Workers' council

“ Parallel to this political organization, there is created in each factory, shop, etc., a Factory Workers Council (Betriebsrat) , elected by the workers and employés in the proportion of one delegate to 100 electors. Small factories and rural enterprises are grouped so as to form electoral units; the same with the professions. The Factory Workers Councils are charged with the defence of the interests of the personnel, and with the control of the enterprises in which they are employed. They co-operate in the application of measures for socialization. ”

“ The impossibility of estimating the separate value of each man’s labor with any really valid result, the friction which would arise, the jealousies which would be provoked, the inevitable discontent, favoritism, and jobbery that would prevail; all these things will drive the Communal Council into the right path—equal remuneration of all workers. ”

“ In this way gradually a workers' management of industry is being formed from the top of the ladder to the bottom. In the respective localities we have works' and factories' committees and the workers' board of management, and above those the region and district committees, and Soviets of Public Economy, and at the head of all these organisations we have the Supreme Council of Public Economy. ”

“ He had undertaken to organize all the unions of the place into a central labor council; the 370miners, the smeltermen, the teamsters, the cement factory workers, the workers in the building trades. It was an experimental plan, under the auspices of the national union officers. Only a man like Grant Adams, with something more than a local reputation as a leader, would have been intrusted with the work. ”

“ The Control Council meets twice a week at least, and two of the members devote all their time to its business, receiving the pay of the highest paid skilled workers in lieu of their wage for factory work. ”

“ That is to say, he will understand that when the workers are united in one great economic organization and one great political organization; when they strike together and vote together, they can put their class in power in every council, in every legislature and in the national congress; they can abolish the capitalist system, take over the industries to themselves, and rule the land forevermore. ”

“ They were directed by veritable functionaries, whose whole careers developed within the Trades Union administration and who had no qualification for representing the working class. In order to secure what the working class wants these claims must be taken in hand by organs issuing directly from the workers—militant organizations in position to lead a swift energetic fight—these organs being the Workers Councils. The Councils must be placed above the unions, and it is to them that belongs the right to decide on the campaigns that should be waged. ”

“ A first step towards democratizing industrial undertakings was taken by an enactment touching mining councils. By this enactment it is made possible, where more than 20 workers are employed, for an elected council to cooperate in securing the welfare of the workers, to see to the due execution of contracts and agreements, to settle disputes, and to take part in the management of philanthropic institutions. ”

“ In the same way we are experiencing a gradual closing of the ranks among other classes of workers, and the General Council, through the efforts of their special sub-committees, are endeavoring to bring about further amalgamations, A feeling among the workers for greater unity is steadily growing, and we hope that before long we shall be able to report further developments along these lines. ”

“ For, over all these trades, over all these thousands of men, is the Labor Council. When it speaks its voice is heard, and when it orders it is obeyed. But it, in turn, is dominated by the National Labor Council, with which it is constantly in touch. ”

“ Again, in September 1919, the Trades Union Congress passed a resolution affirming the right of every member of the community to work or to the receipt of maintenance, and accordingly called upon the Government to regulate national and local authorities’ work, and to organize schemes of “socially necessary” work so as to provide employment, and, failing that, to provide adequate maintenance for all workers who could not find suitable employment, and facilities for training while they were out of work. ”

“ The representatives of the local control committee participate at the sessions of the management of the mill or factory, having only a voice, but no vote in the matter. The rights of administration of the establishment remains with the management and therefore the entire responsibility for the work of the enterprise rests with the management.
6. The coordination of the workers’ control within the limits of any given industry must be centered within the industrial (vocational) union. The union creates a Workers’ Control Department which is responsible before the management of its union. ”

“ One of the aims of the Labor Movement is to secure such changes in the run of things that “the workers should own their jobs.” Well, some of the unions of the A. F. of L., bakers, printers, etc., have secured such a hold upon their trade in certain localities that they succeeded in putting into their contracts with the employers provisions that the union is to act as the employment agency for the employer, and the latter, whenever he needs help, must take whomever of its membership the union will send to him. ”

“ Each such council, acting through the unemployment committee, was to be bound to organize all work—manual or clerical—under its control, so as to maintain the labour demand in its district at a constant uniform level. In addition, each such council was to be put under obligation to provide every person, for whom suitable employment could not be found, with such maintenance as its medical officer of health might certify to be necessary to maintain such unemployed person and his dependents in a state of physical efficiency. ”

“ The employees of the Local Authorities—thirty years ago entirely without organisation—are still not so well combined as those of the National Government. A score of different societies, from such grades as school-keepers, police and prison officers and asylum attendants, up to municipal clerks, share the work with the National Union of Corporation Workers and the Municipal Employees’ Association. A large proportion of the wage-earners employed by Local Authorities are to be found in the Unions of General Workers. ”

