Trade unions in Germany

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According to the jurisprudence of German courts, a trade union is a voluntary association of members under private law, which pursues at least the following purposes as a statutory task: The maintenance and promotion of working and economic conditions in the interest of its members, free of opponents , structurally independent of influences in their will-making Third party, organization on an inter-company basis, recognition of the applicable collective bargaining law and tariff eligibility . Furthermore, the union must be able to fulfill its task as a collective bargaining party sensibly through a certain assertiveness against the social opponent and a certain efficiency.

In addition, it is generally the responsibility of the trade unions to exert political influence in favor of the employees and to implement collective bargaining targets by means of industrial action . In addition, according to 17 para. 3 BetrVG the right to initiate works council elections, as well as according to § 20 Abs. 2 ArbGG the right to appoint honorary judges in labor jurisdiction .

Some unions organize themselves as registered associations and are therefore legal persons under private law. Other unions are not registered clubs, but - as political parties but as a legal capacity - of persons treated. In terms of tax law, trade unions can be treated as a professional association .

Present situation

The German Trade Union Federation (DGB) is the largest umbrella organization of member unions in the Federal Republic of Germany. It has the following eight member unions:

They cover all industries and economic sectors. In 2001, the DGB united around 84% of all German trade union members. While the number of members was over eleven million in 1991, it fell continuously to 6.19 million in 2010 (as of December 31, 2010), of which a little more than two thirds were professionally active.

There are other umbrella organizations that do not belong to the DGB:

In the 1990s, around three quarters of all works council members were members of trade unions belonging to the DGB. This share has then decreased slightly; in the 2010 works council election it was 68 percent.

Trade unions can be divided into professional and trade associations , industry associations and company associations. In professional associations, employees are grouped together according to professional groups (e.g. technicians and carpenters), regardless of the industry in which they are employed. Professional associations often only perform limited trade union functions. As a rule, they do not conclude any collective agreements.

Legal status

As socio-political coalitions , trade unions are subject to the special protection of the constitutionally guaranteed indispensability of the right to the formation of associations to safeguard and promote working and economic conditions , which is why agreements to restrict or hinder this right are void and illegal ( Article 9, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law ).

Current case law

The tariff eligibility of the collective bargaining community of Christian trade unions for temporary work and personnel service agencies (CGZP) is currently in question. On April 1, 2009, the Berlin-Brandenburg State Labor Court ruled , similar to other labor courts previously , that the CGZP was not eligible for tariffs, because the CGZP did not have the necessary social power due to a lack of members and collective bargaining agreements of the CGZP by circumventing the principle of equality of the AÜG were only in the interest the employer would be. In December 2010 the Federal Labor Court upheld the judgment, not because of a lack of collective bargaining power, but because the CGZP and its individual trade unions were not responsible under the statutes.

The status of the Christian Metal Union (CGM) was controversial. The Federal Labor Court has, however, confirmed last instance the collective ability in its decision of 28 March 2006, the CGM.

history

1329: Strike of the journeymen

Carl Legien , German union leader
Hans Böckler Memorial in Berlin
DGB trade union youth
Trade Unions Demonstrate Against Austerity Policy in North Rhine-Westphalia (March 23, 2006)

Labor disputes and industrial disputes were documented early on in Germany; they were initially disputed by journeymen: the work stoppage of journeyman girdles (brass fitters) in Breslau in 1329 , the journeyman tailors strike in Constance in 1389 or the strike of miners in 1469 in Altenberg . The weavers' revolt in Silesia in 1844 is better known .

1848/49 or 1865: The first trade unions

While the workers' associations were still the representatives of the working class in the pre-March period , in the course of the revolution of 1848/1849 the first trade unions at national level emerged which, in the tradition of the guild constitution, were limited to individual professional groups.

In the growing cities, after the printer's association (1849), professional associations for cigar , textile and metal workers, miners, tailors, bakers, shoemakers and woodworkers and construction workers were formed.

The Association of German Cigar Workers in Berlin was founded in 1848. It quickly found short-lived imitators in 40 other German cities. The General German Cigar Workers Association, founded in 1865 in the Pantheon in Leipzig (co-founder and president was Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche ), was the first centrally organized union in Germany. It became the model for many newly founded unions and is a forerunner of the food-pleasure-restaurants union. The Association of German Locomotive Drivers (VDL) was founded in 1867 and after the Weimar Constitution also granted civil servants freedom of association, the German Engine Drivers Union (GDL) emerged in 1919 from the VDL . The GDL, which is still active today, is the oldest trade union in Germany.

Obstruction of trade unions

After decades of repression and obstruction by the authorities, trade union organizations increasingly appeared in public in the Vormärz and during the German Revolution and articulated their demands. However, the failure of the revolution and the subsequent phase of restoration meant that the trade union movement again lost its clout and was subjected to renewed repression. It was only through new reforms in 1869 and 1871, for example those of the trade regulations , which introduced freedom of trade and association , that trade unions developed as contractual partners of employers' associations . The workers had to struggle for their subsistence level, while the employers enjoyed feudalist privileges. The trade unions were initially interested in improving the situation of their members. They carried out labor disputes , strikes and purchase boycotts against the entrepreneurs. This increase in power and the associated threat to the ruling system led the rulers to temporarily ban unions or to legally hinder them. Between 1878 and 1890, trade union activities were generally forbidden by the Bismarck Socialist Law .

Only with the Halberstadt Congress in 1892 did the trade union movement regain its importance and power: On March 14, 1892, Carl Legien convened the founding conference of the General Commission of Germany's Trade Unions . This gave the unions with the largest number of members an umbrella organization in the German Reich.

Grouping according to professional and political orientation

The German trade unions were based on party political lines as well as on occupations or professional groups and not on the principle of one company = one union . This professional trade union organization goes back to the traditional guild constitution and the determinations of the Halberstadt Congress . The ADGB and the AfA-Bund as the largest trade union organizations were the SPD , the Christian trade unions of the Christian Center Party , the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) of the KPD , the Hirsch-Duncker trade unions of the liberal DDP and the German National Trade Union Association (DHV) of the right-wing conservative DNVP or even close to the NSDAP in the final phase of the Weimar Republic . The syndicalist Free Workers' Union of Germany (FAUD) rejected party politics entirely.

Harmonization of the trade unions during National Socialism

In 1920 most of the trade union movement fought off the Kapp Putsch with a joint general strike . In 1933, on the other hand, the unions hesitated to take action against the looming Hitler dictatorship. After the Nazis came to power, many union leaders were locked up in concentration camps . A call by the trade unions to support the National Labor Day organized by the Nazis on May 1, 1933, did not help either. On May 2, 1933, the trade union houses were occupied by the SA and the unions were brought into line. Your fortune was transferred to the Nazi mass organization German Labor Front (DAF). Many former trade unionists were represented in the DAF, whose membership was not compulsory. In 1944 the DAF, as the largest National Socialist mass organization, had around 25 million members.

Reconstruction of the unions after the Second World War

Union rally in Darmstadt in 1948

After the Second World War , the unions were rebuilt. The first chairman of the DGB, Hans Böckler, pursued the concept of uniting all employees in a unified union which was not bound by party politics and which should be grouped under a strong umbrella organization. However, there was resistance, especially from IG Metall.

In 1949 the founding congress of the German Trade Union Confederation took place in the congress hall in Munich under the direction of Hans Böckler . The heads of the state of Bavaria (Prime Minister Hans Ehard , CSU ) and the Federal Republic of Germany (Labor Minister Anton Storch , CDU ) also took part in this meeting.

In spite of all calls for unity, the professionally oriented civil servants ' union was formed and, as a spin-off, later the German employees' union (DAG). Union circles and business-related church circles also founded the Christian Trade Union Confederation around 1950, which, however, could not achieve a larger number of members.

The German trade unions DGB, DAG and Beamtenbund developed into partners in collective bargaining , and they exerted influence on legislation in the labor and social area.

Trade unions in the GDR

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special rights (e.g. right of initiative), position as a mass organization and ideological background
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In the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ), the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) was founded as a cross-party unified union after the war . After the SED was founded through the forced unification of the SPD and KPD in 1946, purges were carried out immediately. Christian-social and still independent social democratic union officials were dismissed and had to flee to the West. In West Berlin , the Independent Trade Union Opposition (UGO), the later regional district of the DGB, was founded.

