turkish ‘lumpenproletariat’- west germany's industrial reserve army

7/28/2019 TURKISH LUMPENPROLETARIAT- WEST GERMANY'S INDUSTRIAL RESERVE ARMY

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German Life and Letters 39:4July 19860016-8777 $2.00

THE TURK ISH LUMPENPROLETARIAT:WEST GERMANYS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE ARMYANTON NDEREGCEN

Since 1945, migratory movements on an unprecedented scale have taken placethroughout the world, with Europe on centre stage. The scope of this move-ment makes it one of the largest of its kind in history. Western Europe hasnow become home, if only tenuously, to somewhere between 14 and 15 millionmigrants. Oddly enough, emigration and immigration countries do not likebeing designated as such and do not call their immigrants or emigrants by thosenames. The Federal Republic of Germany, in spite of the official orthodoxiesand public protestations, has become a land of immigration.

What was to become a continuing and swelling stream of Turkish migrantsinto the Federal Republic of Germany began in 1956, when twelve Turkishworkers and their families were brought to Kiel for vocational training. Thenumbers ofTurkish workers who went abroad in the period from 1956 to 1961remained minuscule. I n the period immediately after that, a series of events,both in West Germany and in Turkey itself, began to change drastically thesize of this migration flow. In Turkey, fundamental political changes werematerializing in 1960 with the overthrow of the Menderes regime by the army.Because of the high surplus of unskilled and skilled labour not utilized withinthe Turkish economic system, the new military regime facilitated labourmigration. Turkey was determined to build its own economy and to utilizemigration as a component of modernization and development. It was assumedthat the Turkish migrant worker who went to West Germany would improvehis vocational skills, acquire modern standards of living, and thus become aninnovative change agent who, upon his return to Turkey, would contributeto the modernization of that economy and society. This concept found itsmanifestation in the development of what is known as the rotation principle.This principle implies that the workers should rotate between Turkey and WestGermany on a scheduled basis, staying in the host country for a stipulated periodof no more than three to five years. Surveys indicate that the Turkish migrantsanticipate leaving West Germany within three to five years of their arrival,but what occurs is a continual series of postponements that prolongs the stayabroad. This expressed intention of returning home in a short time, coupledwith the extreme difficulties of realizing this desire (as will be explained later),has been appropriately termed by Braun Heimkehrillusion. The termGastarbeiter denotes a belief that such workers could be utilized like spareparts; they would come to West Germany to perform the tasks which Germanworkers dislike, and then depart, leaving a minimal impact on German society.However, the situation for Turkey and for West Germany has definitely notevolved as expected.In the first Five Year Development Plan for Turkey, implemented in 1963,


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WEST GERMANY 'S INDUSTR IAL RESERVE A RM Y 315the export of surplus manpower was one of the most important measures forattaining the Turkish goal of a set growth rate.2 t was expected that Turkeywould be the recipient of a significant foreign exchange income, based on thelarge remittances sent home by the migrant workers. It was assumed that thisincome would be valuable, both for equalizing the balance-of-trade deficitaccruing to Turkey and for making capital available for internal productiveinvestments. Over a certain period of time, this would open sufficient employ-ment opportunities for the Turkish labour force, thus negating the need formigration. Viewed in this context, emigration was thought to be a transitionalprocess for the Turks as they worked to modernize their industry and towesternize their society. The need for migration was thought to be in directcorrelation to the developmental gap. As the gap was closed, the need for furtheremigration would be correspondingly reduced.With the 1961closing of the border between East and West Germany, theinflux of Germans from the former Eastern Territories as well as from EastGermany into West Germany stopped abruptly. At the Siemens plant in WestBerlin alone2,000 positions became vacant ~vernight.~t a time of continu-ing expansion of the economy, West Germany was forced to go further afieldthan in the past to seek the manpower necessary for its booming economicgrowth. In 1961 West Germany and Turkey signed a bilateral labour recruit-ment agreement with general stipulations for recruitment, employment, andwages. Recruitment procedures were to be the prerogative of the TurkishEmployment Service and the official West German recruitment office. Thereforethe Turkish workers were sought after and actively courted to come to WestGermany, a fact that firmly counters the claim that Turks came to WestGermany of their own accord to take away jobs from native Germans. TheTurks are in West Germany as a result of policies made at the highest levelof the West German government. Turkey did not wish its workers to berecruited through private arrangements and thus face higher risks of exploitationand discrimination. On the other hand, the West German government wasunder pressure from union organizations; they feared that such private contractswould undercut the current wages of German workers.During the years of the mass immigrations into the industrial North(1965-1973), 85% of all Turkish emigrants went to West Germany. Throughthis emigration Turkey lost about 34% of all skilled workers. There is anadditional dimension to this drain of skilled manpower that is critical to thedevelopmental potential of Turkey. All candidates for employment in WestGermany have to have at least an elementary school education. Thus the wholeof the Turkish adult migrant labour population in West Germany has aminimum of a primary school diploma. Furthermore, about 20% of all firstgeneration Turkish workers in West Germany have an education beyond theprimary school level. When one juxtaposes these data against the figurecf 55%of the adult population in Turkey being illiterate, one immediately sees theseriousness of the drain of better educated workers from Turkey. They representnot only a major proportion of the skilled labour force, but also a majorportion of the literate population in the country.* The absence of many tens


