The Connecticut labor news., 1925-02-07
WORKS COUNCILS TO GIVE DANISH LABOR
 INDUSTRIAL POWER
Premier and Home Secretary Support ing Measure Before Copenhagen
 Parliament.

 reactionary-two hats off!!
 For Denmark's Labor government having bomb -shelled the world by its proposals for total disarmament, now has introduced legislation directly to en- act that industrial democracy which American workers "resolute" faithfully every year. The core of the administrative side of industrial democracy is workshop control-works councils. That is one of the five new bills put before the Cope1l- hagen Parliament by Home Secretary Borbjers of Premier Stauning's all-So- cialist cabinet
 Think of our Secretary of the Inte- rior (surely he is a labor man-his name is Work) putting before Congress a bill to make compulsory in every shop employing from ten persons u, the es- tablishment of plant committees such as the American shop crafts unions and the B. & o. Railroad Co.,, have installed That would be faint beginning of what Denmark is out to legislate.
 One of the new bills safeguards Den marks legal eight-hour day, which takes in everybody except seamen and agricultural workers At the same time Borbjers moved the ratification of no less than ten of the conventions" (la- bor code provisions) adopted by the In- ternational Labor Office at Geneva (Put that in your pipe, reactionary Massa chusetts, who rejected the child labor amendment.)
 The most important bill, of course, is the works councils law. It applies to all establishments having ten or more employees over Is years of age in man. ufacturing industry, handicrafts, com merce, agriculture and forestry, horti- culture Any establishment of the above having less than ten employees and more than five must set up, not works coun- cil, but works committeeman, having council powers.
 These works councils must share in the management and must have access to the books of finances. They can compel the owner or boess to attend the meetings if they desire Naturally the council will be elected from the trade unions represented in the works.
 The bill explains that the function of the works council i. is, in conjunction with the competent trade union, to safe guard the interests of the workers, to help to develop the concern, and to maintain good relations between em- ployers and workers.
 It must be consulted on all questions of working hours, the distribution of holidays, the arrangement of the work, the introduction of new methods and new shifts, and in the dismissal of workers when the numbers of dis charged persons form considerable proportion of the total of the staff, and also in every case when the discharged emp1oye has worked for two consecu- tive years in the same concern.
 The works council also has the right to express its views on the balance sheet of the concern and to obtain an insight into the bookkeeping. Works councillors can only be dismissed when the employer can prove that there is not enough work to do or when the councillor has been guilty of gross ne glect of duty.
 Any employer failing to comply with these provisions will be liable to fine.
 Any expenses arising out of the acti- vities of the works council must be shared equally by the workers and the employers.
 When introducing the bill the minis ter advocated 1t on the ground that it would diminish the blind conflicts be- tweent workers and employers. It was not, he said, revolutionary, but evolu- tionary, for it would promote the har- monious development of Danish indus try
 Plainly such a law depends for its effectiveness first, on the strength of union organizations, second on the strength of workers political party able to control general conditions.
 A similar law was enacted in Ger many following the 1918 revolution. Practically, it went almost to pieces, as the union strength followed the labor political strength into chaos, under the pressure of victorious France, Belgium and Britain. The Versailles Treaty nearly finished democratic Germany.
 The Danish workers know how little the workers ever profit from war. Hence their governments first move on entering office was the total disarma- ment bill now passed by the lower house and moving toward referendum of all abolished (this by nation that two cen turies ago was a naval power and as