Her Fight is Your Fight: “Guest Worker” Labor
Activism in the Early 1970s West Germany
Jennifer Miller
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Abstract
When the postwar economic boom came to a crashing halt in early 1970s West Germany,
foreign “guest workers,” often the first to be laid off, bore the brunt of high inflation, rising
prices, declining growth rates, widespread unemployment, and social discontent.
Following the economic downturn and the ensuing crisis of stagflation, workers’
uprisings became increasingly common in West Germany. The summer of 1973 saw a
sharp increase in workers’ activism broadly, including a wave of “women’s strikes.”
However, historical attention to the role of foreign workers, especially of foreign
female workers, within these strikes has been limited. This article presents a case study
of wildcat strikes spearheaded by foreign, female workers in the early 1970s, focusing
specifically on the strikes at the Pierburg Autoparts Factory in Neuss, West Germany.
For these foreign women, activism in the early 1970s had a larger significance than just
securing better working conditions. Indeed, striking foreign workers were no longer
negotiating temporary problems; they were signaling that they were there to stay.
Foreign workers’ sustained and successful activism challenged the imposed category of
“guest worker,” switching the emphasis from guest to worker. Ultimately, the Pierburg
strikes’ outcomes benefited all workers––foreign and German, male and female––and
had grave implications for wage discrimination across West Germany as well.
“The public is astonished by the determination of the foreign women,” proclaimed a West German television reporter on December 13, 1973.1 “And
rightly so,” she continued, “the foreign workers––women no less––threatened
to disrupt the entire West German automobile industry.”2 The 1971 – 1973
wildcat strikes at the Pierburg Auto Parts Factory (near Dusseldorf) did
indeed send shockwaves through the West German auto industry. The
summer of 1973 saw a sharp increase in workers’ activism broadly, including a
wave of “women’s strikes.” On July 16, four thousand, mostly foreign, female
workers went on strike at the Hellawerk Factory in Lippstadt; thirty female
workers went on strike at the Opal factory in Herner; and seamstresses protested speedups in Cologne.3 These strikes were part of a labor insurrection
of men and women, foreign and German, that swept the country in the early
1970s as the postwar economic boom came to a crashing halt. Foreign “guest
workers,” often the first to be laid off, bore the brunt of high inflation, rising
prices, declining growth rates, widespread unemployment, and social discontent.
For foreign workers, activism in the early 1970s had a larger significance than
just securing better working conditions. Striking foreign workers were no
longer seeking solutions to short-term problems; they were signaling that they
International Labor and Working-Class History
No. 84, Fall 2013, pp. 1– 22
# International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2013
doi:10.1017/S014754791300029X
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ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013
were there to stay. Through their activism, “guest workers” created a different
future for themselves in Germany by demonstrating political consciousness.
Their actions also highlighted the unsustainability of the “guest worker”
program itself––and their participation in it––as they shifted from temporary
participants to more permanent actors within German industry and society.
After a brief introduction of the “guest worker” program, this article examines a few representative strikes that illuminate the implications of foreign
workers’––especially women’s––activism in the early 1970s. A closer look at a
key strike at the Pierburg Auto Parts Factory in Neuss, West Germany,
reveals more than just an argument against the sexist “light wage category
II,” which allowed the company to dodge equal pay for equal work. In choosing
to strike, these foreign women also asserted a new identity––one forged through
their intersecting experiences as women, as foreigners, as “guest workers,” and
as factory workers.4 Ultimately, their labor activism benefited all workers at the
factory and challenged the imposed category of “guest worker,” switching the
emphasis from guest to worker. As such, these foreign workers stand at a
crucial intersection of immigration history, labor history, and German citizenship debates.
The “Guest Worker” System
Across Western Europe economies grew at historic rates in the postwar era.
German GDP per head more than tripled in real terms between 1950
and 1973.5 The postwar rapid growth coupled with lingering labor shortages
spurred West Germany (and Western Europe in general) to turn to
foreign labor. Starting in 1955, West Germany used bilateral “guest worker”
treaties to begin recruiting foreign workers from southern European and
Mediterranean countries. Over the course of a decade, West Germany imported
increasing numbers of workers from a variety of countries, with workers from
Turkey forming the majority by the end of recruitment in 1973.6
The “guest worker” arrangement was designed to recruit single, preferably
male workers for a two-year stay in West Germany. However, this description
rarely matched the applicant pool or employers’ demands, given the need for
female workers to fill jobs deemed “women’s work.” Historian Monika
Mattes notes that the dubious yet popular cliché of the male “guest worker”
who later sends for his wife and children has yet to be seriously critiqued by
scholars.7 The increased demand for female labor occurred at the exact time
that West German women were encouraged to leave the work force to
restore nuclear families in German society. As a result, West German factories
relied heavily on foreign women to fill so-called “women’s positions.”8 By 1973,
at the peak of the “guest worker” program, there were about 2.3 million foreign
workers in West Germany and more than 52,000 of them were women.9 By the
time of the Pierburg strike, there had been a long history of importing foreign
female workers, starting slowly at first, dipping during the 1967 recession, and
rebounding with a large surge beginning in 1968 (see Table 1). In the early
Her Fight is Your Fight
TABLE ONE
Year
Italy
Spain
Greece
Turkey
Portugal
Yugoslavia
Total
Year
Italy
Spain
Greece
Turkey
Portugal
Yugoslavia
Total
3
Foreign Female “Guest Workers” in West Germany, 1961–1973
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
2,942
6,280
5,879
46
–
–
15,147
1,608
8,615
11,852
504
–
–
22,579
545
9,013
13,681
2,476
–
–
25,715
517
8,078
11,155
5,022
5
–
24,777
729
8,050
14,310
11,107
232
–
34,428
520
7,508
14,035
9,611
1,188
–
33,505
157
1,436
1,471
3,488
334
–
6,886
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
212
4,646
10,740
11,302
1,118
–
28,088
224
6,816
21,328
20,711
2,313
14,754
66,146
111
6,924
19,931
20,624
3,298
19,908
70,810
55
5,689
12,092
13,700
3,627
17,252
52,484
32
4,632
5,629
16,498
3,489
12,432
42,992
14
4,226
1,776
23,839
5,550
16,461
52,070
Source: Monika Mattes. ‘Gastarbeiterinnen’ in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Anwerbepolitik, Migration
und Geschlecht in den 50er bis 70er Jahren. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2005. 39.
1970s, female workers from Turkey, Greece, and Yugoslavia formed the
majority of foreign female “guest workers” in West Germany. (See Table 1)
Origins of Foreign Labor Activism in Germany
Since the early nineteenth century, foreign workers in Germany have used labor
activism, legal and illegal, to negotiate definitions of belonging; of local,
national, and class identity; and of solidarity. Historian John Kulczycki has
argued that ethnic Polish miners in nineteenth-century Germany, though
aware of cultural and linguistic differences, worked together with their native
German coworkers toward common working-class goals, with the main
barrier to class solidarity being the German workers’ prejudice against
them.10 What connects the nineteenth century movements with more contemporary protests is not only the role of migrants, but also the civic participation
inherent in labor activism. For nineteenth-century foreign miners, according
to David F. Crew, “occupation . . . provided the miner with an ‘integrated’ role
in German society . . . [that] combined economic, social, and legal functions,”
and it is this “occupational community” more than material deprivation that
explains why workers strike.11 In the case of postwar “guest workers,” occupational community cannot be assumed as a goal as many workers maintained
a desire eventually to return “home.” However, through labor activism both
supposedly temporary workers and their reluctant hosts often achieved “occupational community,” whether they intended to or not.
