Christian national trade union federation of Switzerland

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Johann Baptist Jung
Alois Scheiwiler 1907

The Christian National Trade Union Confederation of Switzerland ( CNG ) was the second largest workers' organization in Switzerland. It was an umbrella organization that in 2000 comprised six Christian professional associations and cantonal Christian trade union associations. From 1953 the headquarters of the CNG was in Bern. The CNG was politically neutral and interdenominational, with the Catholic element dominating. He was a member of the European Trade Union Confederation . In 2002 the CNG and the Association of Swiss Employees' Associations (VSA) merged to form the new umbrella organization Travail.Suisse .

history

The origins of the CNG go back to the Catholic workers' associations that were established in the 1890s, but they were more educational associations than unions. The denominational trade unions were also represented in the second, New Swiss Workers' Union of 1887.

In 1899, the first Christian social workers' association in Switzerland was founded in St.Gallen with church support. By the end of the First World War, the Christian Socials became the second strongest force within the Swiss labor movement. The two clergymen Johann Baptist Jung, religion teacher at the Cantonal School of St.Gallen, and Alois Scheiwiler , who later became the Bishop of St.Gallen, were the leading figures well beyond the First World War.

In order to prevent the formation of actual Catholic trade unions, the workers' union and Hermann Greulich called on the Swiss Trade Union Confederation (SGB) at the party congress in 1899 to transform itself into a politically and religiously neutral organization. When, despite the neutrality provisions in the statutes of the SGB, further Catholic trade unions emerged, the SGB Congress of 1904 refused to recognize and accept them. This led to the split in the trade union movement and the end of a single union .

The CNG was founded in 1907 under the name Christian Social Trade Union Federation (CSG) , in contrast to the Swiss Trade Union Federation, as an umbrella organization of a Catholic workers' association, self-help institutions and a Christian trade union with around 4,500 members. The social encyclical Rerum novarum and Christian trade unions in Germany were the impetus and model for its foundation . He referred to Christian social teaching and ethics and distinguished himself from the class struggle SGB.

During the First World War there was some cooperation with the SGB, with opinions diverging on the strike issue. In 1918 the CNG distanced itself from the Olten Action Committee's call for a strike . As a result, all Catholic and Christian social organizations resigned from the New Swiss Workers' Union because it had supported the national general strike .

The CNG leaned on the Christian Social Workers' Union (CAB) founded in 1919 and took over the leadership of this movement after its transformation into the umbrella organization of Christian Social Movement in Switzerland (CSB) . In 1921, the CSG was renamed the Christian National Trade Union Federation of Switzerland (CNG) .

With the peace agreement of July 19, 1937 between the Employers' Association of Swiss Machine and Metal Manufacturers and the Swiss Metal and Watch Workers Association , the Swiss Association of Protestant Workers and Employees (SVEA) and the Christian Metalworkers Association of Switzerland (CMV), they undertook to in the sense of the social partnership propagated by the CNG, to solve their problems through negotiations and to forego combat measures (strike).

While the founding members worked closely with the Roman Catholic Church and the Christian Democracy , the CNG developed into a politically and denominationally independent Christian trade union organization in the 1990s.

Goals and activities of the association

The CNG propagated social partnership, distanced itself from capitalism and socialism , and wanted to fight for reforms within the framework of the democratic order and the social market economy . He saw the family as the most important form of communalization, which should enjoy special protection.

The main aim of the CNG was to improve the intellectual and economic situation of the workforce on the basis of a fair balance between employer and employee. This should be achieved at union, socio-political and cooperative level.

Among the trade union goals included an appropriate reduction in working hours, a fair wages and the protection of morality, health and lives of workers. They should be achieved mainly through social training, the maintenance of a support system and participation in the regulation of the employment relationship and in the conclusion of collective agreements.

The socio-political aim was to deal with the practical questions of social policy, excluding any party politics. Social policy measures should be supported if they were able to remedy existing grievances and to promote justice in economic life. At the communal, cantonal and federal level, the following program items were mentioned at the first congress in 1907: the creation of cheap apartments, the introduction of unification, employment and housing offices, the facilitation of naturalization for foreigners, the nationalization of building and furniture insurance, and the establishment of labor protection laws and introduction of cantonal factory inspectorates, subsidization of union unemployment funds, introduction of health and accident insurance, revision of the Factory Act, subsidies for the cantons for old-age and disability insurance.

The cooperative system was supposed to secure the unionized wage increase for the worker by increasing the purchasing power of the income. The goal should be achieved in cooperative self-help through cooperative organizations of consumption and production.

In the 1950s, the unions began to show solidarity with poverty in the developing world . In 1956 the Catholic Workers' Movement (KAB Switzerland) founded its official solidarity organization, Brücke der Bruderhilfe , based in Zurich. One of the first solidarity campaigns was a plate collection at the 1957 CNG Congress in Zurich.

In 1971, the CNG, together with the SGB and the Swiss Association of Protestant Workers (SVEA), supported an initiative that called for employee participation in the company. From the 1980s the CNG dealt with the humanization of work, job security and employment and family-related social policy.

Membership structure

As in the SGB, the metalworkers as well as the construction and woodworkers make up the individual unions with the largest number of members. The CNG had a high proportion of women; in 1920 over 40% of its members were women. The unions in the CNG, in which Catholic workers and employees were organized, formed a majority, the Evangelical Reformed a minority.

Members with year of membership

Founding members from 1907:

  • Christian Woodworkers Association of Switzerland (CHV)
  • Christian Metalworkers Association of Switzerland (CMV)

In 2000, the CNG comprised six Christian professional associations and cantonal Christian trade union associations:

The following organizations joined forces in 1998 to form Syna , which, with a total of 80,000 members, came under the umbrella of the CNG:

  • Christian timber and construction workers' association (CHB), as CHV since 1907 with CNG
  • Christian trade union for industry, trade and commerce (CMV), as CMV since 1907 with the CNG
  • Swiss Graphic Trade Union (SGG)
  • National Association of Free Swiss Workers (LFSA) (18,000 members)

literature

  • Yearbook Swiss Politics - Année politique Suisse (SPJ) 1965
  • Roland Ruffieux: Le mouvement chrétien-social en Suisse romande , 1969
  • Urs Altermatt : The Path of the Swiss Catholics into the Ghetto , 1972, 3rd edition 1995
  • Robert Fluder: Interest Organizations and Collective Labor Relations in the Public Sector in Switzerland , 1996
  • Robert Fluder et al. (Ed.): Trade unions and employee associations in the Swiss private sector , Seismo, Zurich 1991

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cantonal Trade Union Federation St.Gallen (Ed.): 80 Years of General Strike 1918-1998 . St. Gallen 1998
  2. ^ Working group for the history of the workers 'movement in Zurich: Swiss workers' movement . Limmat Verlag Cooperative, Zurich 1980
  3. ↑ Dieter Holenstein: Loyalty front of workers' solidarity? The Christian Social Movement in Switzerland during the national strike in 1918. Journal for Swiss Church History, Volume 85, 1991
  4. ^ [1] Swiss Social Archives : CNG
  5. ^ Program guidelines of the 1st congress of the Swiss Christian trade unions, in: Ernst Kull: The social reformist workers' movement in Switzerland . Dissertation Zurich 1930
  6. ↑ Website of the Catholic Workers' Movement in Switzerland, KAB Switzerland