Gustav Westphalen

Gustav Westphalen (born August 23, 1871 in Hamburg ; † July 4, 1932 there ) was a German trade union official .

Live and act

Gustav Westphalen completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joined the German Carpenter Association. In 1893 he took part in the constituent meeting of the German Woodworkers' Association in St. Pauli , which was also attended by free trade union paintbrushmakers, wood turners, wheelwright and carpenters. Westphalen initially took over the office of district cashier, in 1894 the position of secretary of the Hamburg payment office, only to cash in again shortly afterwards. During this time he tried hard to optimize the existing labor protection laws.

In August 1898, members of the Association of Railway Workers in Germany, which had been founded a year earlier, elected Gustav Westphalen to be the representative of the Hamburg I branch been. The association was therefore considered semi-legal; it was therefore only possible for “non-railroaders” to take over official posts. This was the reason for choosing Westphalia, which continued to be involved in the woodworkers' association. From 1899 he represented the railway workers at meetings of the Hamburg trade union cartel and repeatedly at meetings of the Association of German Railway Workers.

In 1906 Westphalen took over the chairmanship of the railway workers' union from Hermann Jochade . Since the number of members of the organization was small, it threatened to join the German Transport Workers Association . Westphalen tried to maintain the union's independence, but did not succeed. Representatives of both organizations decided to merge in 1908, which was implemented in 1909. Westphalen gave up his resistance and promoted the integration process of the railway organization in the transport association.

In addition to his involvement in the trade unions, Westphalen worked as a freelance carpenter in Barmbek from 1904 . From 1913 he had a master job as a table cabinet maker on the Billhorn dike. For some time he ran his own carpentry shop with his son.

literature

• Angela Graf: Westphalen, Gustav . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 4 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0229-7 , pp. 381-382 .

Web links

• Rüdiger Zimmermann : Westphalen, Gustav (1871 - 1932) Biographical encyclopedia of the ÖTV and its predecessor organizations, part 203 in the digital library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung .