Apprentice movement

Apprenticeship movement describes a social protest movement by trainees of the dual training system between 1968 and 1972, stimulated by the extra-parliamentary opposition (APO) of the student movement . The training conditions in training companies, which apprentices call “exploitative”, gained public attention nationwide through spectacular campaigns. This was mainly due to the fact that there were not only spontaneous individual actions, but that so-called apprentice centers were set up throughout the Federal Republic of Germany right down to smaller towns. The apprenticeship movement influenced the collective bargaining policy of the trade unions as well as reform efforts in vocational training. It found a receptive public, as the first contributions to the criticism of vocational training appeared in science and the Bundestag discussed and passed the Vocational Training Act in 1969 ; In addition, in 1969 the German Education Council published the memorandum “To improve apprenticeship training”.

The apprentice protest was directed against the training practices of the companies. The apprentices complained about inadequate company learning opportunities, insufficient coordination of theory and practice between the vocational school and the company, too much auxiliary work without learning or exercise value or even non-professional tasks. The supposedly non-pedagogical upbringing for “docile work subjects” (“apprenticeship years are not master years”) were also the subject of politically oriented criticism. But the vocational schools also came under criticism (too impractical, no meaningful combination of in-company and vocational training, etc.). The apprenticeship centers were partly unionized, partly autonomous (e.g. expressly in Essen, but also there always with clear expectations of the unions).

The trade unions, employers' associations, political parties and the new left groupings that emerged as a result of the student movement interpreted the dissatisfaction of the apprentices very differently. The perceptions about the causes ranged from the reduction to a generation conflict to the finding of a lack of modernity in the training to seduction by APO students, but criticism of a bureaucratized trade union policy was also noted, a socially critical emphasis on unjustly distributed "participation opportunities for young workers" in In the society of that time in general, as well as in the “anti-capitalist milieu” of the rebellious part of the youth at that time, left theorists welcomed the spread of the “anti-capitalist revolt” to part of the “working masses”. In general, it can be said that this “skipping” of the student protest on the apprentices caused great excitement among the so-called “establishment” at the time, especially the business representatives, but also the union boards, because “the German apprentice” was ultimately believed to be able to protest would have.

Beginnings

At the end of the 1960s, there was full employment in the Federal Republic of Germany and a number of apprenticeships remained unfilled. Apprentices could choose from the offers in many professions. But there were big differences in the quality of apprenticeship training - for example between modern industrial companies and traditional, often small craft companies. Many apprentices found this very unfair. These were the general conditions under which the first public and much-noticed apprentice protest took place in October 1968. The first publicly effective action on the training misery took place on September 25, 1968 in Hamburg. In the trading floor of the Chamber of Commerce was an acquittal celebration of 3,500 commercial and industrial apprentices. Six apprentices and students from the Academy for Economics and Politics had developed a flyer for this celebration. In the leaflet was u. a. a reform of vocational training, a vocational training law and appropriate training remuneration are called for. The students should distribute the leaflet. Since they were late, they threw the leaflet into the hall. An apprentice used the confusion to explain the demands on the lectern. On November 8, 1968, the first apprenticeship demonstration with 1,000 participants for better training took place in Hamburg.However, a broad public impact was only noticeable when the apprentices loudly articulated their demands at the central May rally of the German Trade Union Confederation on May 1, 1969 on Hamburg's Rathausmarkt . Prominent speakers such as Willy Brandt , Herbert Weichmann and Otto Brenner had to deliver their speeches accompanied by the choirs of an estimated 3,000 apprentices.

Consequences and further course

As a result of the protest against the trade union bureaucracy, which was completely unexpected for the union executive committee, works councils and shop stewards made far-reaching decisions on future union youth policy at a central conference on May 6, 1969. The board of directors was asked to draft an "immediate youth policy program". The aim was to bring young people closer to the unions again. The program was designed by unionized students and apprentices and adopted in August 1969 by the DGB district executive in Hamburg.

The central point was the establishment of an open apprenticeship center, a “ jour fixe ” for the youth union in Hamburg, the starting point for a nationwide wave of apprentice centers. The Hamburg “Jour fixe” began with a series of public campaigns, e. B. in October 1970 in front of the Rheinstahl factory in Hamburg or a big "sweeping action" on the pre-Christmas shopping mile Mönckebergstrasse in Hamburg in November 1970 (see photos).

