Her Fight is Your Fight: “Guest Worker” LaborActivism in the Early 1970s West Germany

Jennifer MillerSouthern 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, risingprices, 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 asharp increase in workers’ activism broadly, including a wave of “women’s strikes.”However, historical attention to the role of foreign workers, especially of foreignfemale workers, within these strikes has been limited. This article presents a case studyof wildcat strikes spearheaded by foreign, female workers in the early 1970s, focusingspecifically 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 justsecuring better working conditions. Indeed, striking foreign workers were no longernegotiating 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 Pierburgstrikes’ outcomes benefited all workers––foreign and German, male and female––andhad grave implications for wage discrimination across West Germany as well.

“The public is astonished by the determination of the foreign women,” pro-claimed a West German television reporter on December 13, 1973.1 “Andrightly so,” she continued, “the foreign workers––women no less––threatenedto disrupt the entire West German automobile industry.”2 The 1971–1973wildcat strikes at the Pierburg Auto Parts Factory (near Dusseldorf) didindeed send shockwaves through the West German auto industry. Thesummer of 1973 saw a sharp increase in workers’ activism broadly, including awave of “women’s strikes.” On July 16, four thousand, mostly foreign, femaleworkers went on strike at the Hellawerk Factory in Lippstadt; thirty femaleworkers went on strike at the Opal factory in Herner; and seamstresses pro-tested speedups in Cologne.3 These strikes were part of a labor insurrectionof men and women, foreign and German, that swept the country in the early1970s as the postwar economic boom came to a crashing halt. Foreign “guestworkers,” often the first to be laid off, bore the brunt of high inflation, risingprices, declining growth rates, widespread unemployment, and social discontent.For foreign workers, activism in the early 1970s had a larger significance thanjust securing better working conditions. Striking foreign workers were nolonger seeking solutions to short-term problems; they were signaling that they

International Labor and Working-Class HistoryNo. 84, Fall 2013, pp. 1–22# International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2013doi:10.1017/S014754791300029X

were there to stay. Through their activism, “guest workers” created a differentfuture 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 temporaryparticipants to more permanent actors within German industry and society.

After a brief introduction of the “guest worker” program, this article exam-ines a few representative strikes that illuminate the implications of foreignworkers’––especially women’s––activism in the early 1970s. A closer look at akey strike at the Pierburg Auto Parts Factory in Neuss, West Germany,reveals more than just an argument against the sexist “light wage categoryII,” which allowed the company to dodge equal pay for equal work. In choosingto strike, these foreign women also asserted a new identity––one forged throughtheir intersecting experiences as women, as foreigners, as “guest workers,” andas factory workers.4 Ultimately, their labor activism benefited all workers at thefactory and challenged the imposed category of “guest worker,” switching theemphasis from guest to worker. As such, these foreign workers stand at acrucial intersection of immigration history, labor history, and German citizen-ship 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 1950and 1973.5 The postwar rapid growth coupled with lingering labor shortagesspurred West Germany (and Western Europe in general) to turn toforeign labor. Starting in 1955, West Germany used bilateral “guest worker”treaties to begin recruiting foreign workers from southern European andMediterranean countries. Over the course of a decade, West Germany importedincreasing numbers of workers from a variety of countries, with workers fromTurkey forming the majority by the end of recruitment in 1973.6

The “guest worker” arrangement was designed to recruit single, preferablymale workers for a two-year stay in West Germany. However, this descriptionrarely matched the applicant pool or employers’ demands, given the need forfemale workers to fill jobs deemed “women’s work.” Historian MonikaMattes notes that the dubious yet popular cliche of the male “guest worker”who later sends for his wife and children has yet to be seriously critiqued byscholars.7 The increased demand for female labor occurred at the exact timethat West German women were encouraged to leave the work force torestore nuclear families in German society. As a result, West German factoriesrelied 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 foreignworkers in West Germany and more than 52,000 of them were women.9 By thetime of the Pierburg strike, there had been a long history of importing foreignfemale workers, starting slowly at first, dipping during the 1967 recession, andrebounding with a large surge beginning in 1968 (see Table 1). In the early

2 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

1970s, female workers from Turkey, Greece, and Yugoslavia formed themajority 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 laboractivism, legal and illegal, to negotiate definitions of belonging; of local,national, and class identity; and of solidarity. Historian John Kulczycki hasargued that ethnic Polish miners in nineteenth-century Germany, thoughaware of cultural and linguistic differences, worked together with their nativeGerman coworkers toward common working-class goals, with the mainbarrier to class solidarity being the German workers’ prejudice againstthem.10 What connects the nineteenth century movements with more contem-porary protests is not only the role of migrants, but also the civic participationinherent in labor activism. For nineteenth-century foreign miners, accordingto David F. Crew, “occupation . . . provided the miner with an ‘integrated’ rolein German society . . . [that] combined economic, social, and legal functions,”and it is this “occupational community” more than material deprivation thatexplains why workers strike.11 In the case of postwar “guest workers,” occu-pational community cannot be assumed as a goal as many workers maintaineda desire eventually to return “home.” However, through labor activism bothsupposedly temporary workers and their reluctant hosts often achieved “occu-pational community,” whether they intended to or not.

TABLE ONE Foreign Female “Guest Workers” in West Germany, 1961–1973

Year 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967

Italy 2,942 1,608 545 517 729 520 157Spain 6,280 8,615 9,013 8,078 8,050 7,508 1,436Greece 5,879 11,852 13,681 11,155 14,310 14,035 1,471Turkey 46 504 2,476 5,022 11,107 9,611 3,488Portugal – – – 5 232 1,188 334Yugoslavia – – – – – – –Total 15,147 22,579 25,715 24,777 34,428 33,505 6,886

Year 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973

Italy 212 224 111 55 32 14Spain 4,646 6,816 6,924 5,689 4,632 4,226Greece 10,740 21,328 19,931 12,092 5,629 1,776Turkey 11,302 20,711 20,624 13,700 16,498 23,839Portugal 1,118 2,313 3,298 3,627 3,489 5,550Yugoslavia – 14,754 19,908 17,252 12,432 16,461Total 28,088 66,146 70,810 52,484 42,992 52,070

Source: Monika Mattes. ‘Gastarbeiterinnen’ in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Anwerbepolitik, Migrationund Geschlecht in den 50er bis 70er Jahren. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2005. 39.

