The Theory and Policy of Labour ProtectionSchäffle, A. (Albert)
General
The Theory and Policy of Labour Protection
Schäffle, A. (Albert)
Labor laws and legislation -- Germany
In spite of all that can be urged against them, however, we may gather
much, not merely negative, but also positive, knowledge from the
proposals of Social Democracy. An organisation which shall be equipped
with full authority, which shall be independent, complete in all its
parts, which shall prevail uniformly and equally over the whole nation;
an organisation which shall avoid the disintegration of collective aids
to labour, which shall encourage industrial representation and prevent
the division of authority amongst many different courts: such is the
root idea of the proposal, and this idea is just, however unacceptable
may appear to us the form in which it is clothed in the Auer Motion.
Nothing is omitted in the Auer Motion except the assignment of their
various duties to the various branches of the territorial representative
bodies, and the working out of an elementary local organisation. I shall
therefore try to work out the idea into a legitimate and possible form
of development. In order to do this I must distinguish between the
organisation required for executive and for representative bodies.
As regards the executive organs, neither in Germany nor elsewhere is
the industrial inspectorate at present furnished with a sufficient
number of paid head-inspectors and sub-inspectors. Scarcely any of the
sub-inspectors are drawn from the labouring class except in the case of
England. Industrial inspection in Germany has not yet attained uniform
extension over the whole Empire. The inspectors of the different
provinces, and the chief provincial inspectors of the whole Empire
require to be brought into regular communication with each other and
with a Central Bureau adapted for all forms of aid to labour, including
Labour Protection--an organ which of course must not interfere with the
imperial, constitutional, and administrative independence of the States
of the _Bund_. If the individual inspectors were everywhere carefully
chosen, the assembling of all inspectors for deliberation with the
Provincial and Imperial Central Bureaux of Labour Protection would in
nowise retard, but on the contrary would serve to promote the complete
and equitable administration of Labour Protection and all forms of aid
to labour. This is the really fruitful germ contained in the idea of an
"Imperial Labour Board."
A Provincial Labour Board might effect much in the same direction. We
are not without the beginnings of a uniform constitution of this kind:
England has an Inspector-General, Austria a Central Inspector; in
Switzerland the inspectors hold regular conferences; in France a
comprehensive scheme of inspectoral combination is projected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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