ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some background on IG Drucks organizational predecessors, placing special emphasis on factors from the pre-World War II period which influenced union behavior after the war as well. It focuses on the printing industry and union in the 1950s and 1960s will be followed by one which focuses on the technological and economic crisis of the 1970s and IG Drucks response to them. The printers were the aristocracy of labor in terms of education and training, and many if not most employers were themselves former skilled workers. While continuing its decade-long role as the DGBs most outspokenly radical union on issues ranging from the presence of Communist Party members in the unions to the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, IG Drucks activism was muted at the bargaining table and on the shop floor. In September 1975 IG Druck approached the employers seeking an agreement on the new technology.