Hamburg apprentice demonstration in 1968

The “new movement” was supported right from the start by the young socialists in the SPD. January 1970 held a large "apprenticeship congress" in Düsseldorf. At the height of the apprenticeship movement, 1971/72, there were around 150 apprenticeship centers in Germany, some of them autonomous, some of them unionized. These were usually organized locally or branch-specifically (individual trade unions), right up to company groups (e.g. Durag in Hamburg, Siemens in Munich), depending on the (trade union) infrastructure in the places. In predominantly small (rural) regions, the vocational schools were often the starting point for this self-organization of the apprentices. But also state vocational training institutions got into the "wave of protests". B. the central training workshop of the city of Frankfurt (LAW). In addition, there were various attempts by the apprenticeship centers or company groups to join the collective bargaining policy of the unions with their own demands or even to enforce independent “training collective agreements” for industries and / or companies (e.g. Durag company group Hamburg), such attempts Independent collective bargaining policies were not supported by the unions.

Demonstration in front of the Hamburg factory in 1970

As a result of this broad movement with many local campaigns, the subject of vocational training moved increasingly into public discussion. The press reported from local newspapers to Stern (from the national newspapers e.g. Frankfurter Rundschau continuously ), youth and education editors of radio and television got on the subject, and union- related magazines such as express international and trade union mirror reported continuously , but also z. B. the magazine deutsche jugend of the German Youth Institute in Munich. Many works councils also paid more attention to the apprentices in their companies, the unions increased their youth and youth education work (e.g. with intensive conference and seminar work in the DGB Federal Youth School in Oberursel) and also intervened politically for a reform of vocational training. There have also been attempts to organize the apprenticeship centers supraregional, e.g. B. a nationwide "working conference of the apprenticeship centers" in Frankfurt on 13./14. February 1971, in which more than 40 apprentice centers took part, and afterwards a regional conference for Northern Germany on 13/14. March 1971 in Hamburg. The initiative for the “LZ - newspaper for apprentices and young workers”, which emerged from the Hamburg Jour fixe and was produced in Hamburg from 1970 onwards and mostly distributed nationwide via the apprenticeship centers, was one of these efforts to establish a supra-regional “autonomous” organization of the apprentice centers.

In addition, some broad empirical scientific studies on the situation of vocational training took place, e. For example, the five-volume “Hamburg Apprenticeship Study” initiated by the Hamburg Jour fixe at the University of Economics and Politics in Hamburg and the German Youth Institute in Munich. Overall, it was observed in the training companies that the apprentices were treated more reasonably or more cautiously. However, the apprenticeship centers, insofar as they were union-oriented or involved, were soon tamed and constricted by the union bureaucracy, and in many places simply dissolved ("too rebellious there"). As far as the apprenticeship centers were autonomous, they (like the rest of the unionized apprenticeship centers) soon got into the "mission strategy" of the different groups of the so-called APO, which made many young people resigned. In addition, politicians and companies soon “reclaimed their territory”; Increasing conflicts in the training companies also caused many young people to give up. The new Works Constitution Act passed in 1972, however, strengthened the rights of youth representatives, which directed the energy of the protest onto this formal track - often with success there, but only in large and medium-sized enterprises where there were youth representatives. Many of the active apprentices sought after the rather unpleasant experiences with trade union bureaucrats and "teachers" a personal professional education, often also promotion, often forced, because they were not taken on after the apprenticeship.

The end

In the mid-1970s, the apprenticeship movement as such had ebbed away, it also partially merged into the so-called “youth center movement”, which has meanwhile reached the whole of Germany, an often very successful struggle of young people for local youth centers and improved leisure time opportunities in their communities. Vocational training then disappeared almost completely from the education policy debate in the 1980s, although the incipient youth unemployment and the increasing dismantling of qualified vocational training and professional jobs would have demanded a movement of apprentices even more. (The unions had, however, deprived themselves of this pillar in terms of organization, personnel and motivation by their bureaucratically motivated "lulling" the apprentice movement to sleep.)

