Chamber of Crafts Oldenburg
The Chamber of Crafts (HWK) Oldenburg is one of 53 chambers of crafts in Germany and is based in Oldenburg (Oldb) . The Chamber of Crafts Oldenburg includes more than 12,600 companies with around 85,100 employees and over 7,600 trainees (as of December 31, 2018). The chamber district includes the independent cities of Oldenburg, Delmenhorst and Wilhelmshaven as well as the districts of Friesland , Wesermarsch , Ammerland , Oldenburg , Vechta and Cloppenburg .
The legally regulated management of the interests of the craft in Germany includes the performance of all tasks to promote the Oldenburg craft. The professional training of the next generation of craftsmen is of great importance. For this purpose, the Chamber of Crafts maintains a vocational training center (BBZ) with an attached boarding school in Oldenburg-Tweelbäke and the technical college for interior decorators near the city center.
tasks
The Chamber of Crafts is a corporation under public law whose tasks are divided into three areas:
- sovereign tasks
- Advocacy
- Business promotion
These tasks are stipulated by law in the craft regulations. All of these areas are perceived as part of the self-administration of the craft.
Sovereign tasks
The sovereign tasks are an important element of a Chamber of Crafts and distinguish them from any association. For example, it keeps the handicrafts role and the apprenticeship role , the directory of all self-employed craftsmen and their trainees in the chamber district. In addition, the Chamber of Crafts is responsible for the issuing of regulations for examinations in the context of professional training or retraining, the issuing of journeyman's examination regulations, the establishment of examination committees for the acceptance of journeyman's examination or the authorization of craft guilds to set up journeyman's examination committees as well as the monitoring of the proper Responsible for carrying out the journeyman's exams. Furthermore, master’s examination regulations are issued. In addition, the Chamber of Crafts appoints and swears in experts for subject areas of the craft, which can be commissioned by courts, customers and companies for an impartial assessment of goods, services and prices of craftsmen.
Advocacy
As a lobby group, the Chamber of Crafts, together with the other craft organizations, advocates that the political framework conditions for the craft businesses are improved. The legal task of the Chamber of Crafts is to support the authorities in promoting the craft by means of suggestions, suggestions and the preparation of expert reports and to submit regular reports on the conditions of the craft. The Chamber of Crafts participates in legislative initiatives, takes a position in writing and during hearings on all craft-related draft laws, and makes its own suggestions for improving the political framework. It maintains contact with parliaments, parties and authorities, carries out economic monitoring, compiles statistics and economic reports and does press and public relations work for the craft. In this context, a nationwide image campaign for German crafts was launched in 2010 by all 53 chambers of crafts in Germany in order to bring the crafts into the focus of public attention and to convey a contemporary and modern image of the craft.
Business promotion
The economic development has the task of strengthening the productivity and competitiveness of the craft as a group. In particular, the advisory services offered by the Chamber fall under the field of economic development.
organization
The highest organ is the general assembly of the Chamber of Crafts. It has 39 members from all craft groups and circles in the chamber district. Two thirds of the members are employer representatives, one third are the representatives of the workers employed in the skilled trades, who represent the various trades and are elected for a period of five years. The general assembly elects the president and the other board members, the management, the vocational training committee and other committees. It decides on the chamber budget, the amount of the contributions and fees, advises on fundamental questions of chamber policy, vocational training and the promotion of crafts and issues the examination regulations.
The board members are chaired by President Eckhard Stein and the two Vice-Presidents Irene Fuxen (employer) and Stefan Cibis (employee). Heiko Henke is the general manager of the Oldenburg Chamber of Crafts.
In addition to the president and the two vice-presidents, six other representatives of the independent craft and three other employee representatives belong to the board of the Chamber of Crafts.
history
The Oldenburg Chamber of Crafts was founded on July 2nd, 1900. On this day, under the leadership of a state commissioner appointed by the State Ministry, the first 33-person member representation met for its constituent meeting in the "Union" in Oldenburg. The master tailor Ludwig Neubert from Oldenburg was elected chairman of the Chamber of Crafts and thus its first president. On August 17th, the HWK signed a contract with the board of the Kunstgewerbeverein Oldenburg to rent two rooms in the Kunstgewerbemuseum am Stau in Oldenburg. Thirteen years later, the HWK acquired the service building at Theaterwall 32.
The basis for the establishment of the Chambers of Crafts was the law amending the trade regulations of July 26, 1897, which was also called the Crafts Act for short. The aim was to improve the quality of skilled workers in Germany in order to increase the international competitiveness of the German economy compared to its Western European competition. Before this Crafts Act of 1897, there was nothing comparable that came close to self-government.
The time of National Socialism was also a time of profound changes for the craft self-administration.
On April 20, 1942, the Reich Minister of Economics issued the Gau Wirtschaftskammer ordinance. This ordinance meant the dissolution of the HWK and the Oldenburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which were merged into the Weser-Ems Gauwirtschaftskammer based in Bremen . At the same time, the district craft associations and guilds lost their status as a corporation under public law, but remained legally competent.
The executive board and the general assembly of the HWK Oldenburg were removed from their offices in the previous composition and the newly formed executive board only had an advisory function.
With the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, the factual dissolution of the National Socialist state also took place. With the National Socialist regime, the Gau economic chambers also disappeared.
In the craft sector, efforts grew again to maintain their own chambers and to form supra-regional chamber associations with them in order to continue the work that was interrupted in 1933. This, however, required the dissolution of the economic chambers, which had succeeded the Gau economic chambers.
In October 1945 the military government informed the head president in Hanover that the formation of independent chambers would now be permitted for the area of an administrative district or at the state level.
The way for the restoration of independent craft chambers in the Hanover region was clear. In the period that followed, chambers of skilled trades were founded in Lower Saxony as we know them today.
At the beginning of November 1945, the Oldenburg Chamber of Crafts was released into its independence again.
It was not until the Crafts Code of 1953 that the large certificate of proficiency was anchored in the Crafts Code and the trades listed in Appendix A in the form of the professions that can be carried out as a manual worker.
The craft vocational training and further training was recognized as a closed system. The organization of the handicrafts was redesigned, the guilds and chambers of the handicrafts as well as the district handicrafts associations were granted the status of public corporation.
After the approval of the occupying powers, which was achieved after months of difficult negotiations, the craft regulations came into effect on September 24, 1953.