After the failed uprising in the GDR on June 17, 1953 , other more independent trade unionists were defamed as "capitulators" or "Western agents" and removed from their offices, including the chairman of IG Bau-Holz Franz Jahn and almost all of his colleagues on the board. The FDGB thus finally became a party-controlled GDR mass organization .

Unions after reunification

In 1989 the FDGB was not at the forefront of the democracy movement either, it was simply rolled over and "wound down". Forced new elections brought new forces forward there, but the FDGB was viewed by them as no longer reformable and dissolved at the beginning of 1990. Despite the GDR branch unions establishing contact with the relevant unions in the Federal Republic, the DGB unions decided, in agreement with many union members from the GDR, to set up new local or regional DGB and trade union structures.

The trade unions initially got several million new members, but many of them left after the collapse of East German industry. In the 1990s, the number of 16 DGB unions was reduced to eight branch unions through mergers. The DAG also became part of the DGB in the merged ver.di union.

Branch unions

Since various specialized branches (professional groups) felt badly represented by the unions organized under the umbrella of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), they founded their own trade unions / branch unions . Examples of this are the Cockpit Association (VC), the Air Traffic Control Union (GdF), the Marburg Association of Clinic Doctors and the Train Drivers Union (GDL). Some of these smaller unions have an above-average degree of organization of up to 80%.

Weakening of the DGB

In 2007, an attempt by a company to exert influence on unions became known, unprecedented in the history of German trade unions. As early as the late 1970s, Siemens AG took measures to weaken the influence of the DGB. Initially, it was a matter of reducing the influence of the DGB on the Group's supervisory board. The actual execution of this plan began in the 1980s. The working group of independent employees was created . As “the other union”, the AUB is now consciously positioning itself against “traditional unions”. The AUB only has about 32,000 members, but in 2003 the AUB chairman Schelsky declared : “In ten years we will be the only competitor to the German Trade Union Confederation in Germany.” Then his organization would also have more political influence. After payments by Siemens AG of around 14 million euros to the management consultant and AUB chairman Wilhelm Schelsky became known, without any performance being recorded, offices of Schelsky, Siemens and AUB were searched. On 14 February 2007 Schelsky was on suspicion of tax offenses in custody taken. The payments from Siemens to Schelsky are now estimated at around 54 million euros. However, no direct payments from Siemens to AUB could be proven.

Loss of members

In the 1990s the trade unions suffered high membership losses. In 2005 there were around 6.8 million members in the DGB trade unions; this corresponded to 25% of the employees. In 2007, according to the DGB, there were 6.4 million members (including pensioners and unemployed). The net degree of organization (NOG I: active members, without pensioners, but plus unemployed) was 21.3% in Germany in 2000 (1960: 34.2 and 1980: 33.6, according to Ebbinghaus in Schroeder-Weßels, manual p. 196 ). More recent information on the degree of organization is currently missing. At the DGB, 16.12% were still organized in 2007 based on the average number of employees subject to social insurance contributions of 39.7 million this year, although this number has to be corrected downwards, as the DGB calculates including inactive members (such as pensioners and unemployed), while the total number of employees determined by the Federal Employment Agency only includes active persons.

Flexibility through equally distributed assertiveness

In an international comparison, the German legislator gives the trade unions a task that is quite unique in terms of negotiations: the asymmetry in negotiations between an employee and an employer leads to a restriction on both sides through labor law that provides strong protection for the individual employee. If the employee has organized himself in a sufficiently strong workers' association, this can overcome statutory restrictions on the scope for negotiation in collective agreements, which would otherwise be indispensable. According to the case law, “sufficiently strong” means that the workers' association can take action and shows that it is ready to take full advantage of the measures it is legally permitted to take. The extent to which employee associations limited to individual companies have sufficient assertiveness must be clarified on a case-by-case basis.

In fact, this construction of German law can lead to employees foregoing protection to which they are entitled under individual law. In an international comparison of constitutional states, this can result in a relatively high degree of flexibility in the application of labor law without state intervention. Only in countries that are not organized according to the rule of law (e.g. China) and in countries with religiously restricted professional self-determination (e.g. India) can an even greater degree of flexibility for employers be achieved if protective laws are missing, theoretically existing protection is practically unenforceable and free unions are prohibited.

