Long Breath
Willing, cheap and healthy – that's what the German economy expected from the labour it recruited from abroad.
All potential labour migrants had to undergo a health check in their country of origin before they were allowed to work in Germany. At the German liaison office in Istanbul, this spirometer was used to rule out possible lung dysfunctions...
...how this calculation worked out is shown by the slogans used to vent during the smoke breaks – because the lung volume, which was considered healthy, was also used to amplify the demands for better working and living conditions with megaphones.
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Lung volume measuring device, late 1960s -
Film poster, 1974 & matchbox, early 1980s
Long breath – background information
The everyday lives of many migrant workers were (and still are) often characterised by hard physical labour, low wages, poor and overpriced accommodation, discrimination and racