Legal protection association for the mining population of the Bonn Upper Mining District

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Altenwald mine , 1866
Pit speeches , ca.1900

The legal protection association for the mining population of the Upper Mining Office district of Bonn was a union-like association of miners working in the pits of the Saar district . It was one of the first German miners' unions , but only existed for seven years from August 4, 1889 to August 27, 1896. Shortly before, the Saar area with its coal mines had been assigned to the Prussian Mining Treasury and belonged to the Bonn district. Historically correct is the designation without fugues-s in the word Rechtsschutzverein , but this has waned over the decades.

prehistory

Already at the beginning of the 19th century there were clashes between the young Prussian mine administration and their miners. The reason was the employer's efforts to create different wage groups for tusks and smugglers . The labor dispute at the Großwald and Klarenthal pits delayed the goals of the mountain tax authorities by three years.

Between 1856 and 1875 there were twenty stoppages of work in the Saar industrial area. The so-called “social democratic agitation”, which was also prepared to use the strike as an instrument of war, was initially successfully suppressed by the authorities and employers. Basically, this conflict between employees and the owners of the means of production was already a powerful class struggle .

history

Political and economic development from 1870

After many quiet years, isolated labor disputes did not begin again until the 1870s, but these remained locally limited. The reason for the renewed willingness to strike was, on the one hand, the new Reichsgewerbeordnung (RGO), which the North German Confederation had decided at its Reichstag session on June 21, 1869. In it she stated in paragraph 152 : "All prohibitions and penalties against tradespeople, industrial assistants, journeymen or factory workers because of agreements and associations for the purpose of obtaining favorable wage and working conditions, in particular by stopping work or dismissing workers, are repealed." The law came into force on January 1, 1870.

On the other hand, dissatisfaction increased because the economic successes from the early days of the company were not in the form of wage increases or the like. down for the workers. The wages only rose with the production output through technical improvements, but also higher workload and stronger impulses. While the miners had accepted the temporary drop in their standard of living and the worsening of working conditions in the face of the tense economic situation, the feeling of being excluded from the upswing that began at the end of the 1980s was the reason for resistance. According to Delf Slotta , the development even stagnated until 1895. Strikes in other mining areas such as the Ruhr area , the coal basin of Belgium, northern France and the mines in Great Britain had already occurred for the movement to an eight-hour day and a higher level of organization of the workforce and did not stay on the Saar unnoticed. A reception requested by Kaiser Wilhelm II was considered a sign of hope by the predominantly Catholic, emperor and state loyal people in Saarberg and they still had to wait and see.

Operations in the pits

But the discontent of the workers, which was expressed in the unrest from the beginning of 1889, escalated again. This was "the first serious shock to the relationship between employers and workers, as they had traditionally become in the Saar region," wrote Karl-Alfred Gabel in 1921 in his summarizing history of the ironworkers' organizations.

The miners' demand was acknowledged on May 17, 1889 by the mine management on large-format posters on the walls of the pits with the words "Shortening the shift for coal extraction to eight hours ... is not possible in the local mines", which the miners considered Delay maneuvers understood; after all, this requirement had meanwhile been implemented in 170 pits on the Ruhr!

In the following days there were repeated smaller gatherings and rallies by the angry miners. An unannounced meeting on May 19 with 300 men in the von der Heydt mine was disbanded by the police. Despite an initial threat of strike by 3,000 miners on May 21 in Altenwald , things remained calm for the time being. At this meeting, chief miner August Huyssen also spoke , who with 10 hours of work including entry and exit was still not prepared to make any further concessions. He also did not guarantee another demand that was important to the miners, namely keeping the tunnel doors open.

On May 22nd, 15,000 miners gathered in the Friedrichsthal district of Bildstock for a consultation. Their patience was exhausted, and it was almost unanimously decided that the next morning “to stop work until a solid, regular order was given to the people in print”. The next day the miners appeared in the colliery halls but did not enter the shafts after it became clear that their demands would not be met. This first major strike in the Saar area affected 11,500 miners from the Altenwald, Dechen, Friedrichsthal, Heinitz , Itzenplitz , Maybach and Reden collieries that day . The strike rate was around 45 percent in the first few days, peaked on May 28 and declined significantly from May 31. In Gerhard, Heydt and Kronprinz, work continued without taking part in the strike. Kesternich explains this with the inexperience and lack of coordination, especially in the lower area.

After the failed attempt by the strike commission to bring about a hearing with the Kaiser based on the Westphalian model, the mine management made only minor concessions and changed the work order. After that, the shift, including entry and exit, now only lasted ten hours instead of twelve. This partial success was accepted by the strikers. This strike by conservative workers loyal to the emperor changed the political climate. Mallmann certified the miners "the most extensive trade union action in Germany in the 19th century". The number of 100,000 strikers meant more workers fighting than ever since the Socialist Law was passed .

