Emil Lederer: Discussion contribution on the potash industry (1921)

This recorded commission speaking turn concerns worker representation in a socialized industry. Lederer’s central claim is that changing workers’ functions requires corresponding changes in their representative institutions. Aligning himself with Werner and Hilferding, he begins:

Ich bin in der Frage, die besprochen wurde, derselben Auffassung wie Herr Werner und Herr Dr. Hilferding, daß nämlich in der sozialisierten Industrie die Rolle der Betriebsräte naturgemäß eine ganz andere ist.

English translation: On the question discussed, I share the view of Mr Werner and Dr Hilferding, namely that in socialized industry the role of works councils is naturally quite different.

He then proposes acknowledging this difference in the commission’s formulation. Regional consolidation into a local trust must not eliminate workers’ organization within that territory. The institutional problem is thus to preserve effective representation at the scale created by industrial reorganization.

Lederer distinguishes this principle from the details of appointment. Cohen’s suggestion that trade unions select committee members may be too specific for a proposal setting out only broad outlines. Yet reservations about the “Münzstraße” must not prevent the creation of organs necessary for workers’ changed functions. His conclusion makes the intermediate representative body a condition of participation:

Wenn wir diese Zwischenstelle nicht schaffen, schaffen wir keine Möglichkeit für die Arbeiter, auch in der lokalen Unterstelle wirksam mitzuarbeiten.

English translation: If we do not create this intermediate body, we create no possibility for workers to participate effectively in the local subordinate body as well.

The intervention’s significance lies in this link between organizational structure and effective worker participation: socialization requires more than consolidation; it requires institutions through which workers can exercise their new role.