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316 WEST GERMANY 'S INDUSTRIA L RESERVE ARMYof thousands of such workers from the home country has had a considerableimpact upon the ability of Turkey to undertake its own developmental pro-grammes. It must be noted that emigration is a selective and negative processwhich hinders, rather than assists, the development prospects. It is selectivein respect to age (it is the young adults who leave), to sex (both on culturaland religious grounds, 82% of all Turkish workers who went to West Germanybetween 1961and June 1973were male), and to working capacity (the mostcompetent, strong and ambitious emigrate). Therefore the emigration of thesebest qualified workers strikes Turkey at the very heart of its development efforts:it causes the shortage of skilled workers and the abundance of unskilledworkers.5

In order to ensure a steady flow of Turkish workers to the industrializedNorth, theEECas a unit even proposed that Turkey should eventually becomea full member of the EEC.6 t is important to note that in Western Europethe market situation has benefited the industrial immigration countries, beingin a position of clear dominance over the labour-supplying countries. The resultis that the flow of manpower, its structure and frequency, was guided by theneeds of the labour-importing countries.

Together with their families, the Turkish workers now number more thanone million persons, or more than one quarter of all guestworkers in WestGermany. Today, the number of Turkish workers and their families makesWest Berlin the city with the third largest Turkish population in the world.Because of the cultural and social patterns that are very distinct and differentfrom those of the Germans, and because of employment and linguistic barriers,the Turkish migrants seek companionship and community among their ownethnic group ^ This inevitably leads to the formation of isolated enclaveswithin the urban areas. In the absence of strong and vigorous efforts on thepart of German officials to give the Turks the opportunity to choose andexperience as much integration as they desire, the tendency toward ghettoizationis increasing. Housing for the Turkish migrants tends to be the oldest and leastdesired, and rents and density are proportionally higher than for nativeGermans. The housing conditions of the Turks in West Germany are but anadditional manifestation of the social, political, and economic marginality thatthey experience. It is best described by the discriminatory public policies, thedeliberate restriction of access to certain segments of the housing market, andthe quiet toleration by the authorities of the private discrimination carried onby landlords and estate agents. It appears premature to suggest that Germancities have developed the typical ghetto situation seen in theUSA. This is notto say that West Germany has doneabetter job ormade more positive effortsin housing the migrants. Rather, the immigration of a foreign work force isa recent phenomenon, the one of the Turkish migrants is only about two decadesold. With time, and the exacerbation of current conditions, the creation ofminority enclaves, segregated and shunted away from the other sections ofGerman society, can be anticipated.The immigration of Turkish workers benefited West Germany in severalways. First, the Turks filled the labour slots which structurally already existed,