Foundation and end of the legal protection association

Advertisement in the Völklinger Zeitung from July 31, 1889

Above all, the recognition of large organizational deficits in the control of the strike is likely to have prompted the strike leaders to deal more professionally with the mine management. The legal protection association founded three years earlier by Johannes Fusangel in Bochum for the mining population of the Dortmund Upper Mining District , which was able to prove itself with its demands in the miners' strike of 1889 , should have been a model, as its statutes were adopted almost word for word. In addition, this union-like workers' representation was on the agenda of the Bildstock executive board meeting on July 21, 1889, which was composed of the strike leaders. On that day, she also elected the shop stewards for a similar association as in the Ruhr area. The founding meeting took place on July 28th in Bildstock. On August 4th, the new club was presented to around 300 miners in Völklingen. The seat of the association was set on wayside shrine “to avoid costs” because most of the elected representatives lived and worked there. Nikolaus Warken became the first president, Matthias Bachmann became his deputy. Four months later, over six and a half thousand members were registered, and on October 31 of the following year almost 19,000. In the summer of 1891 - depending on the source - the peak was reached with 20,000 or 24,000, a membership quota of 67 to 81 percent of all miners. There was no other German mountain area with this high level of organization.

During this time the self-confidence of the members of the legal protection association grew, with major events such as the gathering of 15,000 miners in Tivoli , the later trade union building, which theirs may have contributed to. This gathering, which was supposed to be limited by the authorities to 1000 people, is today considered an immense demonstration of power on the part of the workers and, simply because of the fact that it came about, it is an outstanding result. At the end of 1889 the miners 'goals had not been met, but felt with the general shortening of shifts by one and a half to two hours and the uniform work order for all parts of the district, with a substantial increase in wages and the introduction of workers' committees, the so-called mine shop stewards you are on the right track. But there were always setbacks and new labor disputes. There was also a vicious smear campaign in which unpopular board members were charged with allegedly insulting mountain officials and sentenced in some cases to draconian sentences of up to six months in prison.

Legal protection room in wayside shrine

At this high point in the existence of the legal protection association, the foundation stone was laid for the legal protection hall in Bildstock on May 10, 1891 , a separate club house with meeting facilities for up to 1000 people.

Disappointments about the decisions of individual civil servants, especially the management of the mining treasury, and a change in the attitude of the Catholic Church more and more radicalized the predominantly conservative national miners and turned them into social democrats who could rightly insist on their gradually acquired achievements. The miners were further demoralized by a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Trier , Korum , who admonished them on December 30, 1891 and the following Sunday to follow the “legally regulated path” instead of supporting them in their just struggle and censuring the company owners. Another strike, which broke out because the mine management was not prepared to change individual paragraphs in line with the legal protection association, played into the hands of the rulers. In the meantime they were armed against strikes lasting several weeks due to large coal and coke stocks and supply agreements with Belgium. Alfred von Bake , District Administrator of Saarbrücken, said laconically about the strike decisions: "Given the current poor sales situation, a strike by the mining administration would hardly be very undesirable, the miners would have to give in sooner or later."

A total of 2,457 workers lost their jobs during the subsequent industrial action from September 30, 1892 to January 17, 1893 and were subsequently not reinstated for disciplinary reasons. Many pals had to sell their homes and went back home, while others emigrated to the United States or neighboring countries. By March 25, 10,500 members had turned their backs on their association, and by mid-June 1893 there were almost 20,000. The association was dissolved on August 27, 1893, the legal protection hall was sold, and the labor movement no longer existed. The final liquidation dragged on until 1896.

The resolutions passed in Völklingen at the time were the program of the legal protection association and went down in history under the name of Völklingen Resolutions as pointing the way to the objectives in the dispute between employers and employees. When around 1,100 machine and workshop workers from Saargruben were accepted into the legal protection association in June 1890, all working people were represented in an employee representative body.

Only after the death of Carl Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg in March 1901 did a noteworthy employee representation emerge again in the form of the Christian Miners Union.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann : reward for the effort. CH Beck Munich 1989
  2. ↑ a b Harald Glaser: Wave of Strikes and Legal Protection Association. The beginnings of the miners' movement in the Saar district. Saarland Chamber of Labor , 2015
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Hubert Kesternich: Völklingen resolutions.
  4. ^ The Saarkohlenbau on the Saar - its history and its architectural cultural heritage. In: Karlheinz Pohmer (editor): Der Saarland Steinkohlenbergbau Krüger Druck + Verlag, Dillingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-9814952-1-8 , p. 130
  5. ^ Karl-Alfred Gabel : Struggles and becoming of the ironworkers' organizations on the Saar, Saarbrücker Druckerei u. Verlag, Saarbrücken, undated (1921), p. 80
  6. ↑ Stahl und Eisen No. 6, June 1889, p. 465
  7. ↑ a b c d Klaus-Michael Mallmann : The beginnings of the miners' movement on the Saar (1848–1904). Minerva, Saarbrücken 1981, ISBN 3-477-00065-X
  8. ↑ Ernst Müller: The coal mining of the Prussian state. Part IV: The Development of Employment Conditions in the State Coal Mines from 1816 to 1903 Berlin 1904, p. 52
  9. ↑ a b Johann Leimpeters: The comedy in the Saar. Self-published, Bochum 1913

literature