GERMAN LABOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 March 1934, Page 10

GERMAN LABOUR

NOVEL LAWS ENFORCED A Labour law passed by the German Government and published is called “the law for regulating the national work,” and it rests on the principle that employer and employed form a community working for the nation, says the “Daily Mail.” Those two words, employer and employed arc, in point of fact, not used once in the text of the law, and may definitely disappear from the German vocabulary.

The employer becomes Fuhrer, or leader, and the employed become Gefolgschaft, or following, better expressed in English by the word followers.

The leader, who will generally be the owner of the concern, but may be a person appointed by the owner or owners, is obliged in any business with twenty or more followers to form what is actually a workmen’s council. He must draw up a list of “trusted men,” -who must have attained the age of twenty-five and have been at least a year with the firm, to help him with their advice. His followers must approve his nomination by a secret vote, and if it is impossible to form a council in this way, an outside official, called a trustee of labour, can intervene and appoint the members. The leader is obliged to summon the council on demand of half its members. A majority of the .council can appeal to the trustee of labour for intervention if the leader makes a decision which appears uneconomical or socially wrong. TRUSTEE’S POWER The trustee may quash Hie leader's decision and regulate the matter in question himself. The trustees of labour who already exist,' and represent the National Socialist Party, will work in conjunction with the Ministries of Labour and Commerce. They are given wide powers. It is their business to see that what the law calls labour-peace is preserved. A trustee can intervene in the question of -wages. If his written orders are not carried out the leader or the followers incur the risk of punishment by fine or imprisonment. The leader is not entitled to dismiss any considerable number of workmen without giving notice to the trustee, :who may insist that instead of the 'minimum notice of a month, a notice of two months be given them. The law further prescribes that if in a concern with at least ton followers the leader dismisses one of them without absolute necessity, an appeal can be made to the court to order that the dismissal shall be withdrawn. If the court decides in favour of the appellant then the leader has the choice of reinstating him or paying him four months’ wages.

The erection of courts of honour, prescribed by the law, before which the leader or follower may be brought, is a novelty of labour legislation.

The loader can be accused before such a court of overworking his followers or of wounding their honour.

The followers can be accused of maliciously disturbing the peace of their working community, or a member of the workmen’s council can be accused if he has betrayed the secrets of the.business or disobeyed orders of the trustee of labour.

The court of honour may simply give a warning, but it may impose a fine up to 10,000 marks, and it may cancel the right of the leader to be labour holder and the right to sit in the workmen’s council, or it may order dismissal.