Craft production cooperative

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Company sign of a former PGH (hairdressing salon)
Honor roll of an excellent PGH in Buttstädt

A craft production cooperative (PGH) was a socialist cooperative in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) . The craft production cooperatives emerged as an alternative to private companies. The members were craftsmen or tradespeople with an entry in the craft or commercial role. In addition, their employees and helping spouses could also be members of a PGH. The union was based on voluntary, communal / collective work within a production cooperative with the aim of creating common ownership of the means of production through the union .

Microphone case of the radio advisor PGH

Economic aspect

The cooperative work or the cooperation in a PGH should be more efficient than an individual production. This goal was only partially achieved. Many were forced or coerced to join a PGH. In 1958, the PGH were initially exempt from tax payments by the government, while taxes for private crafts were increased. This law largely withdrew the proverbial golden ground from private crafts in the GDR and caused a wave of accession to the PGH. In 1962, the tax exemption for the cooperatives was limited to the first two years after establishment. However, due to rationalization effects , specializations and economies of scale , the PGH achieved an upswing in the 1960s. The sales developed more rapidly than in the private craft and the PGH members earned mostly more than skilled industrial workers what the party and state organs called on the scene, the unjustified ( capitalist feared) enrichments. Previously, after the Seventh  Party Congress of the SED in 1967 , the Minister for Light Industry had already criticized the fact that cooperative craftsmen had to work less and received more vacation than other workers.

history

The first PGH of the GDR was founded on July 21, 1952 by eight Berlin plasterers . For various trades (for example in construction), traditions and customs that have been practiced since the Middle Ages have been binding, for example the rolling , an opportunity to get to know professional skills and techniques in other regions. With a few exceptions, this tradition was no longer possible in the GDR; state vocational schools and institutes (e.g. institutes for monument preservation ) with appropriate courses were put in its place . Few central training centers took over the training of apprentices up to the master’s degree , admission was often regulated.

At the 8th party congress of the SED in 1971, the liquidation of the so-called "non-socialist sector in trade and industry" was decided due to alleged unjustified enrichment, a lack of willingness to work for scientific and technical progress and to advance socialist production relations. Three reasons were given for the liquidation of the craft cooperatives:

  1. Neglect of repairs and services to the population in favor of industrial production .
  2. Loss of craftsmanship due to profit-oriented production on a larger scale.
  3. Production outside the state planning bodies.

As a result, the turnover and number of employees at PGH fell to less than half, and the cooperative repair and service activities fell by 2.3 billion marks a year across the country . Ultimately, all privileges were withdrawn from the cooperatives and in February 1973 they were incorporated into the centrally planned economy with a new model statute , with which they lost their entrepreneurial function and their character as cooperatives, which made them a caricature modeled on the collective farms . From then on, PGH members were discriminated against with a wage tax of 20% (compared to 5% of industrial workers), which led to declining membership numbers in the 1980s.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Annegret Hauer, Thomas Kleinhenz, Liliane von Schuttenbach: The middle class in the transformation process of Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe. P. 17.
  2. a b Günther Bayerl / Klaus Neitmann (eds.), Helga Schultz in: Brandenburg's Mittelstand on the Long Way from Industrialization to the Market Economy of the 21st Century, Münster: Waxmann, 2008, pp. 261-278 Production cooperatives of the handicrafts in the GDR and in the transformation phase ( memento from August 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive )

Web link

Commons : Crafts production cooperative  - collection of images