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By the 1970s, foreign workers were well integrated into the West German
economy, and the reporter’s comments about the 1973 Pierburg Strike shutting
down an entire industry were not hyperbolic: By the early 1970s, the West
German construction, steel, mining, and automobile industries had become
largely dependent upon foreign labor.12 In 1973, 35.7 percent of all “guest
workers” were employed in the iron and metals industry, 24.1 percent in processing trades, and16.6 percent in construction.13 In 1973, 11.9 percent of all workers
in West Germany were foreign. In other words, every ninth worker in West
Germany was foreign; in the manufacturing sector, it was every sixth worker.14
Yet despite the vital role they played, labor unions and smaller elected
workers’ councils often isolated foreign workers, while employers exploited
them.15 German labor unions were initially critical of “guest worker” programs,
fearing they would depress wages and degrade working conditions.16 However,
unions strategically ended their resistance to the program in order to be involved
in the planning process, for example, to secure the same wages across the board
and to recruit foreign workers into their organizations.17 By the end of the 1960s
about 20 percent of foreign workers had joined unions––a significant number
considering that only 30 percent of West German workers were organized.18
“Guest workers” participated in and initiated both legal and illegal labor
activism from the beginning of the program.19 On April 30, 1962, in the city
of Essen, 300 Turkish workers went on strike over underpaid Kindergeld, or
child benefit payments, and the police responded with rubber bullets and by
deporting ten of the strikers.20 Turkish workers were indeed eligible for
German child benefit payments, but not for children left behind in Turkey––
an arrangement that did not suit the transnational families that the “guest
worker” arrangement prompted. The West German Federal Labor Ministry
complained that officials in Istanbul had been falsely promising workers
benefit payments for children left behind in Turkey. Those on strike in Essen
appealed to West German labor unions for help. They replied, “You’re right,
but there is nothing that we can do for you.” The foreign workers also appealed
unsuccessfully to the Turkish Consulate in West Germany.21 Neither the West
German unions nor the Turkish consulate would represent these workers,
placing them in a no-man’s-land that mirrored their lived reality: not truly
welcome in West Germany and yet no longer under Turkish protection.
Foreign workers’ problems stemmed from the fact that “equal rights” were
not “equal” for foreign workers. Both employers and the West German government deducted money for taxes, pensions, social benefits, and rent from
workers’ pay checks, regardless of whether or not foreign workers planned to
take part in the social services such payments supported. A patronizing orientation pamphlet, titled Hallo Mustafa! explained that such deductions were
simply a part of life and not meant to be understood by foreigners.22 “You
don’t understand,” the pamphlet chided, “and can’t tell the difference
between gross and net pay, and most of all you don’t understand the deductions
for social benefits and taxes. . . . At first, you get the feeling that they are trying to
take you for a ride with these complicated numbers and figures. . . . [Dear]
Her Fight is Your Fight
5
Mustafa, in my opinion, you all are much too suspicious.”23 However, Turks’ suspicions were reasonable: The West German Liaison Office in Istanbul could not
offer workers a clear idea of what their wages or benefits would be in West
Germany, and the information they did distribute was often misleading, erroneous, or misunderstood.
Many “guest workers” were disappointed with their jobs for a variety of
reasons ranging from low wages, strenuous working conditions, the risk of workplace injury, and general underemployment.24 Most significantly, whatever the
length of their stay, “guest workers” had few chances of promotion or overtime.25
“In the beginning our wages were very low. [But] everyone who wanted to go
didn’t care about the wages very much,” reported a man from Bursa, Turkey,
who went to West Germany in 1963. “[T]he [West German] government didn’t
give this much importance. . . . I earned 3DM per hour. A German worker
doing something much simpler was earning about 6–7DM per hour.”26
Foreign workers often had larger problems with their employers than their
poor wages. Company housing was often a key point of exploitation of workers
who had few alternatives but to live in company-supplied housing, with rent
deducted from their paychecks. In a documentary film about the Pierburg
strikes, one woman declared that the firm’s housing represented “modern-day
feudalism.”27 She paid 60DM a month to live four-to-a-room with no running
water. Furthermore, the building manager restricted all visitors, especially
union representatives.28 This “guest worker” emphasized that during the 1973
Pierburg strike, “foreign women haven’t forgotten how they have been
treated by the company.” She responded by drawing up fliers that proclaimed,
“Does feudalism still exist?” The fliers cited the West German Constitution’s
Article 13, which stated that one is guaranteed freedom within one’s home,
including the ability to receive guests. Another female employee at Pierburg
apparently paid 200DM in rent for a damp cellar room that had previously
been used to keep pigs.29 Such horrific housing problems, which were specific
to foreign workers, engendered unusual and fraught relationships between
employer and employee, fueling mistrust.
Foreign workers also suffered from poor working conditions. Akkordarbeit,
the piecework system that many West German employers used with foreign
workers, was particularly exasperating. According to Akkordarbeit, wages
could vary based on the number of days worked and the completion of
certain tasks.30 A spinning factory’s orientation booklet explained in Turkish,
“As you know, nobody can work at the same speed and produce the same
amount. . . . The Akkord system is simple. Whoever produces more gets paid
more.”31 Despite the system’s “simplicity,” one former worker explained the
potential for confusion and errors in an Akkord paycheck: “Because we
worked on different machines . . . and different work was worth different
amounts . . . sometimes there were mistakes; sometimes it says you were on a
different machine than you were. Then you go to the boss, and he checks it
with his notes . . . And then you go to the payment office, and they make corrections as well.”32 Piecework also depended upon collaboration with German
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coworkers, too, leading to aggravation and misunderstandings due not only to
language problems but also to differing work speeds. There were even reports
that West German workers complained Turkish workers were “spoiling the
Akkord” by working too quickly.33
Foreign workers, especially women, were ripe for labor organizing as the
West German economy began to decline in the late 1960s, and the “guest
worker” system began to crack under the weight of long-standing problems.
The particular hardships foreign workers faced, on and off the shop floor,
coupled with their perceived temporary status often hindered solidarity with
German colleagues. Yet despite their vastly different experiences, within
many strikes there were imperfect moments of solidarity, when German and
foreign workers came together, motivated by either common concerns or the
potential for personal gain.
Economic Downturns and Worker Responses
A short-lived recession from 1966 –1967 was the first point of stagnation in the
postwar period to combine high unemployment and lower real wages.
Correspondingly, this period witnessed the first significant wave of postwar
labor activism, foreign and domestic, to spread across West Germany.34 When
the West German economy began to falter in 1966, employers reacted immediately by laying off around 1.3 million foreign workers.35 Employers also
responded by increasing mechanization and production speeds, worsening
working conditions. Workers responded in kind. During September 1969,
140,000 workers from 69 different companies within the steel, metal, textile,
and mining industries made news throughout West Germany with their labor
strikes.36 Shortly thereafter, the 1973 OPEC oil embargo prompted further
economic downturn and stagflation, while workers’ wages could not keep up
with cost-of-living increases.37 The West German “economic miracle’” had
relied on increasing productivity by hiring more workers to use increasingly
mechanized, faster machinery. At the same time, employers maintained low
wages––wages that remained low especially in relation to profit margins,
inflation, and the new speeds of production. The progressively insecure economic situation made workers’ uprisings common.38
Foreign and West German workers had varying degrees of solidarity in
labor organizing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In some cases, West
German and foreign workers did not support one another, and yet both ultimately benefited, as was the case at the Hella Automobile Producer in
Lippstadt, West Germany. On July 16, 1973, 800 German skilled workers
received a raise of fifteen cents per hour, while unskilled, mostly foreign,
workers received no increase.39 In response, the foreign workers went on
strike, demanding fifty cents more per hour, scaring the workers’ council.
“They will kill us if we force them to work!” claimed the president of the
workers’ council at Hella, referring fearfully to the 3,000 foreign workers
from Spain, Greece, Italy, and Turkey who went on strike from July 17 –19,
Her Fight is Your Fight
7
1973.40 Their West German coworkers did not join the strike, offering instead
mocking words of support, such as the awkwardly phrased, “You do good
job!”41 The foreign workers were, however, successful and, in the end, all
workers gained raises of between thirty and forty cents per hour. The foreign
workers had risked more than their German coworkers: They could have lost
their jobs and their housing, as well as the work and residency permits they
needed to stay in country.
