The Battle for Collective Bargaining Rights: The Trade Unions' Prophecy of Doom

The closure of the Duisburg-Heiderich ironworks has created a situation that the workforce cannot ignore. Even if, viewed superficially, this closure is not a special phenomenon in the context of the general downsizing offensive, it is nevertheless of topical importance for the workforce because of the special accompanying phenomena. Especially now that the industrialists have terminated the collective agreement of the Nordwest Group. Duisburg-Heidericher Hütte is affiliated to the Nordwest Group. The Vereinigte Stahlwerke wanted to take the steelworks out of the Nordwest Group and, in order not to negotiate for long, they acted and closed the plant. This is a clear sign of the renewed power of the capitalists, but also of the powerlessness of the trade unions. In the last few days, the trade union press has therefore been full of complaints about the brutal machinations of the industrial magnates, invoking Article 165 of the German constitution:

"Workers and employees are called upon to participate on an equal footing with employers in the regulation of wages and working conditions and in the overall economic development of productive forces.”

They absolutely cannot get it into their union mindset that the shutdown is taking place so easily, without their consent, and they vent their apparent indignation in the following words:

“The closure of the smelter was carried out without attempting to achieve wage reductions through the tariff itself and negotiations with the other side. The employers insisted on their demand that the smelter be removed from the North-West tariff.”

In this way, employers hope to gradually achieve the complete elimination of collective agreements. Loyal to collective bargaining, as the trade unions are, they cling above all to the principle of the indispensability of the collective agreement. They call this “the most important creation of social law”. The “Dortmunder Generalanzeiger” writes about what this “most important creation” looks like:

“... On the other hand, we can see from the example of Duisburg-Heiderich how the collective agreement, when the ever stronger capitalist arm wants it, becomes a blunt weapon by simply shutting down the company; it is therefore still threatened by unilateral overpowering, but not supported by a community idea, as Article 165 of the R.-V. wants. In other words: without a collective bargaining community, the collective agreement is form without content.”

This is clear enough, and every worker should remember the ever-strong “capitalist arm” when it comes to collective agreements. Of course, the trade unions know no other way to help themselves than to try to counter the danger of the elimination of collective agreements by invoking existing laws and through paper protest resolutions. The Kölnische Zeitung, however, knows what to do. It proposes that the indispensable part of the collective agreement should no longer be the collectively agreed wage, but a minimum wage, such as a wage rate that would correspond to today's unemployment insurance rates.

These statements by the “Kölnische Zeitung” can be understood from a capitalist point of view. This would then degrade the much-vaunted “most important creation”, social law, to welfare law.

But as always, when it comes to such delicate situations, the scientific theorists always come to the fore. This time it's not the Hilferdings or Breitscheids. But a university professor, Dr. Schnittmann, Cologne, jumps into the fray. It's worth keeping a note of what he wrote. It can be summarized as follows:

"... But without constructive organization, the word “community” remains a phrase. The question arises as to how we can actually achieve a collective bargaining community. We already see corporate-cooperative structures in the economy today; but our view of them is clouded because these corporate-cooperative forms, which the liberal economy was forced into against its will, have been abused by both sides: Cartels -- capitalist, trade unions -- state socialist. But if the iron cartel is able to bring about a community of interests of the capitalist forces confronting each other in competition and to bind them in the interests of capitalism for the purpose of keeping monopoly prices high, then there must also be ways and means of bringing about these ties and unions on a higher labor-community basis of capital and labor in the interests of the common good. The individual company, and even more so an iron cartel, is no longer just a private matter for a few capital magnates, but an eminently social matter. It is the task and duty of the state to recall Article 165 of the Constitution and, starting from the trade associations, to bring to maturity the approaches to corporative economic organization found in modern economic organizations by incorporating them into territorially structured autonomous economic chambers with equal representation under the strong supervision of the state,

Today, in the absence of any joint labor-management basis, the collective agreement is a pawn of pure power politics. Only by joining a trade association incorporated into a chamber of commerce is it detached from the private contractual law of the market parties and becomes a collective bargaining community which the state authorizes to regulate working conditions autonomously after examining the economic basis. The collective agreement is then no longer a temporary agreement between class-based market parties on conflicting interests, but the result of permanent joint work by the trade association."

