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Labour Unions as a Political Force
in Germany
During the Weimar Republic, labor unions were divided along partisan
lines, a situation that led to competition among the socialist, communist,
Catholic, and liberal trade associations. After World War II, labor leaders
wanted to break with the past and form a trade union federation independent
of political parties. The result was the establishment of the Federation
of German Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund--DGB) in 1949.
Four principles guided the founders of the DGB. First, the labor movement
wanted representation through an organization that was unitary and autonomous,
with no ties to particular religions or political parties. Second, labor
leaders decided to organize the unions along industrial lines so that
all workers at one firm would belong to the same union irrespective of
their individual occupations. For instance, an electrician at an automobile
plant would join the metalworkers' union. This organizing principle provides
unions with greater bargaining power when negotiating with employer associations,
because one union represents the entire workforce of an industry. Third,
a decentralized system of interest representation was created. Individual
unions typically emulate the federal structure, with local, district,
Land, and national offices. Each level has some input into the
shape of union policy. Fourth, the unions chose to rely on legislation
for the protection of workers' rights, rather than on direct negotiations
with business representatives. Thus, when the unions enter into contract
negotiations with employers, they can focus on improving workers' economic
welfare.
The DGB is the national peak association of the German labor movement
and encompasses sixteen unions, from metalworkers to leather workers.
The DGB represents virtually all organized industrial workers, most white-collar
employees, and many government workers. As of mid-1995, out of a total
workforce of 35 million, 9.8 million workers were members of these labor
unions. Although the DGB does not represent even half of the German workforce,
its unions negotiate the collective bargaining agreements covering over
90 percent of all jobs. Thus, the work of the labor unions affects nearly
all workers. The DGB lost over 2 million members between the end of 1991
and the end of 1994. The vast majority of these members (1.7 million)
were from eastern Germany, which has been in the throes of radical economic
restructuring and has suffered high unemployment. Some DGB officials express
the hope that, once the economy in the eastern part of the country stabilizes,
DGB membership will grow.
In 1995 the three largest unions were the Metalworkers' Union with just
under 3 million members, the Public Services and Transport Workers' Union
with 1.9 million, and the Chemicals, Paper, and Ceramics Workers' Union
with 742,000. Roughly 31 percent of all members are women.
DGB members can be divided into "activist" and "accommodationist"
factions. The activists, led by the Metalworkers' Union and the Industriegewerkschaft
Medien, the union for workers in the media, aggressively challenge business
interests and are major advocates of social reform. For example, the Metalworkers'
Union led the drive for codetermination (Mitbestimmung) in the
early 1950s, for substantial wage gains in the 1960s, and for the thirty-five-hour
workweek in the 1980s. The activist unions are more likely to strike if
collective bargaining fails to achieve desired results. In contrast, the
accommodationist unions, including those representing chemical workers,
construction workers, textile workers, and food-processing workers, prefer
to cooperate with employers to achieve stable, sustainable economic growth.
The individual unions have responded differently to German unification
as well. Activist unions have been assertive in pushing for wage equalization
between east and west, an effort that culminated in a massive strike in
the metalworking industry in eastern Germany in May 1993.
Two other, significantly smaller peak interest associations represent
labor sectors independent of the DGB. The German White-Collar Employees'
Union (Deutsche Angestellten-Gewerkschaft--DAG) is composed solely of
salaried employees, principally high-level technocrats and managers in
private enterprise. The Federation of German Civil Servants (Deutscher
Beamten Bund--DBB) has competed successfully with the DGB to represent
civil servants. The DBB is better described as a lobbying organization,
because civil servants can neither strike nor engage in collective bargaining.
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