Her Fight is Your Fight 3

By the 1970s, foreign workers were well integrated into the West Germaneconomy, and the reporter’s comments about the 1973 Pierburg Strike shuttingdown an entire industry were not hyperbolic: By the early 1970s, the WestGerman construction, steel, mining, and automobile industries had becomelargely dependent upon foreign labor.12 In 1973, 35.7 percent of all “guestworkers” were employed in the iron and metals industry, 24.1 percent in proces-sing trades, and16.6 percent in construction.13 In 1973, 11.9 percent of all workersin West Germany were foreign. In other words, every ninth worker in WestGermany was foreign; in the manufacturing sector, it was every sixth worker.14

Yet despite the vital role they played, labor unions and smaller electedworkers’ councils often isolated foreign workers, while employers exploitedthem.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 involvedin the planning process, for example, to secure the same wages across the boardand to recruit foreign workers into their organizations.17 By the end of the 1960sabout 20 percent of foreign workers had joined unions––a significant numberconsidering that only 30 percent of West German workers were organized.18

“Guest workers” participated in and initiated both legal and illegal laboractivism from the beginning of the program.19 On April 30, 1962, in the cityof Essen, 300 Turkish workers went on strike over underpaid Kindergeld, orchild benefit payments, and the police responded with rubber bullets and bydeporting ten of the strikers.20 Turkish workers were indeed eligible forGerman child benefit payments, but not for children left behind in Turkey––an arrangement that did not suit the transnational families that the “guestworker” arrangement prompted. The West German Federal Labor Ministrycomplained that officials in Istanbul had been falsely promising workersbenefit payments for children left behind in Turkey. Those on strike in Essenappealed 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 appealedunsuccessfully to the Turkish Consulate in West Germany.21 Neither the WestGerman unions nor the Turkish consulate would represent these workers,placing them in a no-man’s-land that mirrored their lived reality: not trulywelcome in West Germany and yet no longer under Turkish protection.

Foreign workers’ problems stemmed from the fact that “equal rights” werenot “equal” for foreign workers. Both employers and the West German govern-ment deducted money for taxes, pensions, social benefits, and rent fromworkers’ pay checks, regardless of whether or not foreign workers planned totake part in the social services such payments supported. A patronizing orien-tation pamphlet, titled Hallo Mustafa! explained that such deductions weresimply a part of life and not meant to be understood by foreigners.22 “Youdon’t understand,” the pamphlet chided, “and can’t tell the differencebetween gross and net pay, and most of all you don’t understand the deductionsfor social benefits and taxes. . . . At first, you get the feeling that they are trying totake you for a ride with these complicated numbers and figures. . . . [Dear]

4 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

Mustafa, in my opinion, you all are much too suspicious.”23 However, Turks’ sus-picions were reasonable: The West German Liaison Office in Istanbul could notoffer workers a clear idea of what their wages or benefits would be in WestGermany, and the information they did distribute was often misleading, erro-neous, or misunderstood.

Many “guest workers” were disappointed with their jobs for a variety ofreasons ranging from low wages, strenuous working conditions, the risk of work-place injury, and general underemployment.24 Most significantly, whatever thelength 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 godidn’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’tgive this much importance. . . . I earned 3DM per hour. A German workerdoing something much simpler was earning about 6–7DM per hour.”26

Foreign workers often had larger problems with their employers than theirpoor wages. Company housing was often a key point of exploitation of workerswho had few alternatives but to live in company-supplied housing, with rentdeducted from their paychecks. In a documentary film about the Pierburgstrikes, one woman declared that the firm’s housing represented “modern-dayfeudalism.”27 She paid 60DM a month to live four-to-a-room with no runningwater. Furthermore, the building manager restricted all visitors, especiallyunion representatives.28 This “guest worker” emphasized that during the 1973Pierburg strike, “foreign women haven’t forgotten how they have beentreated by the company.” She responded by drawing up fliers that proclaimed,“Does feudalism still exist?” The fliers cited the West German Constitution’sArticle 13, which stated that one is guaranteed freedom within one’s home,including the ability to receive guests. Another female employee at Pierburgapparently paid 200DM in rent for a damp cellar room that had previouslybeen used to keep pigs.29 Such horrific housing problems, which were specificto foreign workers, engendered unusual and fraught relationships betweenemployer and employee, fueling mistrust.

Foreign workers also suffered from poor working conditions. Akkordarbeit,the piecework system that many West German employers used with foreignworkers, was particularly exasperating. According to Akkordarbeit, wagescould vary based on the number of days worked and the completion ofcertain tasks.30 A spinning factory’s orientation booklet explained in Turkish,“As you know, nobody can work at the same speed and produce the sameamount. . . . The Akkord system is simple. Whoever produces more gets paidmore.”31 Despite the system’s “simplicity,” one former worker explained thepotential for confusion and errors in an Akkord paycheck: “Because weworked on different machines . . . and different work was worth differentamounts . . . sometimes there were mistakes; sometimes it says you were on adifferent machine than you were. Then you go to the boss, and he checks itwith his notes . . . And then you go to the payment office, and they make correc-tions as well.”32 Piecework also depended upon collaboration with German

Her Fight is Your Fight 5

coworkers, too, leading to aggravation and misunderstandings due not only tolanguage problems but also to differing work speeds. There were even reportsthat West German workers complained Turkish workers were “spoiling theAkkord” by working too quickly.33

Foreign workers, especially women, were ripe for labor organizing as theWest German economy began to decline in the late 1960s, and the “guestworker” 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 withGerman colleagues. Yet despite their vastly different experiences, withinmany strikes there were imperfect moments of solidarity, when German andforeign workers came together, motivated by either common concerns or thepotential for personal gain.

