Rubble dispute
The Ruhreisenstreit is the largest and most momentous lockout during the Weimar Republic , which affected over 200,000 workers between November 1 and December 3, 1928 . Although it was limited to the Rheinisch-Westfälische industrial area, it had consequences for the entire empire.
Prehistory and background
The economic background for the conflict was the still good economic situation and the strength of the trade unions, especially in the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area. In the iron industry, the free, liberal and Christian metalworkers' unions terminated the collective agreement on October 31, 1928 in order to enforce a wage increase of 15 pfennigs an hour for all employees over the age of 21.
The fact that the collective bargaining conflict, which began unobtrusively at first, could quickly reach a previously unknown dimension, was primarily due to developments in the business community. The industry saw its competitiveness not only threatened by the union wage demands, but also feared that the unions might get backing for far-reaching demands from the social democratic government under Hermann Müller . In doing so, they overestimated the social democratic influence in the grand coalition, but wanted to counter it with an offensive forward strategy.
course
The wage demand of the trade unions was rejected by the employers' association of the Northwestern Group of the Association of German Iron and Steel Industrialists , in short Arbeit-Nordwest , with reference to the deteriorating economic situation. Instead, the workers were given notice on November 1, 1928 as a precaution. The arbitration negotiations initiated by the unions failed. Instead, the arbitrator Wilhelm Joetten , appointed by the Reich Ministry of Labor , issued an arbitration award. Even if the verdict fell short of the demands of the trade unions, they accepted it, while the employers challenged it legally and ultimately got it right. This led to considerable conflicts within the cabinet: the entrepreneurs received support from the Reich Economics Minister Julius Curtius ( DVP ) within the government . In contrast, Labor Minister Rudolf Wissell (SPD) stuck to the arbitrator's ruling and, like the trade unions, considered it to be legally binding.
However, the Minister of Labor did not have the necessary sanctions to enforce the arbitration award. Without waiting for the arbitration procedure and the rulings of the competent labor courts, the employers let the terminations come into effect and laid off a total of around 240,000 workers. This step was not only politically but also legally controversial. While the Duisburg Labor Court approved the procedure, the next higher instance, the State Labor Court in Düsseldorf , sentenced him .
In addition to those directly affected, the lockout had significant economic consequences for the coal mining and processing industries. The workers concerned soon found themselves in material need, as only a minority were unionized and were therefore entitled to union support payments. The unemployment was allowed to pay any funds in the case of lockouts. This constellation gave the entrepreneurs hope that the unions would soon be forced by the workforce to give in.
The employers' approach was largely met with incomprehension in public. The center wanted to retroactively declare the lockout illegal. At the beginning of November, the SPD and KPD submitted motions to the Reichstag to provide state support to those locked out, which were decided by a large majority against the votes of the DVP.
This decision has undoubtedly contributed to the fact that the conflict lasted for a few weeks and that the unions maintained their position as the negotiations continued. In the employers' camp, the decision was interpreted as interference by the state in the area of collective bargaining partners. The Association of German Employers' Associations (VDA) and the Reich Association of German Industry demonstratively supported Arbeit-Nordwest. Until then, they had refrained from publicly showing solidarity with employers in the steel and iron industry on the Rhine and Ruhr.
The hardened fronts in the collective bargaining conflict crumbled before an appeal date at the Reich Labor Court in Leipzig, as both sides feared having to pay compensation if the outcome was negative for them. This increased the will to come to an agreement. The lockout was finally lifted on December 3, 1928 after both parties to the conflict had agreed in advance to submit to the arbitration ruling of the Minister of the Interior and special arbitrator Carl Severing (SPD).
End and historical significance
Severing's special arbitration decision was finally issued on December 21, 1928. Although wages were increased by one to six pfennigs and working hours were reduced from 60 to 57 or 52 hours, this was a significantly worse result for the unions than the first arbitration decision. The legal end of the conflict was only set by the Reich Labor Court on January 22, 1929. After that, Joetten's original award was illegal from the start and all “one-man awards” were generally inadmissible. Thus the Reich Ministry of Labor was the real loser of the dispute, which the employers registered with satisfaction.
The tough approach of the entrepreneurs was not only due to current economic reasons. Rather, they wanted to act against the state's influence on economic and social policy and, in particular, against the arbitration system introduced during the First World War. This was a first step towards the abolition of the system of collective agreements between trade unions and employers' associations that had been in place since 1918 in favor of company agreements.
The real opponent was not the trade unions, but the Reich government led by the Social Democrat Hermann Müller. In retrospect, Max Schlenker, the general manager of Arbeit-Nordwest, spoke of a normal labor dispute that employers would have been forced to engage in, and on the other hand the " deeper meaning of the labor disputes in the Rhine-Ruhr area (...) in the fight for today's economic system would be for a reasonable economic and social policy, gathering of all equally minded forces for the final confrontation with the destructive powers of socialism. ". In his words, " for the iron-making and iron-processing industry it was ultimately a question of their existence, for them it was a matter of resisting an economic process that sooner or later must lead to socialism, if not to Bolshevism ."
The Ruhreisenstreit thus marked a turning point in the policy of entrepreneurs from cooperation to confrontation in the Weimar Republic.
Remarks
literature
- Anselm Faust: Rubble dispute . In: North Rhine-Westphalia. State history in the lexicon . Red. Anselm Faust u. a., Düsseldorf 1993, p. 346f.
- Martin Otto: “The matter was legally difficult.” The labor law of the Weimar Republic in science and practice using the example of the “Ruhreisen” dispute. In: Martin Löhnig / Mareike Preisner (eds.), Weimar Civil Law Studies. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2014, pp. 23–55. ISBN 978-3-16-153325-9
- Michael Schneider : “In full knowledge of the scope of the current conflict.” The Ruhreisenstreit 1928/29. In: Lutz Niethammer u. a. (Ed.): “People don't make their story of their own free will, but they make it themselves.” Invitation to a history of the people in North Rhine-Westphalia. Essen, 2006, pp. 136-139.
- Bernd Weisbrod : Heavy Industry in the Weimar Republic. Interest politics between stabilization and crisis , Hammer, Wuppertal 1978, especially pp. 415–456. ISBN 3-87294-123-2
- Heinrich August Winkler : Weimar. The history of the first German democracy . 1918-1933. Munich, 1983. ISBN 3-7632-4233-3 , pp. 341f.