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WEST GERMANY'S INDUSTRI AL RESERVE ARM Y 317but for which there were no German workers. Second, the shortening of theworking week with sustained wage increases and social benefits for the nativeGermans was made possible by the presence of the migrant workers. Third,since the Turks tend to be employed in those categories of work that Germanswere anxious to leave, it meant considerable social upward mobility andimprovement in the working and living conditions for the Germans.8There-fore the Turkish migrants form an 'underclass', not only in the sense ofsupporting the higher positions and mobility of German workers, but as a classof workers who would not be able to compete in an industrial country foranything but the most menial and undesirable jobs. Hoffmann-Nowotny refersto this creation of anew societal stratum beneath the existing social structureof the immigrant country as a process of 'Unterschi~htung'.~Initially it was assumed that Turkey would reap the benefitsof areturningindustrial work force which had acquired training and experience in WestGermany based on the previously explained rotational principle. However, inthe period between January 1973 and the end of 1975 a series of events per-manently changed the manner in which the Turkish workers were viewed inWest Germany. The oil embargo, the subsequent fourfold increase in the priceof crude oil, the recession which eased only slowly, the unemployment of morethan one million West German workers, and the growing awareness of theimpact of the Turkish workers and their dependants upon German society,all led to the following scenario: The rigorous rotation system of migrants wasabandoned; and West Germany started to implement regulations to protectthe jobs and employment opportunities of its own nationals.Asa result, employ-ment permits for migrant workers are renewed only if no German nationalsapply for the same position. Spouses and children of foreign workers whoimmigrated after December 1, 1974 are refused a work permit. Therefore,a large number of young Turks who are of legal age to seek employment arebarred from doing so, because they entered West Germany after December1, 1974. Any Turk who seeks to have a permit renewed, has stamped into hispassport a list of those cities where he is no longer able to settle. When theforeign population in a given city exceeds6%of the total population, that citycan apply to its state government for designation as an overburdened settlementarea. If the designation is granted, the city can declare an end to all furtherimmigration of foreigners.It was assumed that large numbers of Turks would return to their homeland,taking their unemployment with them. But nothing of the sort occurred.'0 Asa rule, migrant workers are not in competition for the same employmentopportunities as the German workers. German nationals have little desire toexperience the downward mobility inherent in taking on the jobs held bymigrants. Therefore the unemployment rates for the migrant workers aregenerally no higher than those for the entire national work force. On the otherhand, successful Turks did not want to return home and to subject themselvesto employment risks which they had overcome by leaving Turkey in thefirst place." Unemployed guestworkers were provided with a variety ofunemployment benefits and services that cushioned the severity of their


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318 WEST GERMANY S INDU STRIA L RESERVE ARMYunemployment. Thus housing allowances, family childrens allowances, andmedical care were all available. The sum total of such benefits might easilyexceed the option for earned income in Turkey.The immigration ban of 1973 also generated a tremendous backlog of Turkswishing to emigrate. For a period of twelve months beyond 1973, WestGermany continued to receive applications at its recruiting offices in Turkey.At the end of this period, a total of nearly 1.4 million Turks had requestedimmigration visas to work in West Germany.In spite of the immigration ban, the Turkish population in West Germanyto this day has increased appreciably due to its high birth rate and familyreunions. A Turkish worker who has been working in West Germany con-tinuously for four consecutive years may have his spouse oin him. All childrenunder the age of sixteen are allowed to join their parents in West Germanyafter the migrant worker has worked in the country continuously for twoconsecutive years.I2 There are many other conditions that have to be fulfilledbefore a family reunion can take place: The migrant worker must prove thathe has adequate living facilities for his family, that his income is sufficient tosupport his family, that he has no police record (a traffic violation may jeopar-dize his application), etc. In spite of this, many family reunions did take placeand still do. Those Turks who have their families in West Germany no longerhave an interest or need to send remittances home. At the present, Turkeyseconomy is accumulating large deficits because of the loss of this importantsource of foreign exchange. With the introduction of the immigration ban in1973, and with the continuation of employment permit renewals for foreignworkers, West Germany has created a stable migrant worker populationcommitted to a long-term residence. The Turkish work force has become anindustrial army in reserve, functioning at aminimum level of efficacy duringtimes of unemployment, but ready to be called upon in times of need. As theGerman working-age population continues to decline, the need for this laboursupply may become quite acute. It is in this sense that West Germany isspeaking of integration of the migrant workers. It is definitely not an integrationaimed at the enhancement of either assimilation or pluralism, but rather aprocess to institutionalize marginality. 3 Therefore the role the foreigner playson the labour market does not diminish. On the contrary, it will be the second-generation immigrants, the sons and daughters of the Turks born and raisedin West Germany, who will fill asignificant number of the employment oppor-tunities open to foreign labour.I4 The lurking danger of such an arrangementis obvious; with partial integration into the German culture these second genera-tion Turks will hold values similar to those of the German workers in respectto employment expectations. They will no longer be content with the dirty,dreary dead end jobs which their parents took.15 These young Turks nolonger use the people in the villages from which their parents emigrated asa reference group, but rather their German peers. They do not assess theirstatus in the light of the social hierarchy in rural Turkey, but in terms of urbanFrankfurt, Munich, or Berlin. They recognize that their daily lives are con-stricted and continually influenced by discriminatory practices and this can