Economic Downturns and Worker Responses

A short-lived recession from 1966–1967 was the first point of stagnation in thepostwar period to combine high unemployment and lower real wages.Correspondingly, this period witnessed the first significant wave of postwarlabor activism, foreign and domestic, to spread across West Germany.34 Whenthe West German economy began to falter in 1966, employers reacted immedi-ately by laying off around 1.3 million foreign workers.35 Employers alsoresponded by increasing mechanization and production speeds, worseningworking 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 laborstrikes.36 Shortly thereafter, the 1973 OPEC oil embargo prompted furthereconomic downturn and stagflation, while workers’ wages could not keep upwith cost-of-living increases.37 The West German “economic miracle’” hadrelied on increasing productivity by hiring more workers to use increasinglymechanized, faster machinery. At the same time, employers maintained lowwages––wages that remained low especially in relation to profit margins,inflation, and the new speeds of production. The progressively insecure econ-omic situation made workers’ uprisings common.38

Foreign and West German workers had varying degrees of solidarity inlabor organizing in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In some cases, WestGerman and foreign workers did not support one another, and yet both ulti-mately benefited, as was the case at the Hella Automobile Producer inLippstadt, West Germany. On July 16, 1973, 800 German skilled workersreceived a raise of fifteen cents per hour, while unskilled, mostly foreign,workers received no increase.39 In response, the foreign workers went onstrike, demanding fifty cents more per hour, scaring the workers’ council.“They will kill us if we force them to work!” claimed the president of theworkers’ council at Hella, referring fearfully to the 3,000 foreign workersfrom Spain, Greece, Italy, and Turkey who went on strike from July 17–19,

6 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

1973.40 Their West German coworkers did not join the strike, offering insteadmocking words of support, such as the awkwardly phrased, “You do goodjob!”41 The foreign workers were, however, successful and, in the end, allworkers gained raises of between thirty and forty cents per hour. The foreignworkers had risked more than their German coworkers: They could have losttheir jobs and their housing, as well as the work and residency permits theyneeded to stay in country.

There were also cases of temporary German-foreign solidarity, such as thestrike at the Duisburg-Huckingen steel mill May 18–28, 1973. In this case, 380 of700 workers went on strike over increasingly poor working conditions, includingspeedups and dangerous tasks, such as having to handle burning hot materials.42

At first, organizers had not included Turkish workers in their plans for workstoppage. By the end of the strike, however, Turkish workers joined their strik-ing West German colleagues, prompting management’s attempts to fire them.This risky act of solidarity produced results: All workers received twenty-fiveto seventy cents more per hour.43

In these two contrasting examples, a precarious occupational communitywas 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 nativeborn, they were all, de facto “German workers,” even if they would not haveacknowledged this at the time. In the majority of cases, foreign workers lenttheir support to West German workers; the reverse was less likely to occur.44

One of the most famous strikes among foreign workers was prompted overvacation leave: the so-called “Turkish Strike” at the Cologne Ford August24–30, 1973.45 Because of the great distances foreign workers wished totravel during their vacations, in order to visit their homes and families inremote places like Turkey, they had different needs than their West Germancounterparts when it came to vacation allotments. This became a commonsource of conflict.46 In 1973, Ford management fired Turkish workers whohad returned late from vacation, and 300 Turkish workers protested with astrike 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 Germanworkers and union members were satisfied, but the company continued toignore 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 ofthe 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, theoutcomes were a repeal of some of the layoffs but also increased “resentmentof the foreigners’ rabble-rousing.”50

Labor activism in the 1960s and early 1970s began to forge new and even sur-prising alliances between West German and foreign coworkers, even as the twogroups continued to view each other as distinct. Over time moments of solidarity

Her Fight is Your Fight 7

also worked to dissipate tensions between the two groups, as they demonstratedthat the presence of “guest workers” in West Germany was perhaps more perma-nent than even the workers themselves had intended or were willing to acknowl-edge. That West Germans and foreign-born “guests” came together through laboractivism is not surprising considering that the workplace provided the mainsources of interaction. The Pierburg Strikes, the subject of the next section,present case studies that highlight both the tensions among different groupsand, at the same time, the success they were able to achieve through solidarity.Foreign female workers initiated wildcat strikes at Pierburg over discriminatorywages but continued the strike to protest poor living conditions (especiallyhousing) and inadequate union representation. But, by the end of the strike, allworkers––male and female, foreign and German, skilled and unskilled––joinedtogether 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, thePierburg strikes in Neuss, Germany, were arguably more significant, as theywere spearheaded by foreign women, achieved full participation by all employ-ees, and successfully challenged a federally-mandated wage system. Foreignwomen do not make up a very large part of the literature on labor activism inpostwar Europe, but they, often acting in solidarity with women of differentnational origins, were the primary instigators of many battles over pay inequitiesfor both foreign and German women. Women workers of various nationalitiesparticipated in the Pierburg Strike, and in this case gender provided the mainsource of solidarity. After an introduction to the history of the West German“wage categories,” this section turns to the Pierburg strikes that impactedboth 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 througha series of antidiscrimination guidelines in its Article 3. In response, a 1955Federal Labor Court declared the existing “women’s wage” categories unconsti-tutional. This ruling should have meant that women’s salaries would increase byan average of twenty-five percent, or more. Employers, who understandablywanted 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’slower wages were not due to their sex, but because women had “less strength”and “lighter” work to do. When accused of renewed discrimination, employerscountered that men were also employed in the light-wage categories.“Employers always get creative whenever it comes to the constitutional right ofequal pay for equal work,” reported the West German weekly, Stern, in 1973.51

Union leaders, most of them male, were generally unsupportive of femaleworkers’ causes and did not protest the creation of the light-wage categories.

