ABSTRACT
After August 1914 fears of contact with the bourgeois-capitalist society in its Wilhelmine form receded more and more. The markedly national view of most union representatives encouraged the union leadership to institutionalize co-operation with the state administration. It is thus entirely understandable that the Free Trade Unions agreed to the Burgfriedenspolitik without waiting for a statement from the Social Democratic Party executive and that they readily integrated themselves into the war economy. The Free Trade Unions were able to conclude collective agreements for about one-third of total membership before the outbreak of the First World War. The endeavours of the Free Trade Unions to rationalize industrial disputes and to replace them by agreements which would preserve their fighting power necessarily led to a growing interest in collective wage agreements. The reasons for the German union leaders' lack of enthusiasm for engaging in industrial disputes go back to the early period of union organization.