In other words: the creation of territorially structured autonomous economic chambers with equal representation, in which the modern economic organizations (meaning capital and trade unions) are incorporated for the purpose of corporate economic organization, naturally under strong state supervision. This is the name of the latest “community structure”. In this way, the trade associations (only the affiliated ones, of course) are to be released from their private contract law and turned into a “collective bargaining community”. The state then authorizes this association to autonomously regulate working conditions. And the whole thing is called “permanent trade association community work”. How the trade union owners can rejoice at such promising and profitable prospects: “To be able to become state trade union officials.”

While in recent years the trade unions' “struggle” has no longer been about wage increases, but mainly about maintaining existing wage rates, we will soon see that trade union “struggles” will now only revolve around the recognition of collective agreements. The culmination of these struggles will be the above-mentioned phase. There are already signs of this. In Duisburg, at a general meeting of the Central Association of Salaried Employees, union employee Seelig has already spoken on the topic: “The fight for collective bargaining law”. The report states: In a unanimous resolution, the meeting opposed the current efforts to undermine the collective bargaining and arbitration system.

So we can see that things are beginning to take shape. Naturally, this raises the question: What is the working class doing? But the answer should not be difficult for any worker who has kept up with history. Although the question of collective bargaining and arbitration has been sufficiently touched on and rolled up in this newspaper, we must nevertheless briefly return to it before answering it.

The collective agreements between trade unions and employers' organizations were intended to save the positions won in the struggle during the period of economic crises. They were intended as a slit defense behind which the exhausted masses would rearm themselves for a new march. Collective bargaining agreements were concluded that defined the most diverse issues of employment relations (wages, working hours, etc.). But as all things have a downside, so too do collective agreements. Despite all the provisions of parity, they are a one-sided commitment for the contracting workers. The privileged position of the capitalists as owners of the means of production gives them an advantage over the propertyless counterparts. All avenues are open to capital and it has all the means at its disposal to skilfully circumvent the obligations entered into and to dupe the workers. At the very moment these lines are being written, a process has come to an end that confirms this position in a flash. The three railroad trade unions had filed a lawsuit against the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft because of the reduction in working hours. Naturally, they failed with their lawsuit. The court dismissed the action on the grounds that the collective agreement did not exclude a reduction in working hours.

However, the trade unions also pursued another objective with their collective bargaining policy. For the duration of the collective agreements, they at least had peace from the rebelling workers. They could then justifiably refer to the collective agreements. In spite of the collective agreements and the agreed arrangements, the capitalists, as owners of production, have it in their power to lower the workers' standard of living (food, housing, clothing, etc.) by increasing it. If the workers resort to non-union means during the collective bargaining period, this is called a “wildcat strike” by the trade union organizations and the benefit fund is blocked for the striking workers. The trade unions' watchword in such situations is always: “We can't make a deal, we can't intervene, because we are bound by our collective agreements". In this way, wage agreements become a gagging of the working masses and a means of keeping down the starving masses.

However, with the adoption of collective bargaining policy, the fundamental distinction between capital and labor has become increasingly blurred and the class antagonism obscured. The collective agreement means the periodic suspension of the class struggle for the contracting parties. This is the so-called policy of truce.

Another consequence of the collective bargaining policy was the trade unions' struggle for recognition and equal rights within the capitalist system. The last threads with which they were still connected to the proletarian class struggle were fraying. They drifted into the camp of class harmony. The aim of the trade unions was and is always to improve wage and working conditions without fundamentally shaking the foundations of wage slavery. Exploitation is therefore permanent. On the contrary, if capitalism falls, so does the trade union struggle and with it its organizational supporters, the trade unions.

As a result, wage and collective agreements have become an obstacle to the revolutionary movement. In the period of decline of the capitalist system, the proletariat can no longer save itself with palliatives. Labor must leave the trade unions alone in their struggle for recognition of collective agreements. It must refuse to follow them. But it must not stop there. It must go one step further. It must take up the fight against the trade unions, regardless of their continued existence. The precondition for the victory of the working class is the complete destruction of the trade unions. With this smashing, the collective agreements will also fall and the path to revolutionary mass actions will be open to them.

The task of the working class is not reform politics, not truce politics, but class struggle politics. For this, however, it is necessary to unite in class struggle organizations. The members of the. General Workers' Union have made a start. The working class must join them.