THE "LABOUR BOARDS" AND "LABOUR CHAMBERS" OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY.
Of all the problems with which the science of government is confronted
in the present and the near future, there are few in the domain of
Social Policy of greater importance, or more fraught with serious
possibilities in their results, than the establishment on a democratic
basis, both in constitution and in administration, of the organs of
Labour Protection.
This tendency appears already in the demand for equal representation of
both classes in the organisation of Labour Protection. The establishment
by local governing authorities of industrial courts of arbitration has
been a step in this direction, a step which has not entirely been
retraced by recent legislation in Germany, dealing with such courts.
The form which Social Democracy has given to this idea by the proposal
of "Labour Boards" and "Labour Chambers," brought forward in the Auer
Motion, is a matter of the highest interest. So far as I know, this form
has received very little, or at any rate insufficient, attention in the
Reichstag or the Press. This is the more surprising for two reasons,
viz., the justice of its attempt at a better protective organisation,
and the serious import of its evident tendency to evolve out of the
Capitalist System a Social Democratic order of society.
I think, therefore, that just because of this extreme step in
organisation which the Auer Motion takes in proposing Labour Boards and
Labour Chambers, as instruments of Labour Protection, it behoves me not
to pass it by with indifference, but on the contrary to dwell upon it at
some length.
In the first place let us construct in our own minds a picture of the
new form of organisation proposed in the Auer Motion.
In the place of Art. IX. in the existing Imp. Ind. Code, a new Chap. IX.
would have to be inserted, dealing with "an Imperial Labour Board,
District Labour Boards, Labour Chambers, and Labour Courts of
Administration" (Sec.Sec. 131-143).
1. _The Imperial Labour Board and the Imperial Labour Parliament._
_The Imperial Labour Board._ Its organisation would be determined by
special Imperial legislation. Probably equal representation of classes
is intended in this Central Bureau, which would act together with the
hitherto essentially bureaucratic Imperial Insurance Board. Its duties
would consist: first, in supervising so far as possible, the whole
system of Labour Protection as demanded in the Auer Bill (Sec.Sec. 105-125);
further, in affording protection against the competition of penal
labour; finally, "in enforcing such measures and conducting such
enquiries as may be necessary to the well-being of the whole body of
wage-earners, including apprentices, in any kind of industry." Its
duties would therefore extend far beyond the limits of Labour Protection
in the strict sense, and it would be a general Central Bureau of aids to
Labour, in which the Imperial Insurance Board would soon become
incorporated.
_The Labour Parliament_ (Diet of Labour Chambers). I take leave thus to
designate the representative central organ proposed (although of course
it is not brought forward in these terms in the heading of the new Chap.
IX. of the Auer Bill) since it is clear that the Imperial Labour Board
is practically only intended to be the executive organ of this
democratic industrial Council of the nation. Sections 140-142 of the
Auer Motion require that: Sec. 140 "It shall be the duty of the Imperial
Labour Board to summon once a year representatives from the collective
Labour Chambers to a general deliberation on industrial interests. To
this General Council each Labour Chamber shall send one delegate to
represent the employers, and one the body of wage-earners. The choice of
the representatives shall be made by each class separately. The chair
shall be taken at the Council by a member of the Imperial Labour Board,
but he and his colleagues shall have no right to vote. The Council shall
determine its own standing orders and the orders of the day; the
sittings to be public. Sec. 141. The members of the Labour Chambers shall
receive daily pay and defrayment of travelling expenses. Sec. 142. The
Imperial Government shall pay the costs of the arrangements enumerated
in Sec.Sec. 131-140; they shall be entered yearly in the imperial accounts."
Thus we should have a national Labour Parliament--formed from the
district Labour Chambers--with equal representation of both classes,
receiving grants from the Imperial exchequer, undertaking the general
supervision of industrial interests and acting as a check on the
Imperial Labour Board. By the simple process of throwing overboard the
nominees of the employers, this Labour Parliament might at any time
become a pure parliament of labourers, or "People's Parliament," and the
Imperial Labour Board might resolve itself into the central ministry of
a purely "People's State."
Such a state of things would obviously be the realisation of the extreme
Social Democratic order of State.
It must be admitted that no secret is made of this fact, nor yet of the
_basis_ on which the whole edifice is raised.
(2) _Labour Boards and Labour Courts of Arbitration, Labour Chambers._
The basis of the edifice is formed by Labour Boards and Courts of
Arbitration, on the one hand (_i.e._ for executive purposes), and Labour
Chambers on the other (_i.e._, for purposes of regulation). We shall, as
far as possible, give the explanation of the matter in the words of the
motion.
_Labour Boards._ On this head the Auer Motion reads as follows: "Sec.
