Heinz-Werner Meyer

Heinz-Werner Meyer (born August 24, 1932 in Harburg ; † May 9, 1994 in Siegburg ) was chairman of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) from 1990 to 1994.

Born in Harburg, he came to the Ruhr area at the age of sixteen and began training as a mining apprentice at the Monopol mine in Kamen . Meyer became involved early on in the trade union and the SPD , which he joined in 1953. On the second educational path , despite working underground, he passed his general university entrance qualification at the evening grammar school . From 1955 Meyer studied economics at the Academy for Economics and Politics in Hamburg.

His actual union career began in 1957 when he became the full-time youth secretary of IG Bergbau in Bochum . In 1964 he took over the management of the organization department. In 1969 he moved up to the executive committee of his union. Meyer pursued a traditional trade union policy on the side of Adolf Schmidt . Shaken by the crisis in the Ruhr mining industry, Meyer steadfastly adhered to the formula of "coal and nuclear energy" he had championed and thus moved into the public barrage of the emerging ecological movement . Meyer had been a member of the SPD in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament since 1975 . When he was elected second chairman of his union in 1984, he turned his back on national politics and devoted himself primarily to union lobbying.

In 1985 he became chairman of the mining and energy union . His clear election success testified to the traditional bondage of the miners who stuck to his energy policy guidelines. Meyer stood by the principle of social partnership and emphasized the "harmonious triad of employees , entrepreneurs and politicians ". He took over his new office during an economically difficult period. Sales problems and job cuts in mining were the order of the day. The number of miners in hard coal mining had continuously decreased (600,000 (1957) to 150,000 (1989)). The number of members fell sharply (650,000 to 433,000). As chairman of IG Bergbau und Energie, Meyer stood for a policy that supported the structural change including the numerous closings of collieries - while at the same time providing material security for the miners . “Negotiating instead of demonstrating, contracts instead of labor disputes” were the hallmarks of his policy. In November 1988 he was confirmed as chairman of the mining and energy union with 98.3 percent of the delegate's votes.

On May 23, 1990 he succeeded Ernst Breit as chairman of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) . He was seen as a representative of the right wing of the trade union. His political negotiating skills, his work in the party and the trade unions as well as his ability to solve problems pragmatically made him a promising candidate for the office of chairman. Meyer's alleged involvement in the “ coop ” and “ Neue Heimat ” scandal almost became a stumbling block in his career . There was rumbling at the grassroots level, as it was obvious that Meyer would not be a new beginning, either morally or in terms of cooperative politics. The displeasure of the local associations hit Meyer when he was elected DGB chairman. With only 64 percent of the vote, he had to accept the worst election result that had ever been attributed to a DGB chairman.

The social problems increased. The recession and the consequences of German unification forced the DGB on the defensive. The decline in membership (minus 6.7% in 1992) and the resulting drop in fee income made it difficult for the organization to emerge as a strong political interest group. In view of the financial shortfall at DGB of 50 million DM, Meyer pulled the emergency brake in February 1993. He imposed an immediate ban on spending in the amount of DM 9 million "for certain budget items". In autumn 1993 he presented an implementation plan that defined the division of labor between member unions and the DGB as well as the “core tasks” of the umbrella organization and described the first implementation steps. Personnel costs should be reduced by 13% by 1996 and 300 of the 2600 DGB positions should be saved, which he justified with the cyclical and structural difficulties of the economy. Meyer was a quiet reformer, but his reforms triggered a clearly audible echo from his colleagues. However, his knowledge of crisis management in the Ruhr helped him steer the DGB through the most difficult phase in its history. His unexpected death five weeks before the DGB Congress in Berlin (1994) meant a great loss for the trade union movement.

Meyer was also active in federal politics, as a directly elected member of the Recklinghausen I constituency from 1987 to 1990 in the German Bundestag.

Honors

Meyer was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia on September 2, 1987 . A street on the former site of the Monopol mine in Kamen was named after him by a council resolution on July 6, 2017.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinz-Werner Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 . 
2. ↑ 2. Fischer, Carsten: The union boss who learned to monopoly, in: Hellweger Anzeiger (Kamen, 2017), No. 155, p. 19.