Emil Lederer: Discussion Contribution on Coal Mining (1920)

This recorded speaking turn in an official commission discussion addresses the statutory powers of works councils in coal mining. Lederer’s central objection is to turning arrangements justified by present economic conditions into binding legal rules for future circumstances. Responding to Werner and invoking Lindemann’s earlier argument, he distinguishes provisions negotiated through statutes or agreements with works councils from provisions incorporated into law. His concern is that legislation would fix powers whose practical justification depends on a particular configuration of production and employment.

Werner has reported that hiring and dismissal already require works-council consent. Lederer explains this practice through the current demand for mining labour, rather than treating it as sufficient grounds for a permanent statutory entitlement:

Es ist heute so, daß jeder weitere Mann sowohl für den Bergbau wie für die Allgemeinheit einen Gewinn darstellt und jede Entlassung infolgedessen volkswirtschaftlich nachteilig und auch ökonomisch von Nachteil für den Bergbau ist.

English translation: Today the situation is such that every additional man represents a gain both for mining and for the public at large, and every dismissal is consequently detrimental to the national economy and also economically disadvantageous for mining.

Strong works-council influence has developed, he argues, because no substantial economic interest opposed such control. Keeping employment high presently benefits the industry as well as the wider economy. The conceptual move is to separate an institution’s existing strength from the conditions that have enabled it: a practice can be economically appropriate without providing a durable legislative model.

Lederer then tests the proposed rules against a possible change in those conditions:

Die Verhältnisse können ganz andere sein, wenn aus volkswirtschaftlichen Gründen sich z. B. eine Verringerung der Belegschaft ergeben sollte, eine Überleitung derselben in andere Industrieen.

English translation: Conditions may be entirely different if, for reasons concerning the national economy, a reduction in the workforce should become necessary, for example, or its transfer to other industries.

An expansion of oil firing supplies his concrete example. Workers recruited to meet intensified demands on coal mining might subsequently be unable to remain employed there in the same numbers. This is a hypothetical scenario, not a prediction: its purpose is to show why present employment practices should not pre-empt future economic adjustment.

The final movement shifts from local consent to industry-wide planning. Lederer locates decisions about production and the corresponding workforce in the Reich Coal Council, where, he states, workers can determine overall policy:

Der Reichskohlenrat hat einen Betriebsplan anzugeben. Nach dem Betriebsplan ist die Menge der zu fördernden Kohle festzulegen — ungefähr natürlich nur —, und davon hängt wieder die Höhe der Arbeiterzahl ab, die in Anspruch zu nehmen ist.

English translation: The Reich Coal Council must specify an operating plan. The operating plan must establish the quantity of coal to be mined—only approximately, of course—and the number of workers to be employed depends in turn on that quantity.

Production requirements thus mediate between collective policy and staffing. Individual works councils would still be able, under § 23, to bring the implementation of resulting decisions into discussion. Lederer regards even this scope as extensive and closes with substantial reservations. The contribution’s significance lies in its distinction between worker participation in sectoral planning and local control over employment decisions, and in its warning against giving contingent economic arrangements permanent legal force.