There were also cases of temporary German-foreign solidarity, such as the
strike at the Duisburg-Huckingen steel mill May 18 –28, 1973. In this case, 380 of
700 workers went on strike over increasingly poor working conditions, including
speedups and dangerous tasks, such as having to handle burning hot materials.42
At first, organizers had not included Turkish workers in their plans for work
stoppage. By the end of the strike, however, Turkish workers joined their striking West German colleagues, prompting management’s attempts to fire them.
This risky act of solidarity produced results: All workers received twenty-five
to seventy cents more per hour.43
In these two contrasting examples, a precarious occupational community
was achieved: in the first case, through the result––raises for all; in the second,
through joint involvement. In the end, whether they were foreign or native
born, they were all, de facto “German workers,” even if they would not have
acknowledged this at the time. In the majority of cases, foreign workers lent
their support to West German workers; the reverse was less likely to occur.44
One of the most famous strikes among foreign workers was prompted over
vacation leave: the so-called “Turkish Strike” at the Cologne Ford August
24– 30, 1973.45 Because of the great distances foreign workers wished to
travel during their vacations, in order to visit their homes and families in
remote places like Turkey, they had different needs than their West German
counterparts when it came to vacation allotments. This became a common
source of conflict.46 In 1973, Ford management fired Turkish workers who
had returned late from vacation, and 300 Turkish workers protested with a
strike and sit-in, against the wishes of their union.47 Seeing an opportunity,
German workers joined the strike to request higher wages for themselves.
When the Metalworkers Union and the company’s workers’ council joined in,
management agreed to a small wage increase to offset inflation. The German
workers and union members were satisfied, but the company continued to
ignore the Turkish workers, prompting outrage and an escalation of the strike.
Turkish workers were 53.1 percent of the workforce, but only 12.7 percent of
the workers’ council.48 A large fight, attracting police intervention, ensued,
and the management fired many of the Turkish workers in retribution,
leading to their deportation.49 For the Turkish workers who remained, the
outcomes were a repeal of some of the layoffs but also increased “resentment
of the foreigners’ rabble-rousing.”50
Labor activism in the 1960s and early 1970s began to forge new and even surprising alliances between West German and foreign coworkers, even as the two
groups continued to view each other as distinct. Over time moments of solidarity
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also worked to dissipate tensions between the two groups, as they demonstrated
that the presence of “guest workers” in West Germany was perhaps more permanent than even the workers themselves had intended or were willing to acknowledge. That West Germans and foreign-born “guests” came together through labor
activism is not surprising considering that the workplace provided the main
sources of interaction. The Pierburg Strikes, the subject of the next section,
present case studies that highlight both the tensions among different groups
and, at the same time, the success they were able to achieve through solidarity.
Foreign female workers initiated wildcat strikes at Pierburg over discriminatory
wages but continued the strike to protest poor living conditions (especially
housing) and inadequate union representation. But, by the end of the strike, all
workers––male and female, foreign and German, skilled and unskilled––joined
together in an increasingly effective coalition.
Postwar “Wage Categories” and the Pierburg Strikes
While scholars tend to pay more attention to the “Turkish strike” at Ford, the
Pierburg strikes in Neuss, Germany, were arguably more significant, as they
were spearheaded by foreign women, achieved full participation by all employees, and successfully challenged a federally-mandated wage system. Foreign
women do not make up a very large part of the literature on labor activism in
postwar Europe, but they, often acting in solidarity with women of different
national origins, were the primary instigators of many battles over pay inequities
for both foreign and German women. Women workers of various nationalities
participated in the Pierburg Strike, and in this case gender provided the main
source of solidarity. After an introduction to the history of the West German
“wage categories,” this section turns to the Pierburg strikes that impacted
both foreign and German women’s wages.
West German “wage categories” differentiated and set the wages for
“skilled” (often German men) and “unskilled” (often foreign and female)
workers. The 1949 West German constitution guaranteed equal rights through
a series of antidiscrimination guidelines in its Article 3. In response, a 1955
Federal Labor Court declared the existing “women’s wage” categories unconstitutional. This ruling should have meant that women’s salaries would increase by
an average of twenty-five percent, or more. Employers, who understandably
wanted to keep wages down, invented a new category, the “light wage category,”
meant to designate unskilled and “light work,” to replace the now-illegal
“women’s wage category.” From 1955 on, companies argued that women’s
lower wages were not due to their sex, but because women had “less strength”
and “lighter” work to do. When accused of renewed discrimination, employers
countered that men were also employed in the light-wage categories.
“Employers always get creative whenever it comes to the constitutional right of
equal pay for equal work,” reported the West German weekly, Stern, in 1973.51
Union leaders, most of them male, were generally unsupportive of female
workers’ causes and did not protest the creation of the light-wage categories.
Her Fight is Your Fight
9
According to historian Ute Frevert, both employers and trade unions could
agree on the new wage categories: For unions, higher wages for women might
well have delayed the attainment of “more important trade union goals such
as the implementation of the forty-hour week or the extension of paid
holidays.”52 In collective bargaining agreements, officials designated unskilled
and semi-skilled jobs according to the physical strength required, while in
skilled and professional jobs the degree of “responsibility” was the criterion
used for classification. “Easy” and “simple” jobs were classified under Wage
Categories I or II or, at best, under Wage Category III, while jobs that called
for hard physical labor were generally classified under Wage Categories IV or
V, which commanded considerably higher wages. In a kitchen furniture
factory, where both men and women worked on assembly lines drilling holes
into doors, the women were in Wage Categories I and II, but the men were in
Wage Categories III and IV, based on the rationale that the men were drilling
holes in “bigger and heavier doors.”53 In short, the new wage categories
quickly came to differentiate men’s from women’s work. A 1970s governmentsponsored study on the proper criteria for job evaluation recommended that
only physical exertion be used for assessment, but it could do no more than
provide suggested guidelines to the private sector.54
Foreign female workers in West Germany had long been performing heavy
manual labor as “guest workers,” a category largely gendered male; at the same
time, employers paid foreign women according to the light wage categories, gendered female, regardless of their jobs’ degree of physicality. For “guest workers,”
the German Employment Offices in Turkey defied the spirit of the 1955 ruling
and openly listed wages as “Wage Category I (women)” and “Wage Category
III (men).”55 Protective legislation designed for female workers meant that
foreign female workers were paid less, but not that they were excluded or actually “protected” from physically demanding jobs.56 It was this hypocrisy, more
than anything else, that prompted the strikes at Pierburg in Neuss.
With the importation of “guest workers,” foreign women became the new
“women workers” of West Germany. “Expanded employment of German
females was economically a reasonable and feasible step, but it was undesirable
from the standpoint of ‘family policy,’” reported the industrial newspaper,
Industriekurier, in a 1955 article explaining why “guest workers” were necessary.57 Though this policy of encouraging West German women to stay home
to rebuild nuclear families was primarily a product of the immediate postwar
years, especially in contrast to its East German counterpart, the real need for
female workers remained unchanged, and West German companies increasingly
sought foreign women to fill vacancies in “women’s work.”58
Like many West German industrial companies, Pierburg Auto Parts, which
supplied carburetors to most of the West German automobile industry, both
relied heavily upon and profited from foreign female labor. Foreign workers,
especially women, were drawn to these employment opportunities, as the
Pierburg factory in Neuss was one of the few in its area to hire women.59
Pierburg also recruited the wives of men working in the surrounding area’s
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metal industry, in addition to foreign employees’ wives, correctly guessing that
working couples would put up with most any situation to be able to live in
West Germany together.60 By 1973, Pierburg employed 3,600 workers, among
them 2,100 foreign workers and a total of 1,700 women (1,400 of them
foreign) in the “Light Wage Categories.”61 About 70 percent of the foreign
workers at Pierburg were women, comprising the majority of all women
workers, all of whom were in the lower wage categories.62 According to
German sociologist Godula Kosack, who researched the strike in 1976,
Pierburg employed 900 Greeks, 850 Turks, 380 Yugoslavs, 300 Spaniards, 200
Portuguese, 150 Italians, and 850 Germans.63 Women in the “Light Wage
Category I” earned 30 to 40 percent less than their male colleagues.
