Independent union

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The Independent Trade Union was an Austrian workers' association in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which was in cooperation with the Styrian Homeland Security and had a close relationship with the Austrian Alpine Mining Society (ÖAMG), which is why it can be viewed as a yellow union .

history

The Independent Union (UG) was founded on May 19, 1928 in Donawitz . Its first chairman was the metal worker Josef Lengauer , who, like the other functionaries, was already active in the local groups of the Styrian Homeland Security. UG groups soon formed throughout Upper Styria, but also in companies in Carinthia (including in Hüttenberg) and in the Lower Austrian industrial area.

The union pursued a corporate ideology and, in the interests of an "economic peace" spirit, refrained from taking action against the union, such as strikes . One stood clearly against the social democratic and Christian labor movement. As early as 1929, the UG became the strongest group in the works council elections in the Donawitz ironworks and won all seats in 1931 and 1932; The union was strongest in Alpine companies, where pressure was also exerted on the employees by the plant management to join the UG.

In the context of the global economic crisis , the ÖAMG massively cut jobs from 1930 and implemented more measures such as short-time work and wage cuts, which the UG could do little according to its basic attitude. The leadership of Alpine under Anton Apold supported the NSDAP in Austria from the beginning of 1933 , followed by the decline of the Independent Union. In the course of 1933 most of the local groups disbanded.

literature

  • Walter Göhring: The yellow trade unions in Austria in the interwar period. Verlag des ÖGB, Vienna 1998, ISBN 978-3-7035-0682-6 .
  • Jill Lewis: Fascism and the Working Class in Austria 1918-1934 . Berg Publishers, New York 1991, ISBN 0-85496-581-5 .
  • Eduard G. Staudinger: "Independent trade union" and workers in Upper Styria 1927 to 1933. In: Past and present. 4th vol., 1/1985, pp. 54-81.
  • Barbara Schleicher: Hot iron. On the corporate policy of the Österreichisch-Alpine Montangesellschaft in the years 1918–1933 . Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 978-3-631-33202-3 .