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Trade
unions
dvl
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and Trade unions dvleeoped in Europe during theIndustrial Revolution of the 19th century.Through collective action such as strikes, unionsbegan to offer workers protection against thelow wages and long working hours that hadexisted in most factories. Although manygovernments and employers were hostile at first,most European countries had passed laws by theearly 20th century, which gave workers the rightto join unions and to go on strike.The German trade union movement was one of thelargest and most powerful in the world with amembership of more than 10 million workers in 1920.Although numbers dropped, especially after theDepression began in 1929, around 7 million people stillbelonged to unions in the early 1930s. German unionswere organised into large federations that were linkedto different political parties. By far the biggest and mostimportant was an alliance called the Free Trade Unions,which was close to the socialist Social DemocraticParty (SPD); there were also Christian and liberalfederations.Although there were sometimes large strikes, theGerman unions generally preferred to negotiate withemployers to improve wages and working conditions.They were helped by the democratic governments ofthe Weimar Republic which forced businesses to allowworkers’ representation and which listened to union’sdemands. A 1927 law, for example, which extendedunemployment benefit, was first proposed by theunions. The unions also helped their members in lessobvious ways through their own training schemes,leisure activities, housing companies and even banks.**The Nazis were officially named the National SocialistGerman Workers’ Party but independent trade unionshad no place in Hitler’s vision for Germany.** This waspartly for ideological reasons: the socialist trade unionswere influenced by Marxism, which the Nazis saw as aJewish-inspired movement to divide German society.However, there were more practical factors: the unionswere a barrier to the Nazi aims of bringing all areas ofpublic life under their control and of winning over theworking class to Nazism.Attempts to destroy the unions were assisted by theattitudes of some German business leaders andconservative politicians, many of whom shared the Nazifear of a socialist revolution. More generally, many ofthese people felt that the unions had become toopowerful in the 1920s and looked for restrictions on oreven complete abolition of union rights. This was one ofseveral reasons why many conservatives chose to helpthe Nazis get into power and to join or support Hitler’sgovernment.
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(VISITOR) AUTHOR'S NAME
Nohemy
MESSAGE TIMESTAMP
16 december 2014, 12:20:44
AUTHOR'S IP LOGGED
12.188.72.18
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