Pierburg’s heavy reliance on foreign female workers made it ripe for a challenge
to the discriminatory wage categories.
The first strike by foreign women at Pierburg took place in 1970, initiated
by 300 Yugoslavian women who were the first to be hired by contract in 1969.
Pierburg housed them in three barracks on site, prompting, in the words of a
workers’ council member, an “uncanny sexual state of emergency” and the subsequent banning of male visitors.64 These women apparently went on strike to
protest the restrictions on their personal lives as well as wage discrimination.65
On May 15, 1970, foreign and German female Pierburg workers protested
against “Light Wage Category I.” Citing poor working conditions, unequal
work distribution, and gender discrimination in raises, 800 foreign and
German women signed a resolution requesting higher wages for all female
employees.66 Management did not respond until the next day when around
1,000 women were standing in protest on the factory grounds. Neither the
union nor the all-male, all-German worker’s council at Pierburg supported
this initial strike. According to a 1970 newspaper report, Pierburg’s management was not above threatening the striking women, especially the foreign
ones.67 Various department heads attempted to scare off the women with the
threat of firing and deporting them: “If you don’t want to work, then you’ll go
with the police to the airport!”68 The risk of deportation was real, as their
West German residence permits were contingent upon proof of employment
and housing. Despite compromise attempts, intimidation efforts, and police
intervention, the women (who numbered 1,400 in the end) persisted until
they achieved the following: twenty cents more per hour for Wage Categories
II – V, a bonus of 20DM, and the establishment of a representative body to
evaluate the Wage Categories of jobs.69 After only a few days, management
ended the strike by agreeing to eliminate Wage Categories I and II, but, in practice, Wage Category II remained.70
Two years later, on June 7, 1973, becoming impatient about the promised
wage reforms, three hundred female workers at Pierburg conducted a
“warning strike” and made the following demands:
(1) The Wage Category II (WC2) must be eliminated. All women of WC2 must be
re-categorized to Wage Category III (WC3). (2) Those with seniority should earn
Her Fight is Your Fight
11
more than newly-hired workers. (3) Because there are no clean work places in the
firm, every employee is to receive a supplement for the dirty conditions. (4)
Everyone (male and female) is to receive an additional 1DM per hour. (5) The
women who are working on the special machines are to be regrouped in Wage
Category IV. (6) Workers must be paid for the wages lost during these proceedings
[the strike]. (7) All of the women who perform heavy manual labor must finally be
paid as much as men. (8) There cannot be any firings due to taking too many sick
days. (9) Overtime may not be unfairly distributed. (10) Whenever one is sick and
wants to go to a doctor, he or she should receive half a day paid leave. (11) One
day a month should be paid for housekeeping [“housewife’s day”]. . . . (12)
Travel money must be increased. (13) Tomorrow everyone should be able to
leave the factory two hours earlier to pick up his [sic] money.71
The elimination of Wage Category II and a 1DM-per-hour raise for all workers
were the main demands. In an attempt at solidarity, those on strike distributed
fliers in workers’ various languages––Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Greek,
and Turkish––proclaiming: “Two months ago, 200 of our workers mustered up
the courage and went on strike for two days for higher wages.”72 It continued,
“[the company said it] would not be coerced by terrorists, [and] that the majority
of the employees were satisfied with their wages, since they were not striking
along with them . . . Colleagues, why didn’t you support us and strike with us?
The demands are still valid: 1DM more an hour for everyone! “Wage
Category 2” must be eliminated!”73 The organizers emphasized transethnic
worker solidarity against management. After the union stepped in to negotiate,
the strike ended on the second day. Management, however, maintained its goal
of retaining the “Cheap Wage Categories” at all costs, leaving most dissatisfied.
Pierburg did not take the strike seriously and planned to fire and replace
the 300 workers with new, and therefore more insecure, foreign workers in
the fall. The June “warning strike” ended with the promise of negotiations
between management and the workers’ council, but new arrangements were
not secured nor did the union follow up.74 The foreign women who initially protested their placement in Wage Category II found little support among their coworkers, in their workers’ council, or in their union. Company founder,
Professor Alfred Pierburg, called and spoke to the chair of the workers’
council, Peter Leipziger, on June 14, 1973 and promised that there would be
no firings, only paid suspensions of those the council fingered.75 The Workers’
Council incriminated the striking women by reporting them to management
(instead of representing their interests), and Pierburg deported six of the
foreign women as a result.76
After such an unsatisfying result, it is little surprise that foreign women at
Pierburg went on strike again two months later, in August 1973, calling once
again for the elimination of Wage Category II. The union would not support
the strike and responded aggressively with an article in the union newsletter
titled, “Guest Workers Are Not Discriminated Against: The Pierburg Strike is
Illegal.”77 In a press release that was translated into Turkish, Greek, and
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Italian, the Industrial Union of Metalworkers reported on August 15 that,
“based on legal conditions in the Federal Republic, the Metalworkers Union
cannot deem the work stoppage at the A. Pierburg Company legal.”78
However, the press release continued, in order to dissipate the tensions, negotiations continued: “For some time the workers’ council and the
Metalworkers union have been negotiating with management for an equitable
practice in the wage contracts. The hard work of the approximately 1,700
employees, especially the foreign women, is being unjustly characterized as
‘physically light’ (Wage Category II).”79 The foreign female workers,
however, lost patience with the negotiations and with the workers’ council
and carried out the strike on their own terms to great success.
The August 1973 Strike over Light Wage Category II
On Monday, August 13, 1973, as the 6 A.M. shift began to arrive at around 5:30
A.M. , twenty foreign female workers distributed fliers, announcing that in an
hour workers would go on strike for the elimination of Wage Category II and
1DM more per hour.80 By 5:50 A.M. , between 200 and 250 (mostly foreign)
male and female workers stood before the factory gates, declaring their
support for the strike. At first, the German foreman just observed. Then, at
6:30 A.M . sharp, he demanded that they get to work. Shortly thereafter, the
police arrived with patrol wagons and demanded that the factory gates be
cleared of the striking workers. According to documentation published by
strike leaders in 1974, the following mêlée occurred:
One of the foremen fingers Elefteria Marmela––a Greek woman who, along with
her husband, is a union member––as the organizer of the strike. As the police
attempt to arrest Marmela, she resists and a scuffle ensues. Another Greek
worker has a camera with him and snaps photos . . . The police respond by confiscating his camera. Another Greek man manages, however, to rip the camera out of
his hand and throw it to another Greek worker. A new scuffle begins. Suddenly an
officer grabs his pistol and screams, ‘Get back!’ A Greek woman steps up and yells,
‘So shoot me then! Or are you afraid?’81
The police tried to arrest Marmela, who resisted and was injured; she returned
with a bandaged arm. In the end, no one was arrested, but as the police
wagons were pulling away, one officer apparently called back, “Dirty foreigners!
I’ll kill you!”82 Three hours later, three VW buses filled with police officers
arrived. This time, the officers surrounded the protesters and arrested three
Greeks, two women and one man, who were held for ten hours and interrogated.
The police presence scared off many of those on strike, so that at the beginning of
the breakfast break, there were only 150 left on the picket line. The strikers cried
“Everyone out!” in an attempt to secure solidarity with other workers. Their
chants worked. By the end of the break, 600 additional workers (male and
female) had joined the strike, completely stopping all production at Pierburg.83
Her Fight is Your Fight
13
The following day, the entire early shift stood in front of the factory gates,
about 350 people. At 6:30 A.M. , three buses filled with police arrived, and officers
jumped out and immediately began battering the protesters. Many foreign
women were injured and subsequently hospitalized.84 The police again attacked
Marmela, injuring her severely. The media arrived, including television and
radio reporters, and began filming beatings and scuffles that were aired later.