132_a_. Below the Imperial Labour Board come the Labour Boards which
shall be appointed throughout the German Empire, in districts of not
less than 200,000, nor more than 400,000 inhabitants, at the latest by
Oct. 1, 1891. Sec. 133. The Labour Board shall consist of a Labour
Councillor and at least two paid officers; it must pass its rulings and
decisions in full sitting. The Imperial Labour Board shall select the
labour councillor from two candidates nominated by the Labour Chamber.
The permanent paid officers, whose duty it is to assist the labour
councillor in his task of supervision, shall be elected by the Labour
Chamber, half from the employers, and half from the employed. In
districts in which there are a considerable number of works employing
chiefly female labour, some of the officials appointed shall be women.
The same rules with regard to invalid and superannuation pensions shall
apply to the officers of the Labour Boards, as apply to all other
imperial officials. Sec. 133_a_. The officers of the Imperial Labour Board,
and the labour councillors or their paid assistants, shall have the
right at any time to inspect all places of business (whether of State,
municipal, or private enterprise) and to make such regulations as may
appear necessary for the life and health of the workers employed. In the
exercise of such supervision they shall be empowered with all the
official authority of the local police magistrates. In so far as the
rules laid down are within the official authority of the supervising
officers, the employers and their staff shall be bound to render
unhesitating obedience. The employer or his representatives shall have a
right of appeal to the District Labour Board, to be lodged within a
week, against the orders and rulings of individual officials, and a
right of appeal against the District Labour Board's decision, also
within a week, to the Imperial Labour Board. The Labour Board shall be
bound to inspect all the works within a district at least once a year.
The employers shall permit the official inspection to take place at any
time when the work is being carried on, especially also at night. The
inspecting officers shall be bound, except in cases of infringement of
the law, to observe secrecy as to all information on the concerns of a
business obtained by them in pursuit of their official duties. Sec. 133_b_.
The local police magistrates shall uphold the Labour Board in the
exercise of its authority, and shall enforce obedience to its
directions. Sec. 133_c_. The Labour Board shall organize all free labour
intelligence within its district, and serve in fact as a central bureau
for this purpose. It shall also be empowered to appoint branch bureaux
with this object, in such places as may seem suitable, and if there is
no industrial union to undertake the duties the local police magistrates
shall undertake them. Sec. 133_d_. Every Labour Board shall publish a
yearly report of its proceedings, copies of which shall be distributed
gratuitously to the members of the Labour Chambers by the Imperial
Labour Board and the Central District Courts. The report shall be
submitted to the approval of the Labour Chamber before publication. The
Imperial Labour Board shall draw up yearly, from the annual reports of
the Labour Boards, a general report to be submitted to the _Bundesrath_
and the Reichstag. The reports of the District Labour Boards and the
Imperial Labour Board shall be accessible to the public at cost price."
The Labour Board of a district of from 200,000 to 400,000 inhabitants
would be in the first place a modern kind of industrial inspectorate
with offices filled from both classes--employers and employed--with a
democratic system of election, and to which women would also be
eligible. Even the presidency of this inspectorate would not be freely
appointed by the government, which would have only the power of electing
one out of two nominees of the Labour Chambers. The primary task of the
board would take the form of Labour Protection, of centralization of
labour intelligence, and of drawing up reports on matters concerning
labour. The Labour Board is intended as the executive organ of the
Labour Chambers, the parliamentary administration would therefore be
general; even in reporting on industry the Labour Board would be subject
to the approval of the Labour Chamber. It is evident that this
Democratic organisation of courts, which would be powerless to act so
long as both classes obstructed each other, might easily at one stroke,
by turning out the nominees of the employers, be changed and developed
into purely democratic district courts for the general protection of
labour and the control of production.
_Courts of Arbitration._ The Court of Arbitration as proposed by the
Auer Motion, is, so to speak, the judicial twin brother of the Labour
Board. According to Sec. 137-137_e_, the Court of Arbitration would be a
court of the first instance, for the settlement of disputes between
employers and workmen. It would be formed by each Labour Chamber out of
its numbers, and would consist of equal numbers of employers and of
workmen. The chair would be taken by the labour councillor or one of his
paid assistants. Equal representation of both classes would be required
when pronouncing decisions. None but relations, employes, and partners
in the business, would be permitted to be present during the
deliberations in support of the disagreeing parties. There would be
right of appeal to the Labour Chamber. The members of this Court of
Arbitration would (like those of the Labour Chamber) (Sec. 130_a_) receive
daily pay and defrayment of travelling expenses. Such would evidently be
the working out of this system of combined class representation, of
which, indeed, we already have an instance in the industrial courts of
arbitration.