8 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

According to historian Ute Frevert, both employers and trade unions couldagree on the new wage categories: For unions, higher wages for women mightwell have delayed the attainment of “more important trade union goals suchas the implementation of the forty-hour week or the extension of paidholidays.”52 In collective bargaining agreements, officials designated unskilledand semi-skilled jobs according to the physical strength required, while inskilled and professional jobs the degree of “responsibility” was the criterionused for classification. “Easy” and “simple” jobs were classified under WageCategories I or II or, at best, under Wage Category III, while jobs that calledfor hard physical labor were generally classified under Wage Categories IV orV, which commanded considerably higher wages. In a kitchen furniturefactory, where both men and women worked on assembly lines drilling holesinto doors, the women were in Wage Categories I and II, but the men were inWage Categories III and IV, based on the rationale that the men were drillingholes in “bigger and heavier doors.”53 In short, the new wage categoriesquickly came to differentiate men’s from women’s work. A 1970s government-sponsored study on the proper criteria for job evaluation recommended thatonly physical exertion be used for assessment, but it could do no more thanprovide suggested guidelines to the private sector.54

Foreign female workers in West Germany had long been performing heavymanual labor as “guest workers,” a category largely gendered male; at the sametime, employers paid foreign women according to the light wage categories, gen-dered female, regardless of their jobs’ degree of physicality. For “guest workers,”the German Employment Offices in Turkey defied the spirit of the 1955 rulingand openly listed wages as “Wage Category I (women)” and “Wage CategoryIII (men).”55 Protective legislation designed for female workers meant thatforeign female workers were paid less, but not that they were excluded or actu-ally “protected” from physically demanding jobs.56 It was this hypocrisy, morethan 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 Germanfemales was economically a reasonable and feasible step, but it was undesirablefrom the standpoint of ‘family policy,’” reported the industrial newspaper,Industriekurier, in a 1955 article explaining why “guest workers” were necess-ary.57 Though this policy of encouraging West German women to stay hometo rebuild nuclear families was primarily a product of the immediate postwaryears, especially in contrast to its East German counterpart, the real need forfemale workers remained unchanged, and West German companies increasinglysought foreign women to fill vacancies in “women’s work.”58

Like many West German industrial companies, Pierburg Auto Parts, whichsupplied carburetors to most of the West German automobile industry, bothrelied heavily upon and profited from foreign female labor. Foreign workers,especially women, were drawn to these employment opportunities, as thePierburg 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

Her Fight is Your Fight 9

metal industry, in addition to foreign employees’ wives, correctly guessing thatworking couples would put up with most any situation to be able to live inWest Germany together.60 By 1973, Pierburg employed 3,600 workers, amongthem 2,100 foreign workers and a total of 1,700 women (1,400 of themforeign) in the “Light Wage Categories.”61 About 70 percent of the foreignworkers at Pierburg were women, comprising the majority of all womenworkers, all of whom were in the lower wage categories.62 According toGerman sociologist Godula Kosack, who researched the strike in 1976,Pierburg employed 900 Greeks, 850 Turks, 380 Yugoslavs, 300 Spaniards, 200Portuguese, 150 Italians, and 850 Germans.63 Women in the “Light WageCategory I” earned 30 to 40 percent less than their male colleagues.Pierburg’s heavy reliance on foreign female workers made it ripe for a challengeto the discriminatory wage categories.

The first strike by foreign women at Pierburg took place in 1970, initiatedby 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 aworkers’ council member, an “uncanny sexual state of emergency” and the sub-sequent banning of male visitors.64 These women apparently went on strike toprotest the restrictions on their personal lives as well as wage discrimination.65

On May 15, 1970, foreign and German female Pierburg workers protestedagainst “Light Wage Category I.” Citing poor working conditions, unequalwork distribution, and gender discrimination in raises, 800 foreign andGerman women signed a resolution requesting higher wages for all femaleemployees.66 Management did not respond until the next day when around1,000 women were standing in protest on the factory grounds. Neither theunion nor the all-male, all-German worker’s council at Pierburg supportedthis initial strike. According to a 1970 newspaper report, Pierburg’s manage-ment was not above threatening the striking women, especially the foreignones.67 Various department heads attempted to scare off the women with thethreat of firing and deporting them: “If you don’t want to work, then you’ll gowith the police to the airport!”68 The risk of deportation was real, as theirWest German residence permits were contingent upon proof of employmentand housing. Despite compromise attempts, intimidation efforts, and policeintervention, the women (who numbered 1,400 in the end) persisted untilthey achieved the following: twenty cents more per hour for Wage CategoriesII–V, a bonus of 20DM, and the establishment of a representative body toevaluate the Wage Categories of jobs.69 After only a few days, managementended the strike by agreeing to eliminate Wage Categories I and II, but, in prac-tice, Wage Category II remained.70

Two years later, on June 7, 1973, becoming impatient about the promisedwage 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 bere-categorized to Wage Category III (WC3). (2) Those with seniority should earn

10 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

more than newly-hired workers. (3) Because there are no clean work places in thefirm, 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) Thewomen who are working on the special machines are to be regrouped in WageCategory 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 bepaid as much as men. (8) There cannot be any firings due to taking too many sickdays. (9) Overtime may not be unfairly distributed. (10) Whenever one is sick andwants to go to a doctor, he or she should receive half a day paid leave. (11) Oneday a month should be paid for housekeeping [“housewife’s day”]. . . . (12)Travel money must be increased. (13) Tomorrow everyone should be able toleave 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 workerswere the main demands. In an attempt at solidarity, those on strike distributedfliers in workers’ various languages––Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, Greek,and Turkish––proclaiming: “Two months ago, 200 of our workers mustered upthe 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 majorityof the employees were satisfied with their wages, since they were not strikingalong with them . . . Colleagues, why didn’t you support us and strike with us?The demands are still valid: 1DM more an hour for everyone! “WageCategory 2” must be eliminated!”73 The organizers emphasized transethnicworker solidarity against management. After the union stepped in to negotiate,the strike ended on the second day. Management, however, maintained its goalof retaining the “Cheap Wage Categories” at all costs, leaving most dissatisfied.