The German weekly, Stern, published a photograph of two policemen dragging
a foreign woman away by the arm.85 Once the cameras began recording, the
police pulled back and there were no more arrests. By 11:40 A.M . the factory
had closed. The striking workers had achieved almost total solidarity among
the 2,000 foreign workers, male and female alike; likewise, the Metalworkers
Union now stepped in to protest the violent police presence.
On the third day, the strike continued, with the morning shift blocking the
factory gates in the early morning light. Several foreign female workers went
into the factory, changed clothes, punched in, and then returned immediately
to the strike. As a result, management, which was still refusing to negotiate,
locked the main gates and, in so doing, locked the women out. According to eyewitnesses, the breakfast break again resulted in solidarity between those striking
in front of the factory gates, who were calling “Al-le-raus!” (“Every one out!”) to
those still inside.86 One participant recalled that, as workers greeted and hugged
each other through the locked gate, they would break into tears and mutual hugs
and the “will to strike remained unbroken.”87 In order to hinder their reunification, management apparently hung a chain about ten meters from the factory
gate, which the workers repeatedly pulled down; twelve female workers even
stood on the chain so that it could not be pulled taut again.88
As the strike entered the fourth day, the women achieved the final turning
point––they won the German skilled workers to their side. As the strike escalated, the strike committee presented the following demands: 1DM more for
all workers, an end to Wage Category II, payment for all days spent on strike,
and no firings.89 These were conditions German and foreign workers alike
could agree upon. The deciding moment was when the most highly skilled
German workers in the factory, those of the tool shop, presented management
with an ultimatum and stopped working at 9 A.M . sharp.90 When the factory
gates opened at 9 A.M ., the solidarity between the German and foreign
workers, which now united all workers against the management, was boisterously celebrated. Eyewitnesses offer a slightly more romantic version of the
same event: The striking women handed each entering worker of the morning
shift a red rose, to which was attached the statement, “We are expecting you
at 9 o’clock.”91 The German-foreign solidarity “was a real blow to the management, who had hoped to break the strike through the loyalty of the German
workers,” reported eyewitnesses. “From that moment on the strike was
won.”92 Telegrams from workers at other factories arrived to express support
and solidarity.93 An eyewitness reported, “Cash donations also arrived.
Everyone stopped working. There were dances for joy as the German and
foreign workers hugged each other. Foreign women fainted. The German
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workers . . . [who were] the skilled labor of the factory, gave an ultimatum to the
management; at 10 A.M . you will have an agreement.”94 In the end, the solidarity
among the workers––male and female, skilled and unskilled, foreign and
native––changed the course of the strike, riding the momentum the foreign
women had already set in motion.
The following morning, the first results of the negotiations were made
known: twelve cents more per hour, effective immediately, and, beginning
January 1, 1974, twenty cents an hour more.95 The results were disappointing,
and a Turkish man called out, “If you stay at twelve cents, we will continue striking for twelve years!”96 The negotiations continued, and at 1 P.M . the chairmen
of the local employers’ association also stepped in to thwart the spread of
workers’ uprisings (strikes had begun breaking out in nearby areas, such as in
Lippstadt).97 By 4 P.M . the decision was announced: Pierburg had eliminated
Light Wage Category II, guaranteed a raise of thirty cents more per hour, and
promised a 200DM cost of living bonus.98 Together these two raises equaled
fifty-three to sixty-five cents more an hour. Those on strike accepted the
terms and declared themselves ready to return to work on Monday.99
However, on Monday, 150 foreign women continued to strike for payment of
the days on strike. Management attempted to block them with trucks and
shouted at them with megaphones. An office window was broken and the
police were called in. Again, the German skilled workers stood up on behalf
of the striking workers until management met their terms. Management
issued a “warning” to those on strike.100 The real warning was to management,
however, which learned through the course of the strike that the division of
German versus foreign was becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the category
of “worker” had expanded to include all.
The Strike’s Impact
In the early 1970s, the Pierburg strike could have served as the perfect case
study. However, it was largely misunderstood or ignored by contemporary feminists and progressive sociologists. The striking women at Pierburg did not
necessarily view their actions in the same ways as their contemporaries,
especially those drawing on negative stereotypes of Mediterranean women. A
1973 report told the story of Anna Satolias, a Greek woman who participated
in the May 1970 strike, declaring at the end that becoming a migrant was a
way for these Mediterranean women to find emancipation. In the article,
Satolias describes her dissatisfaction with her working conditions thusly:
The work went from bad to worse, more production, more work, more workers,
less working space. And the speed: faster and faster, the supervisor and the
foreman shouting at us all the time––all that in the lowest wage category, which
is called “light.” First I joined the trade union––like my husband––then we
women started making demands. We wanted the abolition of Wage Category I,
because the work was and is heavy and not light––and because Category I is
Her Fight is Your Fight
15
supposed to be only for beginners, although we had been working five or six years
in this category.101
The article continues, pointing out that that same year Pierburg promoted
Anna’s husband, Nikiforus, to the position of toolsetter, and placed him
together with his wife and her colleagues in the machine room. “Perhaps,”
Anna said, “the firm thought we would be more docile then, because I would
have to do what my husband said.102 “Perhaps,” Nikiforus responded, “the
firm thought that as a toolsetter I would earn so much that I could let my
wife stay at home––and there were even colleagues who said such things
aloud.”103 Anna reported incredulously to the West German women’s magazine, Jasmin: “The firm might well have thought that he would leave his wife
at home, and I would obey him.”104 Even though sociologist Kosack centers
her 1973 discussion of the Pierburg strike on the strong figure of Anna
Satolias, her thesis is a nationalistic one: migration to western Europe could
be a step toward emancipation for foreign women. “This is a term [equal
rights] that she [Anna] has learned in Western Germany for the first time.”105
In a troubling way, Kosack locates foreign women’s exploitation in West
Germany solely in their home cultures, which are placed in marked contrast
to that of their host country: “[Migrant women] are virtually their husbands’ servants. Their activities are limited to those typical in their home countries and
indeed for all women in pre-capitalist societies––the kitchen, the children and
the appropriate religious rituals.”106 The sociologist saw the strike as a sign of
a rising tide of women’s liberation movements and a raised consciousness,
especially on the part of migrant women, who through their exploitation in
West Germany had apparently come to realize a new feminist consciousness:
It is the extreme form of discrimination, which makes migrant women fight. They
get much lower pay than male workers, have to suffer authoritarian behavior from
the almost inevitably male foremen and, in addition, have a second day’s work
waiting for them at home––household and children––while their husbands consider it their right to relax after work. This obvious injustice mobilizes many
migrant women against their previously unquestioned position as their husbands’
servants.107
However, to assume that migrant women were necessarily less progressive than
West German women was a fallacy. It was not until 1956 that West German
women were allowed to take jobs without their husbands’ permission.108 This
interpretation fails to take into account migrant women’s unique circumstances,
which compounded gender discrimination and the poor conditions “guest
workers” (both male and female) had experienced in West Germany over the
previous ten years. It was these very foreign women from the Mediterranean,
not West German women, who first instigated successful protests against
sexist wages in West Germany.
