Werner Bock (trade unionist)

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Werner Bock (born January 26, 1898 in Gera , † August 1, 1964 in Bielefeld ) was a German trade unionist . From 1949 to 1963 he was chairman of the Textile Clothing Union (GTB).

Life

Bock grew up in Thuringia and learned to be a weaver. He joined the German Textile Workers 'Association (DTAV) in 1913 and was active as a youth in the Socialist Workers' Youth and in the SPD .

After volunteering in the works council , he began in 1928 as the trade union secretary of the DTAV in Hamburg. In 1930 Bock took over the management of the DTAV's Bielefeld office.

On May 2, 1933, the trade union houses in Bielefeld were occupied by the Sturmabteilung and the unions across the country were dissolved. A few days later, Bock was taken into so-called protective custody by the National Socialists . After his imprisonment, Bock managed to get employed as a technical employee in a Bielefeld textile company.

After returning from war and captivity Werner Bock belonged in Bielefeld of the founding members of a new, ideologically neutral single union , which after the war instead of to 1933 existing trade union federations joined. In 1947 he was elected chairman of the newly formed textile-clothing-leather union for the British zone of occupation. The Association Congress of the Textile Clothing Union (GTB) for the western zones of Germany (April 7–9, 1949 in Bad Salzuflen) elected Bock as chairman.

Bock was one of the founding members of the German Federation of Trade Unions for the Federal Republic of Germany (DGB), which was constituted on October 12, 1949 in Munich and became a member of the federal executive committee. In 1951, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1959 and 1961 he was re-elected by the GTB trade union days.

In 1963 he left office for reasons of age. After only a short retirement, he died on August 1, 1964 in Bielefeld. The city of Bielefeld named a street after him in memory of his life's work and work in this region. In 1965 the GTB changed the name of its educational establishment in Beverungen / Weserbergland to Werner-Bock-Schule, today it belongs to the IG Metall-Bildungszentrum WBS. Werner Bock's grave of honor is in the Sennefriedhof in Bielefeld.

Services

Bock put the focus of his political work on the consolidation of the GTB as a unified trade union, which, in addition to the social-democratic predecessor organizations, also had strong Christian-social roots, as well as on the social management of the structural crises from which the textile industry had to suffer time and again and the endeavor to Bringing wages in the textile and clothing industry closer to the level of industry as a whole. Under the chairmanship of Werner Bock, the textile and clothing trade union fought fierce labor disputes in the industry, for example in 1953 in the Westphalia collective bargaining district with 21,000 strikers and in 1958 in a nine-week labor dispute with 15,000 strikers in the Bremen / Lower Saxony and Hesse collective bargaining areas.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ According to information for shop stewards of the textile clothing union, Düsseldorf, April 1989, p. 41.
  2. ^ Minutes of the eighth trade union day textile clothing, Hanover 1963, p. 351.
  3. ^ Minutes of the unification congress of the textile-clothing trade union for the western zones of Germany from 7th to 9th April 1949, Düsseldorf, p. 75.
  4. ^ Protocol founding congress of the German Trade Union Confederation, Munich, 12. – 14. October 1949, Düsseldorf, p. 231.
  5. ↑ See the minutes of the trade union days of the textile-clothing union from the years cited.
  6. ↑ Der Spiegel 33/1964, p. 76.
  7. ^ Special edition of the magazine "textil-clothing" for the 100th anniversary of the textile clothing trade union, Düsseldorf 1991, pp. 138-143.
personal data
SURNAME Bock, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionist
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Gera
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1964
Place of death Bielefeld