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WEST GERMANY S INDUSTRIAL RESERVE ARM Y 319only move them into a position of tension and conflicl with the present Germansocial system. 6 Unless they are allowed to participate in West German societywith the opportunity of a new way of life which approximates that of theirGerman neighbours, the relationship between Turkish workers and Germannationals will deteriorate. Bodenbender sees these developments as einegefahrliche Zeitbombe. 7 Despite this gloomy prognosis, West Germans arenot yet ready to take the next step. With the assertion that West Germanyis not an immigration country, most West Germans are reluctant either tosend the guestworkers home or to allow them to become citizens. A foreignercan be naturalized, provided he does not have a criminal record and is ableto maintain his family. Eight years is the minimum residence required beforeapplication can be made. Even though this residence requirement is necessary,it is an insufficient condition for naturalization. Naturalization is consideredas an act of grace - and since grace is coming from God, but rarely from thestate, it is not practised vis-ri-vis foreign workers unless they are married to aGerman.Ig

There exists a great deal of administrative discretion and latitude in howthe immigration laws are interpreted and administered. It is this lack ofspecificity as regards the protection and rights accorded to the Turkish migrantsthat allows abuses and questionable practices to occur. When civil and politicalrights are relegated to adependence upon administrative discretion, the possi-bility arises that private prejudices will become public policies.20 n additionto this, the legal rights of the Turkish migrants residing in the Federal Republicare scattered through a maze of international agreements, state and federallaws, precedents established by court rulings and procedural details.When the Turkish workers were invited by West Germany to come andparticipate in the economic sector of the country, it was assumed that theseworkers would not have an interest in participating in the cultural, politicaland social sectors of Germany. The presupposition was that they would remainon the periphery of German society, except for the manner in which they offertheir labour. The fact is that West Germany has created an integrated labourmarket with the immigrant workers, but maintains a separatist, perhaps evena segregationist social system. It is true that the government in Bonn is makingcertain efforts in respect to assimilation of its existing foreign labour force. Butthese efforts are generally minimal and half-hearted. As a rule, long-termdecisions on the future of the Turks in West Germany are being postponedand ignored. With the course set neither in the direction of integrating the Turksinto German society nor toward eventual return to their homeland, a set ofsocial policies has developed that leaves the position of the Turks in WestGermany ambiguous and ill-defined. Such benign neglect has the cumulativeeffect that the social policies toward the Turkish migrants continue to reinforcetheir marginality. West Germany is neither ready nor willing to stake out aclear direction for its relations to the Turkish workers and their families. Publicpronouncements emphasize the need for some minimal level of integration ofthe Turkish migrants, but simultaneously the social policies ensure that suchintegration does not occur. The basis for this indecision on the part of the


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320 WEST GERMANYS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE ARMYGerman government and those in the industrial sector is the fact that thefundamental economic role of the Turkish worker has not been acknowledged.There continues to be the quiet and rarely discussed belief that somehow theTurks would gradually disappear and leave West Germany to the Germans again.