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The Pierburg strike also holds important lessons about West German
women’s political consciousness and the West German feminist movement in
the early 1970s. Although foreign women protested the light wage categories
before West German women did, this point was not always remembered. By
1973, West German women had not launched significant challenges to misuses
of Wage Category II. One reporter wrote after the conclusion of the Pierburg
strikes that foreign women’s heightened political consciousness impressed
him, especially when compared to that of German women: “German female
workers of this wage category [II] have neither at the Pierburg factories or elsewhere demonstrated that they were prepared to strike.”109 He continued with an
even more stinging critique: “Among the German women of this wage category
there is unfortunately missing, to a large extent, leadership personalities.” And
yet, despite the significance of the Pierburg strike, it was all too easily forgotten
in the larger narrative of the German women’s movement. It was not until 1978
that media reports on West German women’s efforts to challenge wage categories first appeared and, significantly, they did not reference the Pierburg
strike at all.110 The Pierburg strikes quickly faded from view. In these later
reports, it is a German Industrial baker, Irene Einemann, who is credited as
the first to challenge the sexist use of wage categories:
At long last, in the spring of 1978, Irene Einemann, a female baker’s assistant in
the North German city of Delmenhorst, filed suit demanding that her pay be
brought up to the level of her male colleagues and won the case. Her wage was
raised from the previous DM6.86 per hour to DM8.24 per hour, plus an additional
supplement of DM100 [that] her male counterparts were earning also, and the
decision was made retroactive, with back pay due her as of January 1, 1976.111
When reporting on Einemann, syndicated newspaper commentator Tatjana
Pawlowski, five years after the Pierburg strike, (falsely) credited Einemann as
the first to stop “complaining” and protest her Wage Category: “Injustice
cannot be overcome if justifiable criticism limits itself to complaining . . .Who,
until now, would have had the courage to oppose the long-established wage policies of many industrial enterprises?”112 The courageous actions of the striking
foreign women in 1973 at Pierburg seem to have been forgotten or lost on the
broader West German population.
These lesser-known strikes provide important lessons about solidarity and
the conditions that support it. First, certain homogenizing conditions––such as
poor worker housing and discrimination––promoted solidarity among foreign
workers, uniting even antagonistic national groups such as Turks and Greeks
in new ways. Also workplace sexism, wage differentials, and low representation
among women encouraged solidarity among foreign and native women. Finally,
the solidarity of all workers, despite the union’s disinterest, provided the tipping
point for the illegal Pierburg strike, which challenged the traditional role unions
have played in representing workers and negotiating on their behalf.
Her Fight is Your Fight
17
The impact of the Pierburg strike and other strikes led by foreign workers
in the early 1970s were not one-dimensional. Indeed, the Pierburg and Ford
strikes were not truly “foreigners’ strikes,” as all of the strikes fundamentally
altered the working conditions, workers’ solidarity, and wage structure of the
entire West German economy by challenging the wage categories and the
exploitation of foreign labor upon which it depended. Significantly, the strikes
drew attention to the long-term effects of labor models that were meant to be
“temporary fixes,” such as the “guest worker” program itself.
Conclusion: Her Fight is Your Fight!
“That is no longer a strike. That is a movement!” declared Federal Chancellor
Willy Brandt about the 1973 “Turkish Strike” at the Cologne Ford plant.113
The Ford management apparently replied with resignation, “Over the years,
we have discovered that foreigners came to us with a much too highly developed
confidence.”114 Both Brandt’s and the Ford management’s comments effectively
invoked the new image of “guest workers” in 1973 West Germany. After more
than a decade of life and work in West Germany, they had indeed developed a
political awareness that was effectively channeled into a successful labor movement. “The power that lay behind such a strike [at Pierburg] in the automobile
parts supply industry demonstrates, for the first time, a real threat to West
Germany’s Fordist production model,” commented journalist Martin Rapp in
2006.115 However, the Pierburg strikes challenged more than just the West
German economic and industrial model. In 1979, economist Martin Slater
reported that foreigners’ successful labor activism––not just the recession of
1973––directly affected employers’ decision to end the recruitment of temporary
foreign labor:
[Foreign] migrants, by the early 1970s, had increasingly come to be regarded as a
. . . political burden . . .[Migrants] had come to be regarded as [a] social liability . . .
[due to their] own political transformation. By the early 1970s, the docile, hardworking migrant of the 1950s and 1960s had apparently transformed into a
radical member of the working class. . . . Following close on the heels of protests
and demonstrations by migrants over their housing conditions, these strikes
were seen by governments as a sure sign that migrants were politically
unreliable.116
In other words, “guest workers’” political consciousness and transformation into
members of a larger, national working class helped to end the exploitative laborrecruitment program. As a result, the official end of the German “guest worker”
programs was in 1973. However, the year 1973 is a false end to the “guest
worker” program, which was in many ways never temporary and never really
ended, as this population continues to impact Germany today.
The narrative of the Pierburg strike is neither a tale of victimization nor a
triumph of good over evil. Rather it tells of an evolution and slow integration of
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a supposedly temporary migrant population into a larger class and national consciousness. Foreign workers’ activism and collective bargaining, which occurred
from the 1960s through 1973, provided an early sign of foreign workers’ commitment to West Germany as their home––a transition occurring earlier than scholars have previously acknowledged.117 Historians have long connected the
decision to stay in West Germany as occurring after the 1973 official end of
recruitment. However, I would argue that foreign workers, who had been
saying for over a decade that they planned to return home, demonstrated
even earlier, through their activism, a more permanent investment in West
German society. Workers’ protests, whether about housing or wages, demonstrated solidarity across nationalities and with West German coworkers alike.
During these strikes, foreign workers participated in German industry as
“German workers” (consciously or not) and impacted German policy even if
they were not officially included in the national polity, calling into question
later conservative claims about foreign workers’ rights to German citizenship.
Foreign workers’ dynamic roles in strikes and protests is not surprising,
considering that workers were not just reacting to poor conditions at work,
but also to poor conditions in employer-managed housing as well as memories
of their deplorable train rides to West Germany and the long and tedious application process that preceded those trips.118 However, material conditions alone
cannot explain labor activism: There was also a more complicated social reality
embedded in “guest workers’” negotiations with their increasingly permanent
lives in West Germany. Labor activism for foreign workers in the 1970s
served an integrating function by combining demands for economic, social,
and, in some cases, legal parity––demands that signaled a claim on “occupational community” and a newfound sense of permanence in West German
society. These strikes raised important questions about who was a de facto
German citizen and “German” worker long before the immigrant population
dominated public political debates.
NOTES
1. “Rebellion am Fließband: Erfahrungen aus Frauenstreiks,” Barbara Schleich, WDR II
December 13, 1973, 15 min.
2. Ibid.
3. “Dossiers: Die Chronik der neuen Frauenbewegung: 1973.” http://www.frauenmediaturm.de/themen-portraets/chronik-der-neuen-frauenbewegung/1973/ (Accessed February 3,
2013).
4. Scholars have argued that multiple identities (e.g., female, foreign) “intersect” to create
unique forms of discrimination. For more on “intersectionality,” see Kimberle Crenshaw,
“Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of
Color,” Stanford Law Review 43 (1991): 1241–99; Philomena Essed, Everyday Racism:
Reports from Women in Two Cultures (Claremont, CA, 1990); Essed, Diversity: Gender,
Color, and Culture (Amherst, MA, 1996); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought:
Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (New York, 2000); Chandra
Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” Feminist
Review 30 (1988): 61–88; Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Her Fight is Your Fight
19
(San Francisco, 1987); Irene Browne, and Joya Misra, “The Intersection of Gender and Race in
the Labor Market,” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 487– 513.
5. Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York, 2005), 324– 55.
6. Duncan Miller and İshan Çetin, Migrant Workers, Wages, and Labor Markets (Istanbul,
1974).
7. Monika Mattes, Gastarbeiterinnen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Anwerbepolitik,
Migration und Geschlecht in den 50er bis 70er Jahren (Frankfurt am Main, 2005).
8. Ibid.
9. Miller and Çetin, Migrant Workers; Mattes, 39.
10. John J. Kulczycki, The Foreign Worker and the German Labor Movement: Xenophobia
and Solidarity in the Coal Fields of the Ruhr, 1871–1914 (Berg, 1994); Kulczycki argues against
the idea that ethnic Poles chose between class interests and national consciousness, which
Christoph Klessman terms, “double loyalty” in Klessman, “Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie
(ZZP-Polnische Berufsvereinigung) und Alter Verband im Ruhrgebiet,” Internaltionale
Wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung 15 (1979):
68; Erhard Lucas, Zwei Formen von Radikalismus in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung
(Frankfurt am Main, 1976); Lucas, Der bewaffnete Arbeiternaufstand im Ruhrgebiet in seiner
inneren Struktur und in seinem Verhältnis zu den Klassenkämpfen in den verschiedenen
Regionen des Reiches (Frankfurt am Main, 1973).
