest time, and the deeper level is to allow the factory to hire more people.

Although many times, such local ordinances are bullshit. But it was rare to meet a serious governor, so after dealing with a few inexperienced factory owners, others could only obey the decree obediently. As for moving the factory or something like that, it would cost too much. Moreover, the ten-hour work system has basically been implemented in the Apennine Peninsula, and moving there will have the same effect.

Besides, moving to a new place requires making new connections, which also requires an expense. So the factory owners in Sicily had no choice.

But now, with the rise of Governor Antonio, the factory owners who felt that they had made less money before were beginning to take action again.

Of course, the shrewd boss Bonik doesn’t just want to increase his working time by two hours. He has a complete plan. First, let the workers adapt to the twelve-hour working hours, and then announce that because the factory has too many orders, they need to be divided into two shifts, using people to stop and the machines to continuously produce bicycles of their own brand.

Then, at a lower cost price, it enters into a price war with other brands of bicycles to achieve its goal of occupying the domestic bicycle market.

Some people may say that this is nothing. In later generations, this is not very common. It is everywhere.

But the hereafter is the hereafter, and the present is the present. When electricity is not used on a large scale by factories, factories should not even think of using this method.

That's because of the lighting problem. Even if the workers can accept it, the lighting required at night is still a big problem. Using gas lamps or candles is too easy to cause a fire, but it is not bright enough to allow workers to work.

And Bonik was the first person to see how much electricity can promote factory efficiency. Factories with electricity supply have inherent advantages over other factories. In this case, why not start using it yourself first, while others are still doing it? When you don't react, you can reduce the cost first, and then use the advantage of low cost to beat other brands of bicycles.

You must know that at this time, the production of bicycles required the production of every component of the bicycle. Later generations could not purchase parts, they only needed to assemble them.

Of course, Bonick just had a vision, but he didn't know how capable a factory like his that operated 24 hours a day was. Otherwise, such a factory would not be called a sweatshop in future generations.

But whether he can see it or not, this means that the use of electricity has taken root in Italy. With the use of electricity, Italian industries will be able to sell products to other countries at a lower cost in the future.

Of course, this is just the result of Italy taking the lead in the use of electricity. In the future, other countries will follow suit when they see Italy's use of electricity. Whether the Italian government can take advantage of this window period to upgrade factories depends on whether they have foresight.

Of course, the Italian National Grid Corporation, as the power supplier, already has its own plan for this, and the new thermal power plant expansion plan has just been approved. The reason is that the power plants built in northern cities are somewhat overwhelmed, and the scale of power generation needs to be expanded to meet the power consumption of the factories.

For this reason, famous cities such as Milan, Turin, Venice, Genoa, etc. have suspended urban lighting plans because they need to give priority to supplying factories. Of course, some of these factory owners also had the same idea as Bonick, but Bonick, who had unique conditions, took the lead.

Carlo planted the seeds for the use of electricity and finally saw the results of industrial development, although this was the result of making workers more tired.

But industrialization requires someone to pay. At present, Italian farmers and workers need to make temporary contributions to achieve great development of Italian industry.