_Labour Chambers._ These would form the foundation stone of the edifice,
and they deserve the special attention of all who wish to know how
Social Democracy means to attain her ends. I give verbatim the clauses
dealing with this: "Sec. 134. For the representation of the interests of
employers and their workmen, as well as for the support of the Labour
Boards in the exercise of their authority, there shall be appointed from
Oct. 1, 1891, in every Labour Board district, a Labour Chamber, to
consist of not less than 24, and not more than 36 members, according to
the number of different firms established in the district. The number of
members for the separate districts shall be determined by the Imperial
Labour Board. The members of the Labour Chambers shall be elected, the
one half by employers of full age from amongst their numbers, the other
half by workers of full age from amongst their numbers. The election
shall be made on the principle of direct, individual, ballot voting by
both sexes, a simple majority only to decide. Each class shall elect its
own representatives. The mandate of the members of the Labour Chamber
shall last for two years, opening and closing in each case with the
calendar year. Simultaneously with the election of the members of the
Labour Chamber proxies to the number of one-half shall be appointed. The
proxies shall be those candidates who receive the greatest number of
votes next after the elected members. In the case of equal votes lots
shall be drawn. The selection of the polling day, which must be either a
Sunday or festival, shall rest with the Imperial Labour Board, which
shall also lay down the rules of procedure for the election. Employers
and workmen shall be equally represented on the election committees. The
time appointed for taking the votes shall be fixed in such a manner that
both day and night shifts may be able to go to the poll. Sec. 135. Besides
fulfilling the functions assigned to them in Sec.Sec. 106_a_, 110 and 121, the
Labour Chambers shall support the Labour Boards by advice and active
help in all questions touching the industrial life of their district. It
shall be their special duty to make enquiry into the carrying out of
commercial and shipping contracts; into customs, taxes, duties, and into
the rate of wage, price of provisions, rent, competitive relations,
educational and industrial establishments, collections of models and
patterns, condition of dwellings, and into the health and mortality of
the working population. They shall bring before the courts all
complaints as to the conditions of industrial life, and they shall give
opinion on all measures and legal proposals affecting industrial life in
their district. Finally, they shall be courts of appeal against the
decisions of the Courts of Arbitration. Sec. 136. The president of the
Labour Chamber shall be the labour councillor, or failing him, one of
his paid officials. The president shall have no vote, except in cases in
which the Labour Chamber is giving decision as a court of appeal against
the decision of the Court of Arbitration. Equality of voting shall be
counted as a negative. The president shall be bound to summon the Labour
Chamber at least once a month, and also when required on the motion of
at least one-third of the members of the Chamber. The Labour Chambers
shall lay down their own working rules; their sittings shall be public."
According to Sec. 139 of the motion, the members of the Labour Chambers
shall also be entitled to claim daily pay and defrayment of travelling
expenses.
Such are the Labour Chambers according to the proposals of the Social
Democrats in 1885 and 1890.
It is not without some astonishment that I note the tactical ingenuity
displayed by the party even here. Everything that has anywhere appeared
in literature, in popular representation, in judicial and administrative
organisation, in the way of proposals for the centralisation and
extension of labour intelligence, or of proposals for the representation
of labour in Labour Protection, and in all agencies for the care of
labour,--every scheme that has ever been put forward under different
forms, either purely theoretic or practical, as, _e.g._, "Popular
Industrial Councils," and "Industrial Courts of Arbitration"--is here
used to make a part of a broad bridge, leading across to a "People's
State." Nothing is lacking but the lowest planks, which could not,
however, be dispensed with, a Local Labour Board and a Local Labour
Chamber, as the sub-structure of the District Labour Boards and District
Labour Chambers.
The leaders of Social Democracy in the German Reichstag maintain that
they are willing to join hands with the representatives of the existing
order in their schemes of organisation. We have, therefore, no right to
treat their scheme as consciously revolutionary. But this hardly affects
the question. The question is whether--setting aside altogether the
originators of the plan--such an organisation as that described above
might not in fact readily lend itself as a battering-ram to overthrow
the existing order and realise the aim of Socialism, whether, in fact,
it would not of necessity be so used. This question may well be answered
in the affirmative without casting the slightest reproach at the present
leaders of the party.
The regulating representative organs would have full and comprehensive
authority in all questions of industry, social policy, and health, and
in inspection of dwellings; and the executive organs, even up to the
Imperial Labour Board, might be empowered by the mere alteration of a
few sections of the Bill to exercise the same authority, subject to the
consent of the majority in the National and District Chambers, and
eventually in the Local Chambers.
If these representative and administrative bodies ever came into
existence, they would slowly but surely oust, not only the whole
existing organisation of Chambers of Commerce and Industrial Councils,
but also the Reichstag itself, and the Imperial Government, as well as
the local corporate bodies; they would tear down every part of the
existing social edifice. By the combined action of the Social Democrats
in the Reichstag with the increasingly democratic tendencies of the
local bodies, all this might come to pass in a very short space of time.
