trade associations with over-all objectives and employers' organizations active in labor relations in the U. S. Zone. Sometimes the trade associations themselves enter into collective bargaining. More frequently, single trade associations or several trade associations serving the same group of industries form, from among their membership, autonomous organizations exclusively for representation in labor relations. Attempts to create Land-wide federations of such employers' organizations have been disapproved by Military Government as violating its regulations. The developement of employers' organizations varies among different industries. No figures are available for the entire U. S. Zone. In Württemberg-Baden, at least 120 industrial employers' organizations have been established for collective bargaining, but not all of them are actually operating.

Collective Agreements

From the beginning of the Occupation, regulation of employment conditions by collective bargaining appeared in all trade-union programs in the U. S. Zone as one of the principal tradeunion objectives, equal in rank with demands for political and industrial democracy. Actually, the time of trade-union representatives was absorbed for many months by problems of union organization and by efforts to obtain food and other necessaries of life for their members. In relation to wages and hours, bargaining is permitted only in exceptional cases defined by Allied directives. These exceptions have been broadened lately, however, and collective bargaining has started to gain real importance, particularly since industrywide employers' organizations have been reestablished.

In practice, almost all collective agreements being concluded in the U. S. Zone are limited to a single issue, such as wages or hours. Up to October 1947, more than 100 collective agreements had been signed under the amendments to the Control Council directive on wages which allow "increases in the wages of women and minors to levels paid to men for identical work with identical productivity," and increases to bring wages up to 50 pfennig an hour for workers whose earnings are lower. Other agreements establish higher wage rates for industries (mining, construction and building materials, textiles, clothing,

forestry, and the railroads) for which collective bargaining within certain limits has been permitted by the Allied Control Council.

Most of the agreements reached so far apply to the entire industry within a given Land. In only a few cases have unions concluded agreements with individual employers, sometimes with and sometimes without co-signature by the works council. In general, the trade-unions cling to the policy established under the Weimar Republic and consider shop agreements as the works councils' responsibility, even in cases where the provisions of such agreements may create a precedent for future industry-wide agreements.

Work Stoppages

No complete reports are available on work stoppages in the U. S. Zone. Actually, such stoppages are rare, of very short duration, and only exceptionally caused by labor-management disputes. Most of the work stoppages have had the character of demonstrations, directed against the scarcity of food, or alleged deficiencies in food collection or distribution, and sometimes against Allied policies concerning the freezing of wages and the dismantling of industrial plants. Most conspicuous were the total work stoppages, caused by food scarcity in Bavaria and Württemberg, in January-February 1948. The stoppages were officially conducted by the trade-union federations, and millions of workers participated.

Conciliation and Arbitration; Labor Courts

The slow development of collective bargaining and the comparative absence of work stoppages caused by labor disputes is reflected in the small number of mediation requests. Government conciliators are available in the four Länder of the U. S. Zone. The arbitration committees provided for by the Control Council law have not yet been established. In Hesse, a significant step leading back to early phases of arbitration in Germany has been taken: joint conciliation and arbitration machinery was established by an agreement between the Hesse Chemical Union and the employer organization in the chemical industry, operating under chairmen appointed alternately by each side.

A network of labor courts has been established throughout the U. S. Zone; these courts have exclusive jurisdiction in civil actions arising out of labor disputes. Official reports on the activities of the labor courts indicate that 6,313 cases were filed from January to October 1947. The great majority of cases concerned wage issues and dismissals. Public and private services, entertainment, agriculture, and the building trades ranked first as areas of friction. In the first half of 1947, 44.5 percent of the cases resolved were settled by compromise in court.

Developments Across Zonal Boundaries

In all parts of Germany, trade-union leaders emphasized from the beginning of the Occupation that their unions should be regarded as parts of a nation-wide organization to be created as soon as feasible under general conditions and under the policies of the occupying powers. On the other hand, union leaders in western Germany, particularly in the U. S. Zone, recognized that the highly centralized union federations in the Soviet Zone and in Berlin could not easily be merged with the western federations whose affiliated unions enjoy high degrees of autonomy, and that there is a growing difference in spirit between the western and the eastern German labor movements, owing to their divergent political and economic setting.

Matters of common interest were discussed in a number of interzonal meetings, attended by representatives of individual unions, or representatives of zonal and Land federations from western and eastern Germany. The latest conference of this sort, held in February 1948, decided that a Central German Trade Union Council should be elected by the zonal and Land federations, composed of delegates from all zones and from Berlin, but left the definition of its functions and powers to an interzonal meeting scheduled for May 1948.