The possibility of foregoing protection that is indispensable under individual law is also due to the fact that collective agreements apply in principle only to unionized employees. They must not be forced upon unorganized workers. In practice, however, employers also apply collective agreements to non-organized workers if they predominantly benefit from this. These employees then use the negotiating work of the employers 'and employees' associations without having to participate with membership fees.

financing

Trade unions finance themselves through membership fees. The contribution is usually one percent of gross earnings, hence the previous slogan: A penny of every mark - this contribution makes us strong.

Trade unions and the social market economy

The social scientist Walther Müller-Jentsch advocates in his "Little History of the German Trade Union Movement" the thesis that the unions appeared as opponents of the social market economy in their post-war founding phase, but in the further course of their history more and more played a part in shaping the real German economic order and today also programmatically affirmed the social market economy.

See also

literature

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Manuals and basic literature on German trade unions

  • Wolfgang Schroeder (Ed.): Handbook of Trade Unions in Germany (2nd revised, expanded and updated edition; with the collaboration of Samuel Greef), VS - Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 2014. ISBN 978-3-531-19495-0
  • Wolfgang Schroeder, Bernhard Weßels (ed.): The trade unions in politics and society in the Federal Republic of Germany. A manual. Opladen, 2003, ISBN 3-531-13587-2 .
  • Joachim Bergmann, Otto Jacobi, Walther Müller-Jentsch: Trade unions in the Federal Republic. 3. Edition. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1979.
  • Hartmut Meine : Union, yes please! - A manual for works councils, shop stewards and active people . Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-89965-779-1 .

History of the German trade union movement

  • Wolfgang Abendroth : History of the German trade unions. Way of democratic integration. With a foreword by Frank Deppe . DVK-Verlag, Berlin 1989 (reprint from 1954), ISBN 3-88107-052-4 .
  • Stefan Berger (Ed.): Trade union history as memory history. May 2, 1933 in union remembrance and positioning after 1945 . Klartext, Essen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8375-1580-0 .
  • Frank Deppe, Georg Fülberth , Jürgen Harrer (eds.): History of the German trade union movement . Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-7609-0290-1 .
  • Frank Deppe, Klaus Dörre, Witich Roßmann (eds.): Unions in transition , Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1989, ISBN 978-3-89438-280-3
  • Hans-Georg Fleck: Social liberalism and the trade union movement. The Hirsch-Duncker trade associations 1868–1914 . Cologne 1994; Bund Verlag, ISBN 3-7663-2502-7 .
  • Hans-Otto Hemmer, Kurt Thomas Schmitz (Ed.): History of the trade unions in the Federal Republic of Germany. From the beginnings till now. Cologne 1990; Bund Verlag, ISBN 3-7663-3153-1 .
  • Jens Hildebrandt: Trade unions in divided Germany. The relations between DGB and FDGB from the Cold War to the New Ostpolitik 1955 to 1969 . Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 2010, ISBN 978-3-86110-476-6 .
  • Siegfried Mielke and Günter Morsch (eds.): "Be vigilant that night never falls over Germany again." Trade unionists in concentration camps 1933–1945. Accompanying volume for the exhibition of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation, the National and International Trade Union Policy Office of the Free University of Berlin and the Hans Böckler Foundation , Berlin 2011: Metropol Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86331-031-8
  • Heinrich Potthoff: Free Trade Unions 1918–1933. The General German Trade Union Federation in the Weimar Republic. Düsseldorf 1987; Droste, ISBN 3-7700-5141-6 .
  • Michael Ruck (Ed.): Opponent - Instrument - Partner. Union understanding of the state from industrialism to the information age. (= Understanding of the State, Vol. 106). Baden-Baden 2017; Nomos Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8487-3055-1 (brosch.), ISBN 978-3-8452-7204-7 (eBook) [Germany, France, Great Britain, USA].
  • Michael Ruck : Unions - State - Entrepreneurs. The trade unions in the social and political field of forces 1914 to 1933 (= trade unions in Germany, vol. 3). Cologne 1990; Bund Verlag, ISBN 3-7663-2159-5 .
  • Michael Schneider: A short history of the trade unions. Your development in Germany from the beginning until today . Bonn, 2nd revised. u. act. 2000 edition (below); Dietz, ISBN 3-8012-0294-1 .
  • Klaus Schönhoven : The German trade unions. Frankfurt a. M. 1987 (below); Suhrkamp, ISBN 3-518-11287-2 .
  • Klaus Tenfelde , Klaus Schönhoven, Michael Schneider, Detlev Peukert : History of the German trade unions. From the beginning until 1945 . Edited by Ulrich Borsdorf. Cologne 1987; Bund Verlag, ISBN 3-7663-0861-0 .