I do not forget that the organisation is to be based in the first
instance on equal representation of classes. On the first two, and
eventually on the third, step of the judicial and representative
edifice, as many representatives are given to capital as to labour. In
so far the organisation is a hybrid of Capitalism and Social Democracy.
For the moment, and in the present stage, it is, for this very reason,
of special value to the Social Democrats, as it supplies a method of
completely crippling the forces opposed to them in the existing order.
For it will be sufficient in the day of fulfilment, _i.e._ when all is
ripe for the intended change, to give one shake, so to speak, in order
to burst open the half capitalistic chrysalis, and let the butterfly of
a Social Democratic "People's State" fly out.
The half capitalistic organisation would, I repeat, be of the greatest
value at present, in the early preparatory work of the Social Democrats.
First, because the working class would become practically and thoroughly
accustomed to co-operation instead of to subordination as hitherto;
this is the transition step which cannot be avoided, to the supremacy of
the working class over the employers' class. Then, too, the proposed
organisation would offer an excellent opportunity for passing through
the transition step by step, by the continued weakening of the
capitalist order of society in all its joints. The struggle with capital
would have the sanction and the organised force of legislation. It would
receive legal organisation, and would even be legally enjoined. This
legalised battle would proceed over the whole circuit of industrial
activity, including trade and transport, and including also the state
regulated portion of it.
In addition to this the organisation would be peculiarly fitted to
cripple even the least objectionable bulwarks of capital, even the
altogether unbiassed and nonpartisan operation of the local and
district, and probably even ultimately of the imperial courts.
The apparently equal coupling of the influence of both classes would
lead to the result that the class which had the more energetic
representatives and the slighter interest in the maintenance of the
"working rules" would be able at any moment and at any point in the
national industrial life, to bring everything to a deadlock. The labour
councillor would be dependent on the Labour Chambers, and they in turn
would be entirely dependent on the leaders of labour. By the provision
that the president shall have no vote, and a tie in voting shall
therefore count as a defeat, the workmen's electorate hold in their
hands the power to obstruct at will any resolution, and especially to
obstruct the issue of the working rules in any business, since the
rules must be submitted to the approval of the Labour Chambers.
The function of "supporting the Labour Boards by advice and active help
in all questions touching the industrial life of their district," might
very easily, by virtue of the above provision, be so abused by the
Labour Chambers as to deprive individual industrial inspectors of all
possibility of just and independent action, and hence by degrees to
entirely cripple and destroy the value of the inspectorate as a whole;
there can, I think be no doubt that before very long these powers would
intentionally be used for this purpose.
The action of a positive Social policy would be hopelessly crippled by
an equally balanced class representation, while at the same time the
existing order of industrial life would be disturbed and shaken down to
the very last and smallest branches of industry.
Nor would this be all, for such an organisation would secure fixed
salaries for the staff of agitators in the Labour party, since the
representatives would receive daily pay and defrayment of travelling
expenses from the Imperial exchequer. Debates and discussions might be
carried on without intermission, the pay continuing all the time, for
each Labour Chamber would be convened, not only once a month, but also
at any time at the request of one-third of the members of the Labour
Chamber, therefore of two-thirds of the labour representatives in the
chamber. By virtue of the provision which gives them unlimited right of
intervention, pretexts for convening frequent meetings would never be
wanting.
Hence it is evident that no more effectual machinery could be devised
for the legal preparation for leading up the existing social order
directly to the threshold of the "People's State." The attempt to
convert the hybrid Capitalist-Socialist state to a pure Socialist state
would be a perfectly simple matter, both in the Empire, the provinces,
and the local districts, as soon as we had allowed Social Democracy one
or two decades in which to turn the two-fold class representation to
their own ends. By a single successful revolutionary "_coup_" in the
chief city of the Empire, or in the chief cities of several countries
simultaneously, representation of capital in the Labour Courts might be
thrown overboard, and the "People's State" would be ready; the
parliament of a purely popular government would hold the field, and the
present representation of the nation which includes all classes and
watches over the spiritual and material interests of the whole nation,
might without difficulty be swept away from Empire, province, district
and municipality.
The construction of a complete system of "collective" production would
be easy, for it would find the framework ready to its hand, complete
from base to summit, fully mapped out on the plan.
Perhaps the leaders themselves are not fully conscious of the lengths to
which their proposed organisation may carry them. One can quite
understand how from their standpoint they fail to see the end. They have
pursued the path that seemed the most likely to lead to their goal of a
radical change of the existing social order. The whole responsibility
will rest with the parties in power, if they do more than hold out their
little finger, which they have already done, to help Social Democracy
along this path of organisation.