Workers committee

With workers' committee (also: Factory Committee ) was the first form of worker representation in German factories and mines referred. Workers' committees are the historical forerunners of works councils .

The earliest known examples of voluntary workers' committees are the workers' committees set up in Eilenburg in 1850 by the Saxon textile manufacturer Carl Degenkolb , together with four other calico printing entrepreneurs, and the workers' committee that was partially introduced in his factory in 1884 by the Berlin blind manufacturer and co-founder of the Society for Social Reform , Heinrich Freese elected, partially appointed members.

The first statutory workers' committees were created in mines in Bavaria (1900) and Prussia (1905). During the First World War , the Patriotic Auxiliary Service Act of 1916 made workers' committees mandatory for all war-important companies with 50 or more employees. From 1920, their extended functions were taken over by the works councils formed in accordance with the Works Council Act.

literature

• Heinrich Freese: The constitutional factory . Gustav Fischer, Jena 1909.
• Werner Milert / Rudolf Tschirbs: From the workers' committees to the Works Constitution Act. History of corporate interest representation . Bund-Verlag, Cologne 1991.
• Hans Jürgen Teuteberg: History of industrial co-determination in Germany. Origin and development of their forerunners in thought and in reality in the 19th century . Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1961.