The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection

by A. Schäffle; etc. statutes Germany. Laws

The basis of the edifice is formed by Labour Boards and Courts of Arbitration, on the one hand (i.e. for executive purposes), and Labour Chambers on the other (i.e., for purposes of regulation). We shall, as far as possible, give the explanation of the matter in the words of the motion.

Labour Boards. On this head the Auer Motion reads as follows: “§ 132a. Below the Imperial Labour Board come the Labour Boards which shall be appointed throughout the German Empire, in districts of not less than 200,000, nor more than 400,000 inhabitants, at the latest by Oct. 1, 1891. § 133. The Labour Board shall consist of a Labour Councillor and at least two paid officers; it must pass its rulings and decisions in full sitting. The Imperial Labour Board shall select the labour councillor from two candidates nominated by the Labour Chamber. The permanent paid officers, whose duty it is to assist the labour councillor in his task of supervision, shall be elected by the Labour Chamber, half from the employers, and half from the employed. In districts in which there are a considerable number of works employing chiefly female labour, some of the officials appointed shall be women. The same rules with regard to invalid and superannuation pensions shall apply to the officers of the Labour Boards, as apply to all other imperial officials. § 133a. The officers of the Imperial Labour Board, and the labour councillors or their paid assistants, shall have the right at any time to inspect all places of business (whether of State, municipal, or private enterprise) and to make such regulations as may appear necessary for the life and health of the workers employed. In the exercise of such supervision they shall be empowered with all the official authority of the local police magistrates. In so far as the rules laid down are within the official authority of the supervising officers, the employers and their staff shall be bound to render unhesitating obedience. The employer or his representatives shall have a right of appeal to the District Labour Board, to be lodged within a week, against the orders and rulings of individual officials, and a right of appeal against the District Labour Board’s decision, also within a week, to the Imperial Labour Board. The Labour Board shall be bound to inspect all the works within a district at least once a year. The employers shall permit the official inspection to take place at any time when the work is being carried on, especially also at night. The inspecting officers shall be bound, except in cases of infringement of the law, to observe secrecy as to all information on the concerns of a business obtained by them in pursuit of their official duties. § 133b. The local police magistrates shall uphold the Labour Board in the exercise of its authority, and shall enforce obedience to its directions. § 133c. The Labour Board shall organize all free labour intelligence within its district, and serve in fact as a central bureau for this purpose. It shall also be empowered to appoint branch bureaux with this object, in such places as may seem suitable, and if there is no industrial union to undertake the duties the local police magistrates shall undertake them. § 133d. Every Labour Board shall publish a yearly report of its proceedings, copies of which shall be distributed gratuitously to the members of the Labour Chambers by the Imperial Labour Board and the Central District Courts. The report shall be submitted to the approval of the Labour Chamber before publication. The Imperial Labour Board shall draw up yearly, from the annual reports of the Labour Boards, a general report to be submitted to the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. The reports of the District Labour Boards and the Imperial Labour Board shall be accessible to the public at cost price.”

The Labour Board of a district of from 200,000 to 400,000 inhabitants would be in the first place a modern kind of industrial inspectorate with offices filled from both classes—employers and employed—with a democratic system of election, and to which women would also be eligible. Even the presidency of this inspectorate would not be freely appointed by the government, which would have only the power of electing one out of two nominees of the Labour Chambers. The primary task of the board would take the form of Labour Protection, of centralization of labour intelligence, and of drawing up reports on matters concerning labour. The Labour Board is intended as the executive organ of the Labour Chambers, the parliamentary administration would therefore be general; even in reporting on industry the Labour Board would be subject to the approval of the Labour Chamber. It is evident that this Democratic organisation of courts, which would be powerless to act so long as both classes obstructed each other, might easily at one stroke, by turning out the nominees of the employers, be changed and developed into purely democratic district courts for the general protection of labour and the control of production.

Courts of Arbitration. The Court of Arbitration as proposed by the Auer Motion, is, so to speak, the judicial twin brother of the Labour Board. According to § 137-137e, the Court of Arbitration would be a court of the first instance, for the settlement of disputes between employers and workmen. It would be formed by each Labour Chamber out of its numbers, and would consist of equal numbers of employers and of workmen. The chair would be taken by the labour councillor or one of his paid assistants. Equal representation of both classes would be required when pronouncing decisions. None but relations, employés, and partners in the business, would be permitted to be present during the deliberations in support of the disagreeing parties. There would be right of appeal to the Labour Chamber. The members of this Court of Arbitration would (like those of the Labour Chamber) (§ 130a) receive daily pay and defrayment of travelling expenses. Such would evidently be the working out of this system of combined class representation, of which, indeed, we already have an instance in the industrial courts of arbitration.