11. David F. Crew, Town in the Ruhr: A Social History of Bochum (New York, 1986), 181.
12. Karin Hunn, ‘Nächstes Jahr Kehren wir zurück . . . Die Geschichte der türkischen
‘Gastarbeiter’ in der Bundesrepublik (Göttingen, 2005); Gottfried E. Voelker, “More Foreign
Workers––Germany’s Labour Problem No. 1?” in Turkish Workers in Europe, 1960–1975, ed.
Nermin Abadan-Unat (Leiden, 1976), 331–345, here 336; Ulrich Herbert, A History of
Foreign Labor in Germany: Seasonal Workers, Forced Laborers, Guest Workers, trans. William
Templer (Ann Arbor, 1993). Herbert points out that ninety percent of foreign males were bluecollar workers compared with only forty-nine percent of the German male work force, 216.
13. Ulrich Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 230.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Oliver Trede, “Misstrauen, Regulation und Integration: Gewerkschaften und und
‘Gastarbeiter’ in der Bundesrepublik in den 1950er bis 1970er Jahren” in Das “Gastarbeiter”
System: Arbeitsmigration und ihre Folgen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Westeuropa,
eds. Jochen Oltmer, Axel Kreienbrink, and Carlos Sanz Diaz (Munich, 2012), 183–97.
17. Ibid., 186.
18. Ibid., 188; Hunn, “Die türkischen Arbeitsmigranten und ihre Arbeitgeber,” in Nächest
Jahr, 101–136.
19. Manuela Bojadzijev, Die windige Internationale: Rassismus und Kämpfe der Migration
(Münster, 2008), 151.
20. Der Bundesminister für Arbeit und Sozialordnung, Bonn, an BAVAV Nürnberg, 2. Mai
1962, BArch B119/3071 II.
21. Ibid.
22. Giacomo Maturi, Willi Baumgartner, Stefan Bobolis, Konstantin Kustas, Vittorio
Bedolli, Guillermo Arrillage, and Sümer Göksuyer, eds., Hallo Mustafa! Günther Türk
arkadaşı ile konuşuyor (Heidelberg, 1966), 22.
23. Ibid.
24. Hunn, Nächest Jahr, 117.
25. Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 241.
26. Ali Gitmez, Göçmen İşçilerin Dönüşü: Return Migration of Türkish Workers to Three
Selected Regions (Ankara, 1977), 81.
27. Edith Schmidt and David Wittenberg, “Pierburg: Ihr Kampf ist Unser Kampf” (West
Germany, 1974/75), 49’ (motion picture).
28. Ibid.
29. Ausburger Allgemeine, August 22, 1973.
30. “Akort nedir?” Eilermark’a Hoş geldiniz: Türk İşçi Arkadaşlarımız için Kılavuz,
Eilermark AG, Spinnerei u. Zwirnerei, Gronau, (2 May 1973, Milli Kütüphanesi 5262, DM
4671– 73), 17–19.
31. Ibid., 17– 18.
32. Author’s interview, “F,” Berlin 2003.
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33. Mathilde Jamin reports that Turkish workers worked faster than their West German
coworkers, who complained that they were “spoiling the Akkord.” “Migrationserfarungen,”
in Fremde Heimat: Eine Geschichte der Einwanderung/Yaban, Sılan olur, eds. Aytaç Eryılmaz
and Mathilde Jamin (Essen, 1998), 216.
34. Hunn, “Die Rezession von 1966/67: Auswirkungen und Reaktionen” in Nächstes Jahr,
188– 202.
35. Ibid.
36. “Schwerpunkte, Aufmass und Verlauf der Streikbewegung” in Spontane Streiks 1973,
Krise der Gewerkschaftspolitik, Redaktionskollektiv ‘express,’ edition, eds. Reihe Betrieb und
Gewerkschaften (Offenbach, 1974), 22. This is a published source complied by the collective,
express Zeitung für sozialistische Betriebs und Gewerkschaftsarbeit, in which the editors collected strike materials and interviewed participants of the strikes during the year 1973.
37. Spontane Streiks, 18.
38. Hans Schuster, “Wilde Streiks als Warnsignal,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, September 13,
1969; “Streikbewegung greift auf den Bergbau über: Tarifgespräche schon in dieser Woche,“
General-Anzeiger für Bonn und Umgebungen, September 8, 1969; “Streikbewegung greift auf
den Bergbau uber: Eisen erkaltet im Hochofen,” Westdeutsche Rundschau Wuppertal,
September 8, 1969; Wilhem Throm, “Wilde Streiks treffen die Gewerkschaften,” Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, September 8, 1969; “Eine große Lohnwelle kündigt sich an: Die
Stahlarbeiter fordern 14 Prozent mehr,” Franfurter Allgemeine, September 8, 1969;
“Lohnverhandlung am Donnerstag,” Solinger Tagblatt, September 8, 1969; “Auch im
Bergbau . . .” Butzbacher Zeitung, September 8, 1969; “Jetzt Streiks um Bergbau: Neue
Lohnforderungen im Rheinland,” Hannoversche Rundschau, September 9, 1969; “Wilde
Streikwelle nun auch im Saar-Bergbau: Tarifpartner bemühen sich um schnelle
Entspannung,” Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung, September 9, 1969.
39. Ibid.
40. “Streik bei Hella, Lippstadt,” in Spontane Streiks, 75.
41. “Du schon machen gut!” [sic], Ibid.
42. “Streik bei Mannesmann, Duisburg-Huckingen,” in Spontane Streiks, 64.
43. Ibid., 63.
44. Ibid.
45. “Die Türken probten den Aufstand,” Die Zeit, September 7, 1973.
46. Strikes over vacation time for foreign workers were common across West Germany, as
when 1,600 Portuguese workers at the Karmann factory and 250 Spanish workers in Wiesloch
went on strike to argue for the right to use their vacation days contiguously. “Zur Rolle der
Ausländischen Arbeiter,” in Spontane Streiks, 30.
47. “Einwanderung und Selbstbewusstsein: Der Fordstreik 1973,” in Geschichte und
Gedächtnis in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft: Migration zwischen historishcer Rekonstruktion
und Erinnerungspolitik, eds. Jan Motte and Rainer Ohliger (Essen, 2004); Der Spiegel,
September 3, 1973; Karin Hunn, “Der ‘Türkenstreik’ bei Ford von August 1973: Verlauf und
Analyse” and “Die zeitgenössischen Deutungen des Fordstreiks und dessen Konsequenzen
für die türkischen Arbeitnehmer,” in Nächstes Jahr, 243 –261; Manuela Bojadzijev, Die
windige Internationale, 157– 162.
48. “Die Türken probten den Aufstand,” Die Zeit, September 7, 1973.
49. “Beispiele für Maßregelungen,” in Spontane Streiks, 46; Hans-Günter Kleff,
“Täuschung, Selbsttäuschung, Enttäuschung und Lernen: Anmerkungen zum Fordstreik im
Jahre 1973” in Geschichte und Gedächtnis, 251– 259.
50. “Die Türken probten den Aufstand,” Die Zeit, September 7, 1973.
51. “Frauen im Beruf: Arbeiten und kuschen,” Stern, 1973.
52. Ute Frevert, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual
Liberation, trans. Stuart McKinnon-Even, Terry Bond and Barbara Norden (New York,
1989), 279.
53. Harry Shaffer, Women in the Two Germanies: A Comparative Study of Socialist and
Non-Socialist Society (New York, 1981), 100.
54. W. Rohmert and J. Rutenfranz, Arbeitswissenschaftliche Beurteilung der Belastung und
Beanspruchung an unterschiedlichen industriellen Arbeitsplätzen (Berlin, 1975).