Pierburg did not take the strike seriously and planned to fire and replacethe 300 workers with new, and therefore more insecure, foreign workers inthe fall. The June “warning strike” ended with the promise of negotiationsbetween management and the workers’ council, but new arrangements werenot secured nor did the union follow up.74 The foreign women who initially pro-tested their placement in Wage Category II found little support among their co-workers, 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 beno 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 theforeign women as a result.76

After such an unsatisfying result, it is little surprise that foreign women atPierburg went on strike again two months later, in August 1973, calling onceagain for the elimination of Wage Category II. The union would not supportthe strike and responded aggressively with an article in the union newslettertitled, “Guest Workers Are Not Discriminated Against: The Pierburg Strike isIllegal.”77 In a press release that was translated into Turkish, Greek, and

Her Fight is Your Fight 11

Italian, the Industrial Union of Metalworkers reported on August 15 that,“based on legal conditions in the Federal Republic, the Metalworkers Unioncannot deem the work stoppage at the A. Pierburg Company legal.”78

However, the press release continued, in order to dissipate the tensions, nego-tiations continued: “For some time the workers’ council and theMetalworkers union have been negotiating with management for an equitablepractice in the wage contracts. The hard work of the approximately 1,700employees, 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’ counciland 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 5:30A.M., twenty foreign female workers distributed fliers, announcing that in anhour workers would go on strike for the elimination of Wage Category II and1DM 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 theirsupport for the strike. At first, the German foreman just observed. Then, at6:30 A.M. sharp, he demanded that they get to work. Shortly thereafter, thepolice arrived with patrol wagons and demanded that the factory gates becleared of the striking workers. According to documentation published bystrike leaders in 1974, the following melee occurred:

One of the foremen fingers Elefteria Marmela––a Greek woman who, along withher husband, is a union member––as the organizer of the strike. As the policeattempt to arrest Marmela, she resists and a scuffle ensues. Another Greekworker has a camera with him and snaps photos . . . The police respond by confis-cating his camera. Another Greek man manages, however, to rip the camera out ofhis hand and throw it to another Greek worker. A new scuffle begins. Suddenly anofficer 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 returnedwith a bandaged arm. In the end, no one was arrested, but as the policewagons were pulling away, one officer apparently called back, “Dirty foreigners!I’ll kill you!”82 Three hours later, three VW buses filled with police officersarrived. This time, the officers surrounded the protesters and arrested threeGreeks, 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 ofthe 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. Theirchants worked. By the end of the break, 600 additional workers (male andfemale) had joined the strike, completely stopping all production at Pierburg.83

12 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

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 officersjumped out and immediately began battering the protesters. Many foreignwomen were injured and subsequently hospitalized.84 The police again attackedMarmela, injuring her severely. The media arrived, including television andradio reporters, and began filming beatings and scuffles that were aired later.The German weekly, Stern, published a photograph of two policemen dragginga foreign woman away by the arm.85 Once the cameras began recording, thepolice pulled back and there were no more arrests. By 11:40 A.M. the factoryhad closed. The striking workers had achieved almost total solidarity amongthe 2,000 foreign workers, male and female alike; likewise, the MetalworkersUnion now stepped in to protest the violent police presence.

On the third day, the strike continued, with the morning shift blocking thefactory gates in the early morning light. Several foreign female workers wentinto the factory, changed clothes, punched in, and then returned immediatelyto 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 eye-witnesses, the breakfast break again resulted in solidarity between those strikingin front of the factory gates, who were calling “Al-le-raus!” (“Every one out!”) tothose still inside.86 One participant recalled that, as workers greeted and huggedeach other through the locked gate, they would break into tears and mutual hugsand the “will to strike remained unbroken.”87 In order to hinder their reunifica-tion, management apparently hung a chain about ten meters from the factorygate, which the workers repeatedly pulled down; twelve female workers evenstood 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 turningpoint––they won the German skilled workers to their side. As the strike esca-lated, the strike committee presented the following demands: 1DM more forall 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 alikecould agree upon. The deciding moment was when the most highly skilledGerman workers in the factory, those of the tool shop, presented managementwith an ultimatum and stopped working at 9 A.M. sharp.90 When the factorygates opened at 9 A.M., the solidarity between the German and foreignworkers, which now united all workers against the management, was boister-ously celebrated. Eyewitnesses offer a slightly more romantic version of thesame event: The striking women handed each entering worker of the morningshift a red rose, to which was attached the statement, “We are expecting youat 9 o’clock.”91 The German-foreign solidarity “was a real blow to the manage-ment, who had hoped to break the strike through the loyalty of the Germanworkers,” reported eyewitnesses. “From that moment on the strike waswon.”92 Telegrams from workers at other factories arrived to express supportand solidarity.93 An eyewitness reported, “Cash donations also arrived.Everyone stopped working. There were dances for joy as the German andforeign workers hugged each other. Foreign women fainted. The German

Her Fight is Your Fight 13

workers . . . [who were] the skilled labor of the factory, gave an ultimatum to themanagement; at 10 A.M. you will have an agreement.”94 In the end, the solidarityamong the workers––male and female, skilled and unskilled, foreign andnative––changed the course of the strike, riding the momentum the foreignwomen had already set in motion.

The following morning, the first results of the negotiations were madeknown: twelve cents more per hour, effective immediately, and, beginningJanuary 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 strik-ing for twelve years!”96 The negotiations continued, and at 1 P.M. the chairmenof the local employers’ association also stepped in to thwart the spread ofworkers’ uprisings (strikes had begun breaking out in nearby areas, such as inLippstadt).97 By 4 P.M. the decision was announced: Pierburg had eliminatedLight Wage Category II, guaranteed a raise of thirty cents more per hour, andpromised a 200DM cost of living bonus.98 Together these two raises equaledfifty-three to sixty-five cents more an hour. Those on strike accepted theterms and declared themselves ready to return to work on Monday.99

However, on Monday, 150 foreign women continued to strike for payment ofthe days on strike. Management attempted to block them with trucks andshouted at them with megaphones. An office window was broken and thepolice were called in. Again, the German skilled workers stood up on behalfof the striking workers until management met their terms. Managementissued 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 ofGerman versus foreign was becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the categoryof “worker” had expanded to include all.

