This dependence of the Factory Workers Councils on the Trade Union gives rise naturally to two considerations. The Factory Workers Council is without resources, whereas the Trade Union is rich; the one cannot undertake anything without the aid of the other. But naturally it will not obtain this aid unless it submits to the guidance given it. On the other hand, in order to discuss adequately with the employer the difficult problems that come within the authority of the Factory Workers Council, there is required a preliminary education which the worker does not possess unless he has had long experience in Trade Union life. He often lacks the knowledge and the experience which cannot be acquired except slowly and in the school of the Trade Unions. For this reason also, the Factory Workers Councils should follow Trade Union direction.
The champions of the system of Councils do not concede this subordination of the Factory Workers Councils to the Trade Unions. There is an essential difference between the two, they declare. The Trade Union has as its exclusive mission the preparation and the direction of struggles for wages and conditions of work under the régime of capitalist production. The Factory Workers Council is warring for a new system of production. And its mission is to prepare the working class to take into its own hands the direction of production. That is why the organization of the Factory Workers Council must be independent of the Trades Unions, and must develop outside of the framework of the Trades Unions.
The task which the Factory Workers Councils must accomplish and which must serve as the basis of all their future activity, is to achieve a unity of front of the whole working class. The Trade Unions have not yet brought themselves to take the initiative in this fundamental reform. At the present time workers are still scattered among approximately fifty Trades Unions, which are divided still further into a number of sections and branches. There is an inextricable network of collective contracts, “tariffs,” and wage agreements down to the smallest labour group, representing a great amount of work; but this cannot in the least ameliorate the economic condition of the working class.
One thing must immediately be abolished, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft, because it is contrary to the doctrine of the class struggle, and because, under the pretext of co-operation, it insures the domination of the capitalist over the worker.
As for the Trades Unions, the champions of the Factory Workers Council recognize that the latter, although working on a different plan, must remain in intimate contact with the former. But there is an indispensable reform to be realized. Organization by trades must be replaced by organization by industries or factories. In other words, all the vocations functioning at the same time in the same industry must be grouped within the same organization. In still other words, the separation of wage-earners associations from the associations of salaried employés must be done away with. On the contrary, all manual and intellectual workers of the same industry must join together and consecrate all their efforts to a common end.
Finally, declared the partisans of the Councils, the Factory Workers Councils cannot remain isolated in the various separate industries. They can only fulfil their function if they unite in district assemblies and organize in such a way as to create a “Central Organ of the Factory Workers Councils,” which will direct the activity of all the Factory Workers Councils of Germany.
These arguments were not without effect on the Trades Union leaders. They still maintained, naturally, the principle that the Factory Workers Councils must enter into the Trade Union organization and that they must remain an organ of the latter. But they declared themselves ready to accept a great part of the reforms demanded by their critics.
Moreover the General Federation of Labour and the General Federation of Salaried Employés organized “A Central Union of the Factory Workers Council,” whose purpose is to unite the Factory Workers Councils with the unions of wage-earners and salaried employés, and to incorporate them into the whole Trade Union organization. To this end they undertook a complete local organization of the Factory Workers Councils. First the District Committees of the Trades Unions were to proceed to a redistribution of the Factory Workers Councils into fifteen industrial groups. Each industrial group was to decide independently on the matters that concern the vocations included in this group. The Group Council had to include a member of the Trade Union or of the corresponding union of salaried employés. This organization by groups was to insure the co-operation of Factory Workers Councils on an industry basis, and thus attempt to meet the criticisms of partisans of the Councils. Above the different industrial groups three organs were provided which would represent the Factory Workers Councils as a whole: the General Assembly of all the Factory Workers Councils, the Central Council, and the Central Committee.
The mission of the Trade Union organization of the Factory Workers Councils would be to give the latter a Trade Union direction and development, to unite in the factories all economic and social forces available, and to utilize these forces for the defence of the common interests of all workers. There is thus a division of labour between the traditional mission of the Trade Union branches and that of their local committees, on whom would be still incumbent the duties of specifically Trade Union organization, whereas questions of general, social and economic policy would be given over to the “Central Factory Workers Council.” It follows that the two parallel organizations must work hand in hand and must consult each other on all questions, thus doing away with all possibility of conflict.
Such was the plan, duly elaborated by the Trade Unions, which at this time is submitted for discussion in common by the Factory Workers Councils and the Vocational Associations of Germany. Naturally, it is impossible to foretell what will result from these deliberations. All that can be said at present is that the members of the Factory Workers Councils are almost exclusively elected from among the wage-earners and salaried employés already active in the Trade Unions, and thus the conception to which the Trade Unions seem to cling above everything else, the incorporation of the Factory Workers Councils into the Trade Union associations, seems destined to be realized of its own accord.