“ Both wages and insurance benefits should be varied in accordance with family needs.
In addition workers must be guaranteed the undisputed right to freedom of association, and should be encouraged and assisted by the state to organize themselves in trade unions. By means of collective agreements and participation in works councils, the workers can achieve fair working rules and share in the control of industry and profession; and their organizations will be indispensable elements in a system of genuine industrial democracy. ”

“ In the past few decades, the Federal Government has not used its full authority to promote and implement this policy of support for workers organizing unions and bargaining collectively with their employers. ”

“ Let us consider next the committee on occupational standards newly appointed this year, which has to do with that other function of the state by which it seeks to protect its workers from their own weakness and degradation, and insists that the livelihood of the manual laborer shall not be beaten down below the level of efficient citizenship. ”

“ The league’s idea of remedying or removing the evil was to establish a Labour Bureau on a large scale and under a responsible head, so that it might record all wage-scales mutually agreed upon by employers and workers, adjust disputes by arbitration, and obtain statistical information in regard to the labour market, and also have an agency that would be capable of drafting the unemployed to districts where they could be given work. ”

“ Confirming the policies declared in Federal labor laws, substantial evidence shows that union membership increases wages, the likelihood of receiving employer-provided benefits, and job security. Union membership also gives workers the means to build the power to ensure that their voices are heard in their workplaces, their communities, and in the Nation.
Therefore, it is the policy of my Administration to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining. ”

“ But between the fixing of wages and conditions of employment, in which it is admitted that Labour should have a real voice, and the actual executive direction of a business in which it is clear that Labour could not exercise a voice, if efficiency is to be preserved and discipline remain unimpaired, there is a wide sphere of matters which are proper to be discussed between employers and representatives of the workers, and which, when discussed and settled, can be left for executive action to the employers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Moreover, employers and Trade Unions will always agree, to the serious discomfiture of Government, on reforms of which the expenses are to fall not on industry but on national funds, but the question of such expenditure is surely one to be reserved exclusively for Parliament. The Ministry of Labour has always the General Council to consult, which represents the whole of organized labour, and the National Confederation of Employers’ Organizations, reinforced for consultation with any employers’ organizations outside that Confederation. ”

“ Convinced believers, let us assume them to be, in the principle of laissez-aller, they actually think that if the Ministry disappeared there would be an end of all intervention by Government between employers and employed. What uninformed criticism! They forget that the Home Office has control of the administration of the Factory Acts—a matter embracing working conditions and welfare of workers which goes right to the root of the Labour problem. They omit to notice that the Mines Department of the Board of Trade exercises supervision over the conditions of employment and wages of miners ”

“ The Executive Council cannot doubt that employers will not “regard a society like ours with disfavour. They will begin to understand that it is not intended, nor adapted, to damage their interests, but rather to advance them, by elevating the character of their workmen, and proportionately lessening their own responsibilities.” ”

“ Composed of an equal number of workingmen and of employers, these Councils had for their principal mission to enlighten the government, as well as workingmen and employers, on the actual and necessary conditions of labor, to facilitate thereby industrial harmony and general agreement between the interested parties, to furnish in cases of collective conflicts competent mediators, and to inform the public authorities on the effects produced by labor legislation. ”

“ IT says, "Labor is entitled to all it produces," and to get it or any partial increase, Industrial Unionism is needed. "All workers in an industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof; thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Every worker in any section of an industry is organized in a Branch of an Industrial Union of all the workers in that industry. ”

“ If the system of Councils assures to the workers the right to participate more completely in the organization and development of economic life, then it cannot help but contribute, if this is done in a reasonable manner, to the reawakening of the love of work and the establishment of a close community of interests between employers and employés. ”

“ Hence, when in one industrial centre the governing workers should seek better terms, similar demands from fellow laborers, as able to enforce them, would be heard elsewhere.
The employer of our typical city, even now often unable to find outside the unions the unemployed labor he must have, would then, should he attempt it, to a certainty fail. The thrifty wage-working householder, today a tenant fearful of loss of work, could then strike and stay out. ”

“ But the supporter of even the most comprehensive scheme of labour representation does not stand committed to any such system of parliamentary management of industry by democratic majority as is proposed in the Auer Motion. The appointment and the working of the Labour Councils and Labour Chambers seems to me to introduce quite another element into the scheme.
The regular, not merely the accidental and occasional, meeting of the inspectors with the body of employers and workers is a recognised practical necessity; a less bureaucratic system of industrial management is demanded on all sides. ”

“ The employers are usually fighting not for the purpose of developing good labor, but for the purpose of taking advantage of poor, weak, and dependent laborers.
How far the central, state, and municipal governments could go in aiding such a method of organization, is a question that can only be indefinitely answered. The legislatures of many American states and municipalities have already shown a disposition to aid the labor unions in certain indirect ways. ”