Moves are under way for a closer coordination of unions as well as of employers' organizations throughout both the U. S. and British Zones. Both groups have established bizonal offices in Frankforton-the-Main, directed by representatives from both zones. Some individual unions, outstanding among them the railway unions, are preparing for a bizonal merger in the near future.

Cooperatives in Postwar Europe

Part 2.-Scandinavia and Finland

FLORENCE E. PARKER 1

IN ALL OF SCANDINAVIA, the cooperative movement played an important part in the economic life of the countries before World War II. The population served by the consumers' cooperatives constituted over a fourth of the total population in Norway, about a third in Denmark and Sweden, and nearly half in Finland.

During the war, Sweden remained neutral and uninvaded, and of course suffered no physical damage from the hostilities. Denmark, Finland, and Norway were invaded, and all three countries sustained destruction of property. Cooperatives lost some of their premises and factories, and some of their leaders and employees in both countries were killed in resistance activity or were deported to work or prison camps. Nazi measures were most strongly resisted in Norway. In Denmark, although cooperative membership meetings were forbidden and the cooperatives were subjected (as in Norway also) to drastic regulation, the consumers' cooperative business activities went on without much interruption, largely because of their close connection with the powerful agricultural cooperatives which the Germans did not wish to antagonize.

In Denmark and Norway, the cooperative wholesales, foreseeing at the outset of hostilities probable interference with or cessation of over

1 Of the Bureau's Office of Labor Economics.

Later articles will deal with central Europe and eastern Europe. General sources of data are not given here, in order to conserve space, but may be obtained on request.

seas commerce, had accumulated great stores of goods with which to supply their members. However, in Denmark the Germans compelled the cooperative wholesale to share its supplies with private dealers and in Norway they suspended the legal requirement that cooperatives deal only with members.

In Finland, the war and the territorial changes resulting from the defense against the Soviet Union, first alone and later with Germany, involved property damage and dislocations of population, as well as great reparations obligations. Although these conditions affected the cooperatives, their membership continued to grow, except in 1944 when large areas of Finnish territory had to be ceded to the Soviet Union. By 1945, however, the total had climbed to a point higher than in 1943.

In the other three countries cooperative membership has expanded steadily since 1939.

In Sweden the money volume of business also showed an almost unbroken rise, although some of this was due to increased prices. In Denmark and Norway, business fell off somewhat during the middle war years, partly because of supply difficulties. The cooperative wholesales, which in all these countries had been important importers and manufacturers, expanded into new lines of production in order to supply their member associations, and this expansion continued into the postwar period.

In all four countries the cooperative movement emerged from the war intact, although with equipment and plant deteriorated, and in some cases means of intercommunication (such as periodicals, educational activity, and transportation facilities) had to be built up again. The postwar problems of these countries have been largely those resulting from the world trade situation, as all are greatly dependent on international trade. In all, there is still a good deal of Government regulation and control of trade and commerce.

Denmark

In probably no country in Europe before the war had cooperative associations played a greater part in raising the level of income and living than in Denmark. This fact, as well as the powerful influence of the cooperatives among the people

and the wish of the Germans to utilize the output of the agricultural associations for Nazi purposes, may account for the rather mild treatment of the cooperative movement when Denmark was invaded in April 1940.

Probably the greatest difficulties encountered by the distributive cooperatives arose from the supply situation and allocation procedures. The economic life of the country was geared to its foreign trade. In an effort to meet war conditions, Government quotas were imposed but, being based on 1931, made no allowance for the very considerable growth that had taken place in the consumers' cooperative movement a much greater increase than had been shown by private trade. The cooperative business in produce (largely imported and increasingly scarce) fell in volume but in such items as textiles and hardware (which could be obtained from Germany) increased considerably. Although no attempt was made to obtain new cooperative members, membership continued to grow slowly.

Even before the war, the cooperative wholesaleFaellesforengen for Danmarks Brugsforeninger (FDB)—had been a large manufacturer. Its policy, however, was to undertake production only when forced to do so by unduly high prices, difficulties in obtaining supplies from private sources, etc. As imports were cut off, the wholesale began to experiment in new fields. Substitutes were resorted to in some cases. It created new types of low-cost wood furniture. Its production of coffee, chocolate, tea, and margarine stopped completely during the early war years, for lack of raw materials. In other products, such as confectionery, rope, twine, soap, shoes and leather, the raw materials for which were domestic in origin, it could maintain or even increase output. Its flour mill, the largest in the country, continued to operate practically at capacity. Late in the war, the Germans ordered from it large quantities of groats and flour, "but only small quantities were delivered." 2

A factory for the processing and spinning of flax was started in 1941, and in the same year the wholesale acquired a publishing plant. The former was undertaken largely out of regard "for the social economy" and to provide new raw material,

'Danish Consumer Cooperative Societies During Five Years of Occupation (Copenhagen, Faellesforenger for Danmarks Brugsforeninger), p. 4.

the latter to make good books more widely available and to break a booksellers' monopoly.