55. “Lohntarifvertrag vom 2.6.1965 für die gewerblichen Arbeitnehmer der feinkeramischen Industrie,” Bayern quoted in, BAVAV Türkei an BAVAV Nürnberg 7.12.1965
BArch B 119/3073.
Her Fight is Your Fight
21
56. For a comparison of similar cases in the United States against discriminatory protective
legislation, see J. Ralph Lindgren et al., The Law of Sex Discrimination (Boston, 2011).
57. “Es geht nicht ohne Italiener,” Industriekurier, October 4, 1955, quoted in Herbert,
A History of Foreign Labor, 206.
58. For a reference to recruiters’ demands specifically for female foreign workers, see
“Wochenbericht der deutschen Verbindungsstelle in der Türkei,” November 1969 BArch B
119/4031; Berlin Aa10. November 1965, “Informationsbesuch bei der Firma Sarotti AG”
Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep 301 Nr 297 Acc 2879 “Arbeitsmarktpolitik.”
59. Pierburg-Neuss: Deutsche und Ausländische Arbeiter––Ein Gegner- Ein Kampf/ Alman
ve Meslektaslar Tek Rakıp tek Mücadele, Streikverlauf, Vorgeschichte, Analyse, Dokumentation,
Nach dem Streik (Internationale Sozialistsche Publikationen, 1974) DoMit Archive, Sig. No.
1177, 6.
60. Ibid., 167.
61. These numbers vary slightly, depending on the source. Bojadzijev bases her numbers
on information provided by the union, in Die windige Internationale, 163.
62. Hildebrandt and Olle, 39.
63. Godula Kosack, “Migrant Women: The Move to Western Europe––a Step towards
Emancipation?” Race and Class 70 (1976): 374 –75.
64. “Interview mit einem Betriebsratmitglied über die Arbeitskonflikte Ausländischer
Arbeiter bei Pierburg Neuss im Februar 1975,” in Ihr Kampf ist Unser Kampf: Ursachen,
Verlauf und Perspektiven der Ausländerstreiks 1973 in der BRD (Teil I),eds. Eckart
Hildebrandt and Werner Olle (Offenbach, 1975), 155; The source, Pierburg-Neuss: Deutsche
und Ausländische Arbeiter, cites the number as 400 Yugoslavian women, 6.
65. Ibid., 155.
66. Ibid., 37.
67. Deutsche Volkszeitung, May 29, 1970.
68. Ibid.
69. Hildebrandt and Olle, 37.
70. Deutsche Volkszeitung, May 29, 1970.
71. “Forderungen der Beschäftigten der Versammlung der Belegsscahftsmitglieder der
Firma Pierburg,” DoMit Archive Pierburg File.
72. Multilingual Flier, referring to the June 7 –8, 1973 Strike. DoMiT Archive, Pierburg
File.
73. Ibid.
74. Kosack, 375.
75. “Telefonnotiz,” June 14, 1973 in “Telefongespräch mit Herrn Prof. Pierburg am 14. Juni
1973 nach 16 Uhr,” Neuss, June 15, 1973, DoMit Pierburg File.
76. Hildebrandt and Olle, 38.
77. “IG Metall: Gastarbeiter Nicht Diskriminiert: Der Streik bei Pierburg in Neuss ist
illegal,” Handesblatt August 17–18, 1983.
78. Micheal Geuenich, Industriegewerkschat Metall, F. D. Bundesrepublik Deutschland,
Verwaltungsstelle Neuss-Grevenbroich August 15, 1973 in “Flugblatt-Dokumentation” in
Pierburg-Neuss: Deutsche und Ausländische Arbeiter––Ein Gegner- Ein Kampf, 27; DoMiT
Archive, Pierburg file.
79. Ibid.
80. The narrative of the Pierburg strike is told by the striking workers themselves. A socialist industry and union publication collective, named “express,” documented strikes across West
Germany, focusing on fourteen different companies and published their findings in 1974 to
make sure that the strikes entered the historical record. They remain the voice of the strikes.
See “Pierburg” in Reihe Betrieb und Gewerkschaften: Redaktionskollektiv ‘express,’ editions,
Spontane Streiks 1973 Krise der Gewerkschaftspolitik” (Verlag 2000 GmbH, Januar 1974).
Other scholars drawing on this material include Eckart Hildebrandt and Werner Olle, Ihr
Kamf ist unser Kampf. Ursachen, Verlauf und Perspektiven der Ausländerstreiks 1973 in der
BRD. Teil I, (Offenbach, 1975); Manuela Bojadzijev, Die windige Internationale: Rassismus
und Kämpfe der Migration (Münster, 2008).
81. “Pierburg” in Reihe Betrieb und Gewerkschaften: Redaktionskollektiv ‘express,’
editions, Spontane Streiks 1973 Krise der Gewerkschaftspolitik (Verlag 2000 GmbH, Januar
1974), 79.
82. Ibid.
22
ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013
83. Hildebrandt and Olle, 40.
84. Ibid.
85. “Frauen im Beruf: Arbeiter und kuschen,” Stern, October 25, 1973, no. 44, 84.
86. Hildebrandt and Olle, 40.
87. “Strike bei Pierburg Neuss,” Spontane Streiks 1973, 80.
88. Ibid.
89. Hildebrandt and Olle, 40.
90. Ibid.
91. “Strike bei Pierburg Neuss”; Godula Kosack, 375; The DoMiT Archive Pierburg file
contains a dried rose from the strike.
92. Ibid.
93. Ibid; Hildebrandt and Olle, 40.
94. “Streik Bei Pierbrug Neuss,” 80.
95. “Streik bei Pierburg Neuss,” 81.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. “Keine Ruhe nach dem Streik: Wieder kurze Arbeitsniederlegung, wieder Polizei vor
dem Werkstor,” Kölner Stadtanzeiger, August 22, 1973; “Unternehmensleitung in Neuss glaubt
an politische Motive: ‘Streik war von außen gesteuert,’” Frankfurter Rundschau, August 22,
1973.
100. Hildebrandt and Olle, 41.
101. Quoted in Kosack, 376; See also, “Anna, geh du voran,” Jasmin (1973); See also
Barbara Schleich, “Streik am laufenden Band: In der Vergaserfirma Pierburg streikten vor
allem ausländische Arbeiterinnen,” Vorwärts, August 25, 1973.
102. Kosack, 376.
103. Ibid.
104. “Anna, geh du voran: Anna Satolias––die Geschichte einer griechischen
Gastarbeiterin, die Sprecherin der Frauen in einem deutschen Betrieb wurde,” Jasmin 20
(1973).
105. Kosack, 376.
106. Ibid., 369.
107. Ibid.
108. Wiebke Buchholz-Will, “Wann wird aus diesem Traum Wirklichkeit? Die
gewerkschaftliche Frauenarbeit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” in Geschichte Der
Deutschen Frauen Bewegung, ed. Florence Herve (Cologne, 1995), 185–208.
109. Augsburger Allgemeine, August 22, 1973.
110. Harry Shaffer, Women in the Two Germanies: A Comparative Study of A Socialist and
Non-Socialist Society (New York, 1981).
111. Ibid., 101– 102.
112. Ibid.
113. “Das ist kein Streik mehr, das ist eine Bewegung,” Martin Rapp and Marion von Osten
“Ihr Kampft ist unser Kampf,” Bildpunkt: Zeitschrift der IG Bildende Kunst (2006), 23.
114. Ibid.
115. Ibid.
116. Martin Slater, “Migrant Employment, Recessions, and Return Migration: Some
Consequences for Migration Policy and Development,” Studies in Comparative International
Development 14 (1979): 4, emphasis added.
117. Ursula Mehrländer, “The Second Generation of Migrant Workers in Germany:
The Transition from School to Work,” in Education and the Integration of Ethnic Minorities,
eds. D. Rothermund and J. Simon (London, 1986), 12– 24.
118. Jennifer Miller, “On Track for West Germany,” German History: The Journal of the
German History Society 30 (2012): 550– 73.