This agreement shall also apply strictly to the relations between the employers' organizations and the office workers' (Angestellten) unions.
This agreement "settled" the German revolution.[1] It determined just what the workers should get from the revolutionary upheaval upon exactly the same principles as an ordinary trade union contract establishes what they get from a minor industrial disturbance. For their part, the employers conceded universal recognition of the trade unions as the sole representatives of the workers' economic interests, the right of the workers in all trades and callings to freely organize, the establishment of working conditions in all industries by trade union agreement, the abolition of the "yellow" unions, the setting up of arbitration committees in every industry, the universal eight-hour day, half control of the national employment service, formation of the "Arbeitsgemeindschaft," or industrial parliament, shop committees, etc. And in return the workers' leaders agreed, by the very fact that they helped draw up the document, that the capitalist system should continue in Germany. No, more than that, they actually agreed that the capitalist class should be reestablished in power; because, when the contract was signed, the revolution was an accomplished fact, the Government and the army being entirely in the hands of the workers.
The Stinnes-Legien trade union agreement was drawn up intentionally, by both sides, to stop the revolution. The employers frankly admit this, even though the Majority Socialists and the other conservatives who handled the trade union side of it do not. Dr. F. Reichert, business manager of the Association of German Iron and Steel
- ↑ A striking fact is that German writers on the revolution, and I have read many of them, such as Bernstein, Stroebel, ete., attach no decisive importance to the Stinnes-Legien agreement. Their attention being diverted by the spectacular events on the political field, the writers have altogether overlooked the tremendous and deciding effect of this peace-pact between the employers and the trade unions on the industrial field.