One effect of the supply difficulties was to keep down inventories, preventing losses from slackening demand for wartime substitutes and resulting in improved liquidity of assets and solvency of the cooperatives. Outstanding debts were reduced by about a third between 1939 and 1944. The cooperatives continued to make patronage refunds all during the war, although the average fell from 6.7 percent (of sales) in 1939 to 3.9 percent in 1944.

No statistics on cooperatives are available for later than 1945. In that year (table 1) membership was still increasing, but sales of both local associations and the wholesale showed a decline from the previous year. Value of goods produced by FDB also declined.3

TABLE 1.-Trend of membership and business of cooperative wholesale of Denmark and its affiliates, 1939–45 1

An unofficial report (Cooperative News Service, January 23, 1948) gives the total business of consumers' cooperatives in 1946 and 1947 as 95 and 115 million dollars, respectively, and of the wholesale as 52 and 58 million dollars, but no indication of the value used in making the conversion into United States currency is given.

In 1946, the economy of Denmark was still suffering from the diminution of the overseas trade, especially with Great Britain (with resultant decrease in national income), from depletion of agricultural land for lack of (imported) fertilizer, and from dearth of many necessary commodities.

In Copenhagen, alleged discrimination against cooperatives by the building-materials cartel led to the formation of a cooperative organization to act as wholesaler and importer of building materials and home furnishings. Other developments included the establishment of a petroleum coopera

tive, of a network of 85 cooperative laundries in various sections of the country, of a cooperative theater organization, of an association to import farm machinery, and of a factory to manufacture penicillin.

Finland

Less than 3 months after the outbreak of World War II, hostilities began between Finland and Russia. By the peace treaty signed in March 1940, Finland ceded about 14,000 square miles of territory (of a total of 148,000) to Russia. The ceded land contained about a tenth of the whole Finnish consumers' cooperative movement and a number of cooperative productive enterprises. Nearly half a million inhabitants from this region had to be assimilated into the remainder of Finland.

In June 1941, Finland joined Germany and went to war against the Soviet Union, and in November of that year the ceded territory was again incorporated into Finland.

The cooperative movement continued to grow during this period and by 1942, counting members and their families, was serving over half of the population. An increasingly difficult supply situation-with a corresponding decrease in the physical volume of goods handled-was more than counteracted by increased prices, with the result of substantial increases in the money value of business done. Although, by the end of 1942, the productive plants regained from Russia had been put back into operation, total cooperative production showed a considerable decline from 1941.

Conditions grew worse again in 1944 when Finland lost to the Soviet Union about a ninth of its whole territory and had to absorb into the remainder of the country some half million Finns displaced under the treaty. Nevertheless, the consumers' cooperative business continued to grow. By the end of the war, savings deposits (always a substantial factor in the funds of the cooperative movement) which had been withdrawn in great amounts during the early years of the war, began to flow back into the associations in an increasing stream. During the whole time. of hostilities, also, educational and other meetings of members continued to be held and the volume of cooperative publications actually increased.

Since shortly after the First World War the consumers' cooperative movement had been divided into two branches: (1) The politically "neutral" associations in small towns and rural areas, federated into the General Union of Consumers' Cooperatives (called "YOL" from the initials of its Finnish name) and having their own wholesale, "SOK"; and (2) the "progressive" associations, consisting mostly of workers in urban areas, with their own federation, Central Union of Finnish Distributive Associations ("KK"), and wholesale, "OTK."4

1 Data are from Review of International Cooperation (London), Cooperative Information (Geneva), and United Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics. * No data.

Conditions during the war compelled the two to collaborate more closely than they had ever done before. This resulted in greater efficiency and the introduction of an "active price policy" throughout the whole cooperative movement, thus reducing margins and lowering patronage refunds to 1 to 2 percent of sales.

♦ Both wholesales had gone into production. SOK manufactured hosiery chemical products, chicory, flour, macaroni, bakery goods, preserves, mar garine, matches, paper, lumber, bricks, and brushes; it also roasted coffee. OTK made fertilizer and chemical products; and also pickled herring and roasted coffee.