Labour Chambers. These would form the foundation stone of the edifice, and they deserve the special attention of all who wish to know how Social Democracy means to attain her ends. I give verbatim the clauses dealing with this: “§ 134. For the representation of the interests of employers and their workmen, as well as for the support of the Labour Boards in the exercise of their authority, there shall be appointed from Oct. 1, 1891, in every Labour Board district, a Labour Chamber, to consist of not less than 24, and not more than 36 members, according to the number of different firms established in the district. The number of members for the separate districts shall be determined by the Imperial Labour Board. The members of the Labour Chambers shall be elected, the one half by employers of full age from amongst their numbers, the other half by workers of full age from amongst their numbers. The election shall be made on the principle of direct, individual, ballot voting by both sexes, a simple majority only to decide. Each class shall elect its own representatives. The mandate of the members of the Labour Chamber shall last for two years, opening and closing in each case with the calendar year. Simultaneously with the election of the members of the Labour Chamber proxies to the number of one-half shall be appointed. The proxies shall be those candidates who receive the greatest number of votes next after the elected members. In the case of equal votes lots shall be drawn. The selection of the polling day, which must be either a Sunday or festival, shall rest with the Imperial Labour Board, which shall also lay down the rules of procedure for the election. Employers and workmen shall be equally represented on the election committees. The time appointed for taking the votes shall be fixed in such a manner that both day and night shifts may be able to go to the poll. § 135. Besides fulfilling the functions assigned to them in §§ 106a, 110 and 121, the Labour Chambers shall support the Labour Boards by advice and active help in all questions touching the industrial life of their district. It shall be their special duty to make enquiry into the carrying out of commercial and shipping contracts; into customs, taxes, duties, and into the rate of wage, price of provisions, rent, competitive relations, educational and industrial establishments, collections of models and patterns, condition of dwellings, and into the health and mortality of the working population. They shall bring before the courts all complaints as to the conditions of industrial life, and they shall give opinion on all measures and legal proposals affecting industrial life in their district. Finally, they shall be courts of appeal against the decisions of the Courts of Arbitration. § 136. The president of the Labour Chamber shall be the labour councillor, or failing him, one of his paid officials. The president shall have no vote, except in cases in which the Labour Chamber is giving decision as a court of appeal against the decision of the Court of Arbitration. Equality of voting shall be counted as a negative. The president shall be bound to summon the Labour Chamber at least once a month, and also when required on the motion of at least one-third of the members of the Chamber. The Labour Chambers shall lay down their own working rules; their sittings shall be public.” According to § 139 of the motion, the members of the Labour Chambers shall also be entitled to claim daily pay and defrayment of travelling expenses.

Such are the Labour Chambers according to the proposals of the Social Democrats in 1885 and 1890.

It is not without some astonishment that I note the tactical ingenuity displayed by the party even here. Everything that has anywhere appeared in literature, in popular representation, in judicial and administrative organisation, in the way of proposals for the centralisation and extension of labour intelligence, or of proposals for the representation of labour in Labour Protection, and in all agencies for the care of labour,—every scheme that has ever been put forward under different forms, either purely theoretic or practical, as, e.g., “Popular Industrial Councils,” and “Industrial Courts of Arbitration”—is here used to make a part of a broad bridge, leading across to a “People’s State.” Nothing is lacking but the lowest planks, which could not, however, be dispensed with, a Local Labour Board and a Local Labour Chamber, as the sub-structure of the District Labour Boards and District Labour Chambers.

The leaders of Social Democracy in the German Reichstag maintain that they are willing to join hands with the representatives of the existing order in their schemes of organisation. We have, therefore, no right to treat their scheme as consciously revolutionary. But this hardly affects the question. The question is whether—setting aside altogether the originators of the plan—such an organisation as that described above might not in fact readily lend itself as a battering-ram to overthrow the existing order and realise the aim of Socialism, whether, in fact, it would not of necessity be so used. This question may well be answered in the affirmative without casting the slightest reproach at the present leaders of the party.

The regulating representative organs would have full and comprehensive authority in all questions of industry, social policy, and health, and in inspection of dwellings; and the executive organs, even up to the Imperial Labour Board, might be empowered by the mere alteration of a few sections of the Bill to exercise the same authority, subject to the consent of the majority in the National and District Chambers, and eventually in the Local Chambers.