Thus attacked and criticized the bill, after the most impassioned discussion,[63] after many important alterations, was finally adopted on January 19, by a vote of 213 to 64. This is the law of February 4, 1920.
II.--The organization of the Factory Workers Councils must be supple enough to permit them to fulfil their mission, whatever the importance or the form of the factory may be. They must be neither too small nor too cumbersome; they must comprise both employers and employés; each of these groups must be in position to defend its particular interests; the electoral right must be wholly democratic and minorities must be insured representation, which imposes the obligation of establishing proportional representation; those delegated must always be guided by their duties as representatives. As a consequence of the last, it must be provided that the assembly of electors be enabled to withdraw its support from its representatives and to recall them. The greater part of these conditions was realized by the law of February 4.
The forms that the Factory Workers Councils may assume are extremely diversified.
There is first of all the “Factory Workers Council,” properly so-called, which exists in every industrial or commercial unit and in all the public and private administrations where there are at least twenty workers.
The wage-worker members of the Factory Workers Council constitute a “Workers Council” and the salaried employé members make up an “Employé Council.” If the Factory Workers Council has more than nine members it elects according to the principles of proportional representation a “Factory Committee” of five members. If the Factory Workers Council comprises both representatives of workers and of employés, each of these two groups must be represented in the Factory Committee.
A “General Factory Workers Council” must be created for enterprises of the same kind situated in the same locality or in adjoining localities and belonging to the same owners, if the Factory Workers Council in each plant so decide. This organization may either remain in juxtaposition with the Factory Workers Councils of the different plants, or it may replace them. In that case it functions as a common Factory Workers Council.