Emil Lederer: Discussion Contribution on Coal Mining (1920)

This official commission speaking turn addresses the institutional organization of coal mining under a proposed system of socialization. Lederer responds to Werner’s concern that the scheme creates too many levels of authority. His central argument is that worker representation within the governing institutions makes a separate workers’ hierarchy partly unnecessary. The contribution moves from distinguishing the functions of the Reich Coal Council and the Coal Directorate to defending a simpler representative structure, leaving the allocation of powers as a practical question.

Lederer first challenges Werner’s apparent treatment of the mine director, district general management, directorate, and Reich Coal Council as successive authorities confronting the workers. The Reich Coal Council, he argues, represents the collective whole: workers already belong to it and exercise consequential influence there. It therefore should not be understood as an external body against which they must organize another representative institution. This distinction is the foundation of his response: an institution incorporating workers cannot simply be equated with management standing opposite them.

The Coal Directorate presents a more difficult case because it directs technical and commercial operations. Nevertheless, Lederer insists that operational leadership need not mean exclusive control by managers:

Das Kohlendirektorium wird ja nicht ein Körper sein, der nur aus technischen und kommerziellen Leitern besteht, sondern er wird auch ein Arbeiterelement in sich haben.

English translation: The Coal Directorate will not be a body consisting only of technical and commercial managers; it will also contain a worker element.

He expects the directorate’s formation through the Reich Coal Council to secure at least one trusted representative of the workforce with a seat and a vote. His argument does not depend on claiming that all conflicts disappear. Even if the directorate retains interests opposed to those of workers, he maintains that socialization would substantially attenuate those antagonisms. Representation within the institutions and the transformation of their underlying organization together support his case for simplification.

On this basis, Lederer endorses the relative simplicity of Wissell’s proposal. With mine councils and regional councils already provided, the remaining question is whether workers need a separate apex organization above the regional councils or can rely on their twenty-five representatives in the Reich Coal Council. He presents this choice as a matter of expediency rather than a necessary safeguard against an inherently alien governing authority. The proposed electoral provision supplies the mechanism:

Die Regionalräte wählen die Vertreter der Arbeiter und Angestellten zum Kohlenrat nach den Grundsätzen der Verhältniswahl aus der gesamten Belegschaft einschl. der Angestellten.

English translation: The regional councils elect the representatives of workers and salaried employees to the Coal Council according to the principles of proportional representation from the entire workforce, including salaried employees.

The workforce as a whole, rather than membership of the works councils alone, supplies the pool of representatives. Lederer considers it difficult to imagine workers feeling unrepresented when they can choose their delegates without interference. Electoral freedom thus supports his preference for an integrated structure over an additional representative tier.

The intervention ends by separating institutional architecture from competence: once the simpler arrangement is accepted, the powers assigned to its bodies remain to be settled. Lederer turns Werner’s concern about complexity into a warning against excessive institutional layering:

Herr Werner wird ja wohl auch empfinden, daß eine zu starke Häufung von Instanzen eher eine Gefahr für die ganze Sache bringt, daß sie eine Hemmung bedeutet und eine Schwerfälligkeit darstellt.

English translation: Mr Werner will surely also recognize that an excessive accumulation of authorities tends to endanger the whole undertaking, that it constitutes an impediment and creates unwieldiness.

The contribution’s significance lies in this connection between democratic representation and administrative effectiveness. Lederer defends worker influence without assuming that every organizational level requires a separate workers’ counterpart. His position remains conditional on meaningful participation in the central bodies; within that framework, institutional multiplication can obstruct rather than strengthen the project of socialization.