The bureaucratic union apparatus was a basic component and tool of the SED’s power structure, constructed on the same strictly centralist hierarchical model as all other major GDR organizations.

[citation needed] The smallest unit was a Kollektiv, which nearly all workers in any organisation belonged to, including state leaders and party functionaries.

The higher positions ranged from "Departmental Union Leader" (Abteilungsgewerkschaftsleiter, AGL) to Leader of the "Central BGL" (Betriebsgewerkschaftsleitung - Company Union Leadership in combines); they were normally full-time and held by SED members with a history of toeing the party line, or in some cases bloc party members.

[citation needed] The chairman of the FDGB was Herbert Warnke until his death on March 26, 1975, when he was replaced by Harry Tisch, a member of the SED’s Politburo, who kept the post until the political turnaround in 1989.

[3] Short term two and four week training courses and longer-term study were offered, including collective bargaining, social and economic policy, youth and women's issues, employment law, business administration, history of the labour movement, etc.

[citation needed] The following unions were affiliated to the FDGB: Media related to Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund at Wikimedia Commons