The Strike’s Impact

In the early 1970s, the Pierburg strike could have served as the perfect casestudy. However, it was largely misunderstood or ignored by contemporary fem-inists and progressive sociologists. The striking women at Pierburg did notnecessarily view their actions in the same ways as their contemporaries,especially those drawing on negative stereotypes of Mediterranean women. A1973 report told the story of Anna Satolias, a Greek woman who participatedin the May 1970 strike, declaring at the end that becoming a migrant was away 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 theforeman shouting at us all the time––all that in the lowest wage category, whichis called “light.” First I joined the trade union––like my husband––then wewomen 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

14 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

supposed to be only for beginners, although we had been working five or six yearsin this category.101

The article continues, pointing out that that same year Pierburg promotedAnna’s husband, Nikiforus, to the position of toolsetter, and placed himtogether with his wife and her colleagues in the machine room. “Perhaps,”Anna said, “the firm thought we would be more docile then, because I wouldhave to do what my husband said.102 “Perhaps,” Nikiforus responded, “thefirm thought that as a toolsetter I would earn so much that I could let mywife stay at home––and there were even colleagues who said such thingsaloud.”103 Anna reported incredulously to the West German women’s maga-zine, Jasmin: “The firm might well have thought that he would leave his wifeat home, and I would obey him.”104 Even though sociologist Kosack centersher 1973 discussion of the Pierburg strike on the strong figure of AnnaSatolias, her thesis is a nationalistic one: migration to western Europe couldbe a step toward emancipation for foreign women. “This is a term [equalrights] that she [Anna] has learned in Western Germany for the first time.”105

In a troubling way, Kosack locates foreign women’s exploitation in WestGermany solely in their home cultures, which are placed in marked contrastto that of their host country: “[Migrant women] are virtually their husbands’ ser-vants. Their activities are limited to those typical in their home countries andindeed for all women in pre-capitalist societies––the kitchen, the children andthe appropriate religious rituals.”106 The sociologist saw the strike as a sign ofa rising tide of women’s liberation movements and a raised consciousness,especially on the part of migrant women, who through their exploitation inWest Germany had apparently come to realize a new feminist consciousness:

It is the extreme form of discrimination, which makes migrant women fight. Theyget much lower pay than male workers, have to suffer authoritarian behavior fromthe almost inevitably male foremen and, in addition, have a second day’s workwaiting for them at home––household and children––while their husbands con-sider it their right to relax after work. This obvious injustice mobilizes manymigrant women against their previously unquestioned position as their husbands’servants.107

However, to assume that migrant women were necessarily less progressive thanWest German women was a fallacy. It was not until 1956 that West Germanwomen were allowed to take jobs without their husbands’ permission.108 Thisinterpretation fails to take into account migrant women’s unique circumstances,which compounded gender discrimination and the poor conditions “guestworkers” (both male and female) had experienced in West Germany over theprevious ten years. It was these very foreign women from the Mediterranean,not West German women, who first instigated successful protests againstsexist wages in West Germany.

Her Fight is Your Fight 15

The Pierburg strike also holds important lessons about West Germanwomen’s political consciousness and the West German feminist movement inthe early 1970s. Although foreign women protested the light wage categoriesbefore West German women did, this point was not always remembered. By1973, West German women had not launched significant challenges to misusesof Wage Category II. One reporter wrote after the conclusion of the Pierburgstrikes that foreign women’s heightened political consciousness impressedhim, especially when compared to that of German women: “German femaleworkers of this wage category [II] have neither at the Pierburg factories or else-where demonstrated that they were prepared to strike.”109 He continued with aneven more stinging critique: “Among the German women of this wage categorythere is unfortunately missing, to a large extent, leadership personalities.” Andyet, despite the significance of the Pierburg strike, it was all too easily forgottenin the larger narrative of the German women’s movement. It was not until 1978that media reports on West German women’s efforts to challenge wage cat-egories first appeared and, significantly, they did not reference the Pierburgstrike at all.110 The Pierburg strikes quickly faded from view. In these laterreports, it is a German Industrial baker, Irene Einemann, who is credited asthe first to challenge the sexist use of wage categories:

At long last, in the spring of 1978, Irene Einemann, a female baker’s assistant inthe North German city of Delmenhorst, filed suit demanding that her pay bebrought up to the level of her male colleagues and won the case. Her wage wasraised from the previous DM6.86 per hour to DM8.24 per hour, plus an additionalsupplement of DM100 [that] her male counterparts were earning also, and thedecision was made retroactive, with back pay due her as of January 1, 1976.111

When reporting on Einemann, syndicated newspaper commentator TatjanaPawlowski, five years after the Pierburg strike, (falsely) credited Einemann asthe first to stop “complaining” and protest her Wage Category: “Injusticecannot be overcome if justifiable criticism limits itself to complaining . . .Who,until now, would have had the courage to oppose the long-established wage pol-icies of many industrial enterprises?”112 The courageous actions of the strikingforeign women in 1973 at Pierburg seem to have been forgotten or lost on thebroader West German population.

These lesser-known strikes provide important lessons about solidarity andthe conditions that support it. First, certain homogenizing conditions––such aspoor worker housing and discrimination––promoted solidarity among foreignworkers, uniting even antagonistic national groups such as Turks and Greeksin new ways. Also workplace sexism, wage differentials, and low representationamong women encouraged solidarity among foreign and native women. Finally,the solidarity of all workers, despite the union’s disinterest, provided the tippingpoint for the illegal Pierburg strike, which challenged the traditional role unionshave played in representing workers and negotiating on their behalf.

