It was the latter opinion that prevailed. On August 9, 1919, the Cabinet announced a bill creating the Factory Workers Councils. It was urgent, said the Cabinet, that these Councils be created first, because there already existed in many enterprises Workers Councils; some of them had been created by the provisions of collective contracts, others by the will of the workers which had made itself felt during the Revolution, but both kinds of Workers Councils lacked altogether a legal standing.
The bill expressed the idea that the power, hitherto accorded to the Committees of Salaried Employés and Wage-Earners should be transferred to the Factory Workers Councils, but that these powers should be considerably enlarged. This bill was such as could be expected from a Cabinet in which there co-operated, in addition to the Social Democrats, the Centre and Democrats. It corresponded to the economic and social ideas of the trade unionists of all shades, ideas evolutionary and not revolutionary.
From Right and Left the most strenuous criticisms were directed against this bill.
The employers recognized that it was necessary to institute workers representation in each industry and enterprise, and they accepted the creation of the Councils, in which both employers and workers would be represented, which would discuss questions of work and wage, which would supervise the execution of collective bargains and which would serve as an intermediary between the workers and the bosses. But they energetically rejected all measures that, under more or less roundabout devices, tended to recognize for the workers any right of control whatever over production or the management of enterprises, since merchants and manufacturers must above all have freedom of operation. They protested energetically against all provisions that gave the Councils the right to intervene in the direction of business, in questions of hiring and discharging; just as they rejected the proposals that the workers be allowed to participate in the consideration of new technical methods, and that they, the employers, must submit their balance sheets to the workers, reveal the amounts of their profits or their losses and admit workers as members in the Administrative Council.
The supporters of the pure doctrine of the Councils, on the other hand, criticized the Cabinet’s proposal for the opposite reason, because it did not organize the real workers representation, but only Councils in which the employers and the workers have the same right. It is impossible to conciliate labour and capital, said they; for, the co-operation of these two must inevitably end in the domination, by the employers, of the workers. The Councils must be made up exclusively of workers who would have an absolute right to control production. The powers given by the bill to the Councils were illusory; they would be only petty unions. The regulation of production would remain intact as before. These Councils would be allowed to examine once a year the balance sheets of each establishment, but they could not control the direction of its business, its purchases, its selling or its profits. The only real advantage would consist of being able to discuss the questions of hiring and discharging.
Thus attacked and criticized the bill, after the most impassioned discussion,[63] after many important alterations, was finally adopted on January 19, by a vote of 213 to 64. This is the law of February 4, 1920.
II.—The organization of the Factory Workers Councils must be supple enough to permit them to fulfil their mission, whatever the importance or the form of the factory may be. They must be neither too small nor too cumbersome; they must comprise both employers and employés; each of these groups must be in position to defend its particular interests; the electoral right must be wholly democratic and minorities must be insured representation, which imposes the obligation of establishing proportional representation; those delegated must always be guided by their duties as representatives. As a consequence of the last, it must be provided that the assembly of electors be enabled to withdraw its support from its representatives and to recall them. The greater part of these conditions was realized by the law of February 4.
The forms that the Factory Workers Councils may assume are extremely diversified.
There is first of all the “Factory Workers Council,” properly so-called, which exists in every industrial or commercial unit and in all the public and private administrations where there are at least twenty workers.
The wage-worker members of the Factory Workers Council constitute a “Workers Council” and the salaried employé members make up an “Employé Council.” If the Factory Workers Council has more than nine members it elects according to the principles of proportional representation a “Factory Committee” of five members. If the Factory Workers Council comprises both representatives of workers and of employés, each of these two groups must be represented in the Factory Committee.