Railway Trade Unionists In Germany

Grey River Argus, 20 September 1948, Page 2

Railway Trade Unionists In Germany

[From Jack Smyth, Reuters Correspondent.]

(By Airmail). BERLIN. Railway Trade Unionists in Germany have to-day the same interest, in keeping their organisations private and self-contained as they had before the rise of Hitler. The only difference is that they see their difficulties more clearly now oi their'' experience under the Nazi Labour front. Their problem can be stated briefly: The Trade Unions must remain independently democratic or they cannot remain private and free. To-day, Trade Union Leaders see Democracy and the right to remain free as identical. They realise that they must have young leaders who are able to understand the importance of this and who will fight to retain it. In this leadership, the German Railway Trade Unions have revived a Leadership School at Hammersbach, two miles from the picturesque resort of Garmisch. The School, founded in 1928, was suppressed as Democratic by the Nazis in 1933. It was re-opened in March last year. Some educators might question whether this centre should be called a school. There are no classrooms, desks, blackboards or chalk. There is no library. There are no books and no offices where records are kept. Students take no written examination papers to write, but there is a meeting hall where the students listen to lectures and discussions for 35 hours or more every week. All the students at Hammersbach are selected by the Railway Trade Union Leaders at Railway Centres in the British, French and American Zones. None has so far come from the Soviet Zone. Some of the young men have been selected as Works Councillors, others have been elected to minor trade union positions. Most of those already in leadership positions average 25 years of age. In addition, the local Trade Unions send a few workers who seem to have the qualifications for leadership. They average about 20 years of age. The young Works Councillors attend the school at the expense of the Railways. The younger students receive their pay and maintenance from the Union. The great minority of students,'however, are beginners in the shops or offices or on railway trains. With few exceptions, they are following the occupation of their fathers. They are among the 90 per cent, of German youth who leave school at the age of 14 and begin work as apprentices.

Economically, socially and politically, most of the day-to-day problems of the beginners on the railways are also the problems of the Trade Union, of the Local Plant Unit, or the Works Council. Each Council in a plant employing 300 or 400 workers has eight to twelve elected members. It is an honour for a young man to be elected a Councillor, but it carries a lot of responsibility. Moreover, he often finds himself in a confused position. The workers come to him with questions and problems and he does not always know the answers. However, if he displays talent and zeal for employee relations, he has the basic qualifications for being selected for a course at Hammersback. Naturally he must have some knowledge of labour and civil service laws and of labour courts. He must know something, too, of the procedure for dealing with labour grievances or differences among workers. The purpose of Hammersbach is to help such young leaders to find the right answers.. Students selected for promotion are those who display superior ability by the questions they ask, the problems they raise and their ability to take part in discussion. The chief problems which the Railway Trades Unions face is insufficient time to train the number of leaders they need. Union officials estimate that at least 5,000 young men will need to be given such initial training during the next three or four years. One railway official declared: "We need more schools like that at Hammersbach because it provides the kind of direct thinking needed for Democratic Labour Leadership and we are prepared to spend an average of 12,000 marks out of Union Funds lor every class taking such a course.”