Work 7

Turkish people’s supposed “work ethic” satisfied the economy’s demands: they were viewed as young, strong, unskilled, disciplined and passive, or, as it says in the correspondence between a local authority and the German Federal Employment Agency, ‘the Turk (…) if he is handled correctly, can be integrated and exploited.’

Quote: Jörg Huwer (2014): Gastarbeiter im Streik. Die Arbeitsniederlegung bei Ford Köln im August 1973. Köln: DOMiD, p. 23. Picture: Ford73 Blogspot

Employee of the Westphalian-Lippian Landscape Association which oversees social and youth work as well as assistance for people with special needs.

The booming West-German post-war economy needed workers, but did not want to pay high wages. German politics and business argued that workers from southern Europe and North Africa could get paid less. And because they had no collective bargaining agreements, so they did not have the same employment rights. The quote shows how workers were characterised during the 20th century (with no mention of structural descrimination, they were constructede as deficient individuals, Türkmen, 2017: 50). Increasingly, however, these workers organised themselves. In 1973, 6,000 Turkish workers at Ford in Cologne went out on a ‘wildcat strike’ which was sparked by strict vacation regulations. The strike was defeated, amongst other things, by thugs hired by factory management (Betriebszelle Ford, 1973: 68).

*Transversal (10/2017): "Lotta Continua in Frankfurt, Terror of Turks in Cologne. Migrant Struggles in the History of the Federal Republic of Germany." *Ceren Türkmen (2017). Gastarbeitsgeschichte zwischen Migrationsregime, Staat und kommunaler Befreiung. Methoden zur Wissensproduktion, Material & Machtkritik. In glokal: Connecting the Dots. Lernen aus Geschichte(n) zu Unterdrückung und Widerstand. *Betriebszelle Ford der Gruppe Arbeiterkamps (1973): Streik bei Ford Köln.

1973