Battle of Moscow 1941 - Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union [HD]
During the Weimar Republic, the unions were divided along partisan lines, a situation that has led to competition between Socialists, Communists, Catholics, and liberal trade associations After the Second World War, the union leaders wanted to break with the past and form an independent trade union federation of political parties the result was the creation of the German trade union federation DGB Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund in 1949.
Four principles guided the founders of the DGB First, the labor movement wanted to representation by an organization which was unitary and autonomous, unrelated to particular religions or political parties Secondly, union leaders decided to organize unions along industrial lines, so that all workers in a company belong to the same union, regardless of their individual occupations, for example, an electrician in a car factory would join the metalworkers' union This organizational principle allows a more unions bargaining power when negotiating with employers' associations, because a union represents all employees of an industry Third, a decentralized system of interest representation was created individual unions generally emulate the federal structure, with local offices, distr ict, and national land Each level has an entry in the form of union policy Fourth, unions have chosen to rely on legislation to protect the rights of workers, rather than dir ect negotiations with business representatives So when the unions enter into contract negotiations with employers, they can focus on improving the economic well-being of workers.
The DGB is the national peak association of the German labor movement and includes sixteen unions, metalworkers to leather workers DGB represents virtually all organized industrial workers, most white-collar employees, and many government workers In mid-1995 , a total of 35 million 9 8 million workers were members of unions While the DGB is not even half of the German workforce, its unions negotiate collective agreements covering more than 90 percent of all jobs and the work of labor unions affects almost all workers DGB has lost more than 2 million members between late 1991 and late 1994, the vast majority of those Member July 1 million came from east Germany, which was in the throes of radical economic restructuring and suffered high unemployment Some officials of the DGB express the hope that, once the economy in the eastern part of the country stabilizes, DGB membership will grow.
In 1995, the three largest unions were the Union of metallurgists with a little less than 3 million members, the Union of utilities and transport workers with 1 9 million, and chemicals, paper, ceramics Union Approximately 742,000 workers with 31 percent of all members are women.
DGB members can be divided into factions accommodationist activist and activists, led by the Union of Metalworkers and Industriegewerkschaft Medien, the union of workers in the media, aggressively challenge business interests and are the main advocates of social reform by example, the Union of metallurgists led the drive to codetermination Mitbestimmung the early 1950s, substantial wage gains in the 1960s, and the work week of thirty-five hours in the 1980s, activists unions are likely to strike if collective bargaining achieve results however, the accommodationist unions, including those representing chemical workers, construction workers, food processing workers and textile workers, prefer to cooperate with employers to ensure e stable and sustainable economic growth Different unions have reacted differently to German unification and militant unions were assertive push for the equalization of wages between east and west, a cu lminated effort in a massive strike in the metalworking industry in East Germany in May 1993.
Two other, much smaller peak interest associations represent independent work areas of the DGB German Union collar white employees Deutsche Angestellten-Gewerkschaft DAG is composed exclusively of employees, mainly high-level technocrats and managers of private enterprise Federation of German officials Bund Deutscher Beamten DBB has successfully participated in the DGB to represent the DBB civil servants is best described as a lobbying organization, because officials can neither hit nor engage in collective bargaining.
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Unions as a political force in Germany, unions, political, force, germany.