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Free German Trade Union Federation
Former East German organization From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB; German: Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund) was the sole national trade union centre of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) from 1946 to 1990. It was a mass organisation and a constituent member of the National Front. The FDGB was a federation of trade unions that nominally represented all workers in East Germany, but in practice was an agency of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) to enforce ideological conformity in the workplace. The FDGB was dissolved by the De Maizière government shortly before German reunification.
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Structure
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The FDGB was an official mass organisation, styled as a trade union federation composed of various trade unions representing an individual industry. A constituent organisation of the National Front, the official coalition government of East Germany, it was portrayed to represent the trade unions' and workers' interests in the Volkskammer. As a basic component and tool of the SED's power structure, it was constructed on the same strictly centralist and hierarchical model similar to other organizations in East Germany.[citation needed] In practice, it was the government agency responsible for representing the SED's interests in the workplace.
The smallest unit was a Kollektiv, which nearly all workers in any organisation belonged to, including state leaders and party functionaries. They recommended trustworthy people as the lowest FDGB functionaries and voted for them in open-list ballots. The higher positions ranged from "Departmental Union Leader" (Abteilungsgewerkschaftsleiter, AGL) to Leader of the "Central BGL" (Betriebsgewerkschaftsleitung - Company Union Leadership in combines); they were normally full-time and held by SED members with a history of toeing the party line, or in some cases bloc party members. Their jobs, like those of the FDGB district leaders, were assured until they retired as long as they did not stray from party policy.[citation needed]
The chairman of the FDGB was Herbert Warnke until his death on 26 March 1975, when he was replaced by Harry Tisch, a member of the SED's Politburo, who kept the post until the political turnaround in 1989.[citation needed]
![Thumb](#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-82830-0002,_Helsinki,_MS_"Fritz_Heckert.jpg)
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Function
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The FDGB held official responsibility for setting work norms, through negotiating with management, protecting workers from management caprice, and enforcing GDR labor code and worker protections. It was active for social tasks for its members, which included hospital visits, presenting awards, giving gifts on special anniversaries, even organizing health spas and the hard-to-get holiday bookings through its own holiday service.[citation needed] It was also involved in recruiting members for military functions, incentivizing recruitment with small benefits and occasional peer pressure. Large numbers of workers and employees were recruited to the paramilitary organization Combat Groups of the Working Class through the FDGB.[citation needed] The FDGB was criticised for holding too much power and making the process of firing a worker lengthy and difficult.
In the SED's totalitarian system, the FDGB was in charge of ideological conformity within companies and workplaces. Membership in the FDGB was voluntary, but unofficially it was hardly possible to develop a career without joining.[citation needed] In 1986, 98% of all workers and employees were organized in the FDGB, which had 9.6 million members. This meant that it was nominally one of the world's largest trade unions. As well as improving members’ career chances, membership in the FDGB also offered various "concessions[clarification needed]".[citation needed] The FDGB's ultimate function was the enforcement of the SED's Marxist-Leninist ideology and prevention of dissent in the workplace.
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Membership
Chairmen
School
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In spring 1946, the former ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau bei Berlin, which before Nazi rule had belonged to the Allgemeiner Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (ADGB) (Federation of German Trade Unions), was given to the FDGB to use as a training centre. After some restoration work, the school opened in 1947 under the name FDGB-Bundesschule "Theodor Leipart" (Theodor Leipart FDGB Trade Union School). In January 1952 it was given degree awarding status and renamed Gewerkschaftshochschule "Fritz Heckert" (Fritz Heckert Trade Union College). In the early 1950s the FDGB considerably increased the size of the school, constructing new buildings on the site, in addition to those of the former ADGB school.[1][2] The original part of the school, completed in 1930, was a project of the Bauhaus design school and in 2017 it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site the Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau.[3]
Short term two and four week training courses and longer-term study were offered, including collective bargaining, social and economic policy, youth and women's issues, employment law, business administration, history of the labour movement, etc. After 1952 two year courses, and later, from 1956, three year bachelor's degree-equivalent courses were also taught. From 1958 correspondence courses were also offered, and from 1959 courses were run for foreign trade unionists. Over 15,000 East German and 5,000 foreign trade unionists were trained by the FDGB school between 1947 and 1990.[2]
The college closed in September 1990 just before German reunification.[2]
The buildings have been used by the Internat des Bildungszentrums der Handwerkskammer Berlin (Berlin Chamber of Skilled Crafts training school) since 2007.[4]
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German reunification
In May 1990, shortly before German reunification, the FDGB was dissolved. Many former members did not join the West German (now German) unions,[citation needed] some, due to the lightning privatization of the GDR, simply because they had lost their jobs.[citation needed]
Affiliates
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The following unions were affiliated to the FDGB:
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External links
Media related to Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund at Wikimedia Commons
References
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