Further literature

  • Peter Bremme, Ulrike Fürniß, Ulrich Meinecke (eds.): Never work alone. Organizing - a future model for trade unions. VSA-Verlag 2007, Hamburg.
  • Ulrich Brinkmann, Hae-Lin Choi, Richard Detje, Klaus Dörre, Hajo Holst, Serhat Karakayali, Carharina Schmalstieg: Strategic Unionism: From the crisis to renewal? VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15782-5 .
  • Heiner Dribbusch, Peter Birke: "The trade unions in the Federal Republic of Germany - organization, framework conditions, challenges". March 2012, study on behalf of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (PDF; 2.01 MB) .
  • Klaus Dörre, Bernd Röttger: The exhausted region. Politics and trade unions in regionalization processes. 2005, ISBN 3-89691-560-6 .
  • Jochen Gollbach: Europeanization of the trade unions. 2005, ISBN 3-89965-126-X .
  • Thomas Haipeter, Klaus Dörre (ed.): Union modernization. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17753-3 .
  • Juri Hälker: Learning from the USA? Organizing: member recruitment and activation . In: SPW , 12/2007 (PDF; 97 kB) .
  • Victor Linden: Unions on the move. Revitalization of the political mandate and alliances with social movements. Optimus Verlag, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-941274-00-6 .
  • Walther Müller-Jentsch : Sociology of industrial relations. An introduction . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1997.
  • Walther Müller-Jentsch: Trade unions and social market economy since 1945. Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, ISBN 978-3-15-018897-2 .
  • Oskar Negt : Why are there still unions? A polemic . Göttingen 2005.
  • Horst Udo Niedenhoff: Trade union influence on the economy and society. Parliamentary Group for SMEs PKM, III / 2006, p. 5 ff.
  • Wolfgang Schroeder Catholicism and a unified union. The dispute over the DGB and the decline of social Catholicism in the Federal Republic up to 1960 , series: Political and social history. Vol. 30, Dietz Verlag, Bonn, 1992. ISBN 978-3-8012-4037-0

Web links

Commons : Union  album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: union  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Full texts in the library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Bonn

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BAG, decision of March 28, 2006 - 1 ABR 58/04 -, BAGE 117, 308–336, margin note 34
  2. ↑ See Corporate Income Tax Directive , paragraph 16, paragraph 1, KStR 2004.
  3. ↑ https://www.cgb.info/organisation/einzelgewerkschaften.html Information from the CGB on the Internet
  4. ^ DGB information in: Walther Müller-Jentsch / Peter Ittermann: Industrial relations. Data, time series, trends 1950–1999. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2000, p. 218
  5. ↑ Ralph Greifenstein / Leo Kißler / Hendrik Lange Trend Report Works Council Elections 2010. Working Paper 231. Hans Böckler Foundation, Düsseldorf 2011. p. 10.
  6. ↑ Berlin Labor Court, decision of April 1, 2009, Az. 35 BV 17008/08. ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  7. ↑ Judgment of the Federal Labor Court: Temporary workers can sue for back payments ( Memento of December 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de
  8. ^ Federal Labor Court: Decision of March 28, 2006, 1 ABR 58/04.
  9. ↑ AUB: History. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 31, 2010 ; Retrieved January 22, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.aub-monline.de
  10. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Competition for the DGB . No. 70, March 24, 2003, p. 24.
  11. ↑ Walther Müller-Jentsch: Trade unions and social market economy. Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, p. 7.
  12. ↑ Walther Müller-Jentsch: Trade unions and social market economy. Reclam, Stuttgart 2011, p. 193ff.