The conclusion is rather pessimistic. The Federal Republic of Germany hasbecome a culturally and ethnically pluralistic society, in spite of the failure ofthe native population to legitimate this fact. German policy-makersand politicalleaders are confronted with the continued belief of many citizens that thepresence of the guestworkers is the main reason for Germanys high unemploy-ment and inflation rate. Alsocommon is the view that the presence of the foreignworkers, in particular that of the Turkish migrant workers and their families,is having a profound negative impact upon the cultural and ethnic identityof West Germany. Given current production and labour arrangements, theeconomic necessity of the Turkish migrants is obvious. But the simultaneousrejection of any political, cultural and social integration of these same workersand their families creates a situation of inherent tension. The policies andpractices that are currently in force and govern their lives, are confused andcontradictory and sustain their institutional marginality. For over twenty yearsTurkey has supported the exportationof its workers, but was unable to mobilizeeffectively the benefits which were to accrue from this through remittances andexperience with Western industrial life. Today, Turkey remains essentially asit was in 1956, when the first Turkish migrants went to West Germany: stillunderdeveloped, still with high unemployment, still with a small skilled workforce, and still with few internal resources whereby to change its condition.

NOTESR. Braun, Sozio-kulturelle Problem der Eingliederung Italimischer Arbeitskrajle in der Schweiz, ZurichN. K . Abadan-Unat et al., Migration and Developmrnt, Ankara 1976, p. 28.Personal interview with Theophil Swadda, director of the Siemens AG in West Berlin, 3 July

1985.Ahmet Aker, A Study of Turkish Labour Migration to Germany, International Conferenceon

W. R. Bohning, Some Thoughts on Emigration from the Mediterranean Basin, InternationalMario5 Nikolinakos, The Concept of the European South and the North-South Problem inMiteinander leben: Bi lanr und Perspektium, Berlin 1985, p. 30.

1970, p. 15.

Migrant Workers, Berlin 1975, p. 475.Labour Review, 3 (1975), 251-277.Europe, International Conferenceon Migrant Workers, Berlin 1975, p. 20 .* P. R. Kleindorfer, Ayse Kudat, Economic and Managerial Aspects of Foreign Labor in WestGermany, Pmprint Series, Berlin 1974, p. 3.

Hans-Joachim Hoffman-Nowotny, European Migration after the Second World War, Paperpresented to the Conference on Migration, New Harmony, Indiana, 14 April 1976, p. 10.l o Martin Frey, Auslanderpolitik in Europa, Aus Politik und Zcilgcschichte,B 32 (1984), B32.Arbeitnehmer in ihre Heimat, Berlin 1983, p. 60.Riickkehr: Information ru rechtlichm, finantiellen und praktischm Fragm bei der Riickkehr tiirkischer


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WEST GERMANYS INDUSTRIAL RESERVE ARMY 321I A reduction of the age limit to six years has been proposed by several members of the Bundesrat(Pazarkaya, p. 48).l 3 Marios Nikolinakos, The New Dimensions in the Employment of Foreign Workers, Inter-national Confnenceon Migrant Workns, Berlin 1975, p. 5. Ayse Kudat, Ali Gitmez, Emigration Efects on the Turkish Countryside, Berlin 1975, p. 18.l 5 Hoffman-Nowotny, p. 10.l 6 Citizenship in Germany is based upon lineage. It is quite different from the situation in, forinstance, the USA, where any child born in the country, regardlessof the nationality and citizen-ship of the parents, is automatically considered to be an American citizen.I W . Bodenbender, Zwischenbilanz der Auslanderpolitik, Paper presented to the Conferenceon BildungsproblemeundZukunftsemartungen der Kinder Tiirkischer Gastarbeiter, Munich 1976.I* Yuksel Pazarkaya, Spuren des Erots: Zur Lage der auslandischen Arbeitn, Zurich 1983, p. 40.

Friedrich Franz, Die Rechtsstellung der auslandischen Arbeitnehmer in der BundesrepublikDeutschland, Gastarbeitn: Anabsen und Bmchte, Frankfurt a.M . 1972, p. 42.O Personal interview with Gianna Chimaris, secretary and member of theAusliinderberatungsstelle ur die Bezirke Kreuzberg und Tiergarten, Berlin, 5 July 1985.

turkish ‘lumpenproletariat’- west germany's industrial reserve army

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