Source

Fellow Clerks!
The Reichstag forwarded the legislative bill that sets the length of your work day at 14
hours to a commission. This commission responded with recommendations that actually
represent an improvement of the bill drafted by the government. These recommendations had
hardly been made public when the employers’ syndicates responded with a storm of protest.
Their freedom to exploit you had been slightly curtailed. These recommendations would allow
you, irrespective of the mood of your bosses, to know when your work day is over, [to know]
when you can devote yourselves to your families, to your own well-being, and to your education.
The government is threatening to give way to this outcry, this storm of protest.
The protesting employers want to leave everything open to a freely negotiated agreement! No
legal boundaries! We have only scorn and contempt for this “freely negotiated agreement”!
What does it mean to our employers, they, who calmly ignore both laws and rights!
A law prohibiting work on Sundays has existed for years. As feeble as it is, we
welcomed this law as a first step towards improving our situation. But what has happened to it?
Today, after scarcely ten years, your employers no longer pay attention to this injunction; they
scorn the law and deceive labor inspectors.
And why?
Because those rulings were only half measures, and your work-free Sundays were
only partially protected.
Fellow colleagues! There is the saying, “necessity teaches us to pray,” but “necessity
also teaches us to fight!”
Only a uniform prohibition of work on Sundays can serve us! Only a shortening of
our work day can provide us with a humane existence!
For this reason, fellow colleagues, take advantage of every opportunity to demonstrate
for your rights. Show your legislators your wishes.
Everyone come and attend:
The mass public meeting of clerks
on Wednesday, September 20, at 8:30 in the evening
at the Berlin Ressource, Kommandentenstrasse 57
Agenda
1) Lecture by the Reichstag delegate Pfannkuch on “The Law Governing Closing Time.”
2) Lecture by our colleague August Hintze: “The Law Prohibiting Work on Sundays under
Consideration by the City Council”
3) Discussion
Albert Kohn
Ombudsman of the Berlin Clerks Association
Schliemannstrasse 11, II.