The circulation of ideas on workplace democracy : comparing the debates amongst the Landesgruppe Deutscher Gewerkschafter and the Trades Union Congress, 1940-1945

Industrial or workplace democracy is an elusive idea. Different countries have used a variety of legal mechanisms to provide for worker representation at the workplace either through trade unions, works councils or at board level. In that context, the German legal model includes collective bargaining by trade unions, works councils and worker representation on company boards whereas the UK has few legal provisions regulating trade unions and worker representation in the workplace. Yet a close parallel reading of the national histories of worker representation in both countries reveals an active circulation of ideas between British and German trade unionists throughout the twentieth century on how workers should be involved and participate in workplace decision-making. Many of these debates, particularly those dating from the short but critical period from 1940 to 1945 when trade unions were discussing different approaches to post-war reconstruction have largely disappeared from legal scholars’ consciousness. Drawing on archival materials, this chapter seeks to (re)introduce labour lawyers to the debates that took place amongst and between a group of exiled German trade unionists based in the UK during World War Two who combined to form the Landesgruppe deutscher Gewerkschafter in Großbritannien, and leading figures in the British labour movement on the role to be played by trade unions in a post war democratisation of the economy. Although their proposals were only partially realized in law, a focus on these two groups and their hitherto unexplored interactions brings to light the inter-relationship between different European labour movements at a critical time and complicates our understanding of law’s intellectual history.