16 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

The impact of the Pierburg strike and other strikes led by foreign workersin the early 1970s were not one-dimensional. Indeed, the Pierburg and Fordstrikes were not truly “foreigners’ strikes,” as all of the strikes fundamentallyaltered the working conditions, workers’ solidarity, and wage structure of theentire West German economy by challenging the wage categories and theexploitation of foreign labor upon which it depended. Significantly, the strikesdrew 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 ChancellorWilly 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 developedconfidence.”114 Both Brandt’s and the Ford management’s comments effectivelyinvoked the new image of “guest workers” in 1973 West Germany. After morethan a decade of life and work in West Germany, they had indeed developed apolitical awareness that was effectively channeled into a successful labor move-ment. “The power that lay behind such a strike [at Pierburg] in the automobileparts supply industry demonstrates, for the first time, a real threat to WestGermany’s Fordist production model,” commented journalist Martin Rapp in2006.115 However, the Pierburg strikes challenged more than just the WestGerman economic and industrial model. In 1979, economist Martin Slaterreported that foreigners’ successful labor activism––not just the recession of1973––directly affected employers’ decision to end the recruitment of temporaryforeign 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, hard-working migrant of the 1950s and 1960s had apparently transformed into aradical member of the working class. . . . Following close on the heels of protestsand demonstrations by migrants over their housing conditions, these strikeswere seen by governments as a sure sign that migrants were politicallyunreliable.116

In other words, “guest workers’” political consciousness and transformation intomembers of a larger, national working class helped to end the exploitative labor-recruitment 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 “guestworker” program, which was in many ways never temporary and never reallyended, as this population continues to impact Germany today.

The narrative of the Pierburg strike is neither a tale of victimization nor atriumph of good over evil. Rather it tells of an evolution and slow integration of

Her Fight is Your Fight 17

a supposedly temporary migrant population into a larger class and national con-sciousness. Foreign workers’ activism and collective bargaining, which occurredfrom the 1960s through 1973, provided an early sign of foreign workers’ commit-ment to West Germany as their home––a transition occurring earlier than scho-lars have previously acknowledged.117 Historians have long connected thedecision to stay in West Germany as occurring after the 1973 official end ofrecruitment. However, I would argue that foreign workers, who had beensaying for over a decade that they planned to return home, demonstratedeven earlier, through their activism, a more permanent investment in WestGerman society. Workers’ protests, whether about housing or wages, demon-strated 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 ifthey were not officially included in the national polity, calling into questionlater 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 memoriesof their deplorable train rides to West Germany and the long and tedious appli-cation process that preceded those trips.118 However, material conditions alonecannot explain labor activism: There was also a more complicated social realityembedded in “guest workers’” negotiations with their increasingly permanentlives in West Germany. Labor activism for foreign workers in the 1970sserved an integrating function by combining demands for economic, social,and, in some cases, legal parity––demands that signaled a claim on “occu-pational community” and a newfound sense of permanence in West Germansociety. These strikes raised important questions about who was a de factoGerman citizen and “German” worker long before the immigrant populationdominated public political debates.

NOTES

1. “Rebellion am Fließband: Erfahrungen aus Frauenstreiks,” Barbara Schleich, WDR IIDecember 13, 1973, 15 min.

2. Ibid.3. “Dossiers: Die Chronik der neuen Frauenbewegung: 1973.” http://www.frauenmedia-

turm.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 createunique forms of discrimination. For more on “intersectionality,” see Kimberle Crenshaw,“Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women ofColor,” 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); ChandraMohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” FeministReview 30 (1988): 61–88; Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

18 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

(San Francisco, 1987); Irene Browne, and Joya Misra, “The Intersection of Gender and Race inthe 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 Ishan Cetin, 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 Cetin, 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 againstthe idea that ethnic Poles chose between class interests and national consciousness, whichChristoph Klessman terms, “double loyalty” in Klessman, “Zjednoczenie Zawodowe Polskie(ZZP-Polnische Berufsvereinigung) und Alter Verband im Ruhrgebiet,” InternaltionaleWissenschaftliche 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 seinerinneren Struktur und in seinem Verhaltnis zu den Klassenkampfen in den verschiedenenRegionen 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, ‘Nachstes Jahr Kehren wir zuruck . . . Die Geschichte der turkischen

‘Gastarbeiter’ in der Bundesrepublik (Gottingen, 2005); Gottfried E. Voelker, “More ForeignWorkers––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 ofForeign Labor in Germany: Seasonal Workers, Forced Laborers, Guest Workers, trans. WilliamTempler (Ann Arbor, 1993). Herbert points out that ninety percent of foreign males were blue-collar 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 turkischen Arbeitsmigranten und ihre Arbeitgeber,” in Nachest

Jahr, 101–136.19. Manuela Bojadzijev, Die windige Internationale: Rassismus und Kampfe der Migration

(Munster, 2008), 151.20. Der Bundesminister fur Arbeit und Sozialordnung, Bonn, an BAVAV Nurnberg, 2. Mai

1962, BArch B119/3071 II.21. Ibid.22. Giacomo Maturi, Willi Baumgartner, Stefan Bobolis, Konstantin Kustas, Vittorio

Bedolli, Guillermo Arrillage, and Sumer Goksuyer, eds., Hallo Mustafa! Gunther Turkarkadası ile konusuyor (Heidelberg, 1966), 22.

23. Ibid.24. Hunn, Nachest Jahr, 117.25. Herbert, A History of Foreign Labor, 241.26. Ali Gitmez, Gocmen Iscilerin Donusu: Return Migration of Turkish 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 Hos geldiniz: Turk Isci Arkadaslarımız icin Kılavuz,

Eilermark AG, Spinnerei u. Zwirnerei, Gronau, (2 May 1973, Milli Kutuphanesi 5262, DM4671–73), 17–19.