See also

• DGB youth

literature

• German Education Council: Recommendations “To improve apprenticeship training” . Bonn 1969.
• Reinhard Crusius: On the criticism of the vocational training law . Bochum 1970 and Bonn 1971.
• Reinhard Crusius, Oskar Söhl, Manfred Wilke: Practice and theory of trade union apprentice policy . Offenbach 1971.
• Hans-Jürgen Haug, Hubert Maessen: What do the apprentices want? Frankfurt am Main 1971, ISBN 3-436-01358-7 .
• Durag company group: apprentice fight in the companies. Theory and practice of apprentice company group work . Offenbach, Hamburg 1971.
• Oswald Todtenberg, Arno Ploog: You belong to yourself and not to the bosses. A book for apprentices . Hamburg 1971.
• Joachim Weiler, Rolf Freitag: Training instead of exploitation. The struggle of the Essen apprentices . Reinbek near Hamburg 1971.
• University of Economics and Politics, Hamburg, and German Youth Institute, Munich: Hamburg apprentice study, 5 volumes . Munich 1973–75.
• Reinhard Crusius, Wolfgang Lempert, Manfred Wilke: Vocational training - reform policy in a dead end? . Reinbek near Hamburg 1974.
• Wilfried Brunkhorst, among others: Serious teaching . Weinheim 1975.
• Michael Böhnert, among others: Apprentice manual. Everything about apprenticeships, career choices, the world of work . Reinbek near Hamburg 1977.
• Hermann Tenhorst: initiators of political working youth groups . A contribution to the analysis of the so-called apprenticeship movement 1968–1972 . Dissertation. Munich 1979.
• Reinhard Crusius, Manfred Wilke: Participation problems of the young workers in the trade unions. Expertise for the 5th youth report of the federal government . Munich 1980.
• Reinhard Crusius, Manfred Wilke: Youth without a job - union without youth? . Frankfurt am Main 1981.
• Reinhard Crusius: Vocational training and youth policy of the union . Frankfurt, New York 1982.
• David Templin: Apprenticeship - no idle time! The apprenticeship movement in Hamburg 1968–1972, master thesis Hamburg 2009.
• Knud Andresen : Training yes - fetching beer no . Three forms of the apprentice protest 1969/70, in: Contemporary history in Hamburg. News from the Research Center for Contemporary History in Hamburg (FZH) 2008, Hamburg 2009, pp. 55–69.
• Knud Andresen: The West German apprenticeship movement from 1968–1972. Contours of a Neglected Phenomenon , in: Alte Linke - Neue Linke? The Social Struggles of the 1968s in Discussion, ed. by Peter Birke u. a., Berlin 2009, pp. 87-102.
• Reinhard Crusius, Manfred Wilke: Union without youth? On current problems of union youth policy , in: German Youth, Issue 7/1978 (Munich)
• Gerd Brenner: On the emigration of young people. Anti-institutionalism in the young generation , in: German Youth, Issue 8/1979 (Munich)
• Horst Haenisch: The main thing is an apprenticeship? The dual system of vocational training and the struggle for its reform , in: www.trend.infopartisan.net, 04/2008
• Oliver Bierhoff: Organization and Generational Order. On the organizational history of the union youth . Dissertation 2004.
• Klaus Hendrich: Apprentices and Politics. Observations in the Rhine-Main area , in: from politics and contemporary history. Supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament, B41 / 70, October 10, 1970
• Reinhard Crusius, Manfred Wilke: Vocational training in the Federal Republic of 1975 , reform of misery or misery of reform? In: from politics and contemporary history, supplement to the weekly newspaper Das Parlament, B47 / 75, November 22, 1975
• Knud Andresen: Braked Radicalization - On the Development of Trade Union Youth from 1968 to the mid-1970s, in: Mitteilungsblatt des Institut für Sozialrechte, Issue 42 (2010) (Hamburg)
• Otmar Hitzelberger: Step by Step into Paradise , Frankfurt 2003 (an autobiographical sketch of an apprentice active in the Frankfurt apprenticeship movement)
• Marius R. Busemeyer: The social partners and the change in the policy of vocational training since 1970 , Journal of the Max Planck Institute for Social Research, Cologne 2009, issue 16

Web links

• Depiction of the apprenticeship movement of Vadim Riga

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rolf-Rüdiger Beyer (himself participant): 50 years ago: Hamburg as the starting point of the apprenticeship movement, IG-Metall-Senioren-Echo, 13th year, no. 38, July / August 2018, pp. 7–8