31. Ibid., 17–18.32. Author’s interview, “F,” Berlin 2003.

Her Fight is Your Fight 19

33. Mathilde Jamin reports that Turkish workers worked faster than their West Germancoworkers, who complained that they were “spoiling the Akkord.” “Migrationserfarungen,”in Fremde Heimat: Eine Geschichte der Einwanderung/Yaban, Sılan olur, eds. Aytac Eryılmazand Mathilde Jamin (Essen, 1998), 216.

34. Hunn, “Die Rezession von 1966/67: Auswirkungen und Reaktionen” in Nachstes 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 undGewerkschaften (Offenbach, 1974), 22. This is a published source complied by the collective,express Zeitung fur sozialistische Betriebs und Gewerkschaftsarbeit, in which the editors col-lected strike materials and interviewed participants of the strikes during the year 1973.

37. Spontane Streiks, 18.38. Hans Schuster, “Wilde Streiks als Warnsignal,” Suddeutsche Zeitung, September 13,

1969; “Streikbewegung greift auf den Bergbau uber: Tarifgesprache schon in dieser Woche,“General-Anzeiger fur Bonn und Umgebungen, September 8, 1969; “Streikbewegung greift aufden Bergbau uber: Eisen erkaltet im Hochofen,” Westdeutsche Rundschau Wuppertal,September 8, 1969; Wilhem Throm, “Wilde Streiks treffen die Gewerkschaften,” FrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung, September 8, 1969; “Eine große Lohnwelle kundigt sich an: DieStahlarbeiter fordern 14 Prozent mehr,” Franfurter Allgemeine, September 8, 1969;“Lohnverhandlung am Donnerstag,” Solinger Tagblatt, September 8, 1969; “Auch imBergbau . . .” Butzbacher Zeitung, September 8, 1969; “Jetzt Streiks um Bergbau: NeueLohnforderungen im Rheinland,” Hannoversche Rundschau, September 9, 1969; “WildeStreikwelle nun auch im Saar-Bergbau: Tarifpartner bemuhen sich um schnelleEntspannung,” 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 Turken 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 Wieslochwent on strike to argue for the right to use their vacation days contiguously. “Zur Rolle derAuslandischen Arbeiter,” in Spontane Streiks, 30.

47. “Einwanderung und Selbstbewusstsein: Der Fordstreik 1973,” in Geschichte undGedachtnis in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft: Migration zwischen historishcer Rekonstruktionund Erinnerungspolitik, eds. Jan Motte and Rainer Ohliger (Essen, 2004); Der Spiegel,September 3, 1973; Karin Hunn, “Der ‘Turkenstreik’ bei Ford von August 1973: Verlauf undAnalyse” and “Die zeitgenossischen Deutungen des Fordstreiks und dessen Konsequenzenfur die turkischen Arbeitnehmer,” in Nachstes Jahr, 243–261; Manuela Bojadzijev, Diewindige Internationale, 157–162.

48. “Die Turken probten den Aufstand,” Die Zeit, September 7, 1973.49. “Beispiele fur Maßregelungen,” in Spontane Streiks, 46; Hans-Gunter Kleff,

“Tauschung, Selbsttauschung, Enttauschung und Lernen: Anmerkungen zum Fordstreik imJahre 1973” in Geschichte und Gedachtnis, 251–259.

50. “Die Turken 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 andNon-Socialist Society (New York, 1981), 100.

54. W. Rohmert and J. Rutenfranz, Arbeitswissenschaftliche Beurteilung der Belastung undBeanspruchung an unterschiedlichen industriellen Arbeitsplatzen (Berlin, 1975).

55. “Lohntarifvertrag vom 2.6.1965 fur die gewerblichen Arbeitnehmer der feinkera-mischen Industrie,” Bayern quoted in, BAVAV Turkei an BAVAV Nurnberg 7.12.1965BArch B 119/3073.

20 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013

56. For a comparison of similar cases in the United States against discriminatory protectivelegislation, 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 Turkei,” November 1969 BArch B119/4031; 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 Auslandische Arbeiter––Ein Gegner- Ein Kampf/ Almanve Meslektaslar Tek Rakıp tek Mucadele, 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 uber die Arbeitskonflikte Auslandischer

Arbeiter bei Pierburg Neuss im Februar 1975,” in Ihr Kampf ist Unser Kampf: Ursachen,Verlauf und Perspektiven der Auslanderstreiks 1973 in der BRD (Teil I),eds. EckartHildebrandt and Werner Olle (Offenbach, 1975), 155; The source, Pierburg-Neuss: Deutscheund Auslandische 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 Beschaftigten 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 “Telefongesprach 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” inPierburg-Neuss: Deutsche und Auslandische Arbeiter––Ein Gegner- Ein Kampf, 27; DoMiTArchive, Pierburg file.

79. Ibid.80. The narrative of the Pierburg strike is told by the striking workers themselves. A social-

ist industry and union publication collective, named “express,” documented strikes across WestGermany, focusing on fourteen different companies and published their findings in 1974 tomake 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, IhrKamf ist unser Kampf. Ursachen, Verlauf und Perspektiven der Auslanderstreiks 1973 in derBRD. Teil I, (Offenbach, 1975); Manuela Bojadzijev, Die windige Internationale: Rassismusund Kampfe der Migration (Munster, 2008).

81. “Pierburg” in Reihe Betrieb und Gewerkschaften: Redaktionskollektiv ‘express,’editions, Spontane Streiks 1973 Krise der Gewerkschaftspolitik (Verlag 2000 GmbH, Januar1974), 79.

82. Ibid.

Her Fight is Your Fight 21

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,” Kolner Stadtanzeiger, August 22, 1973; “Unternehmensleitung in Neuss glaubtan 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 vorallem auslandische Arbeiterinnen,” Vorwarts, 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 DerDeutschen 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 InternationalDevelopment 14 (1979): 4, emphasis added.

117. Ursula Mehrlander, “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 theGerman History Society 30 (2012): 550–73.

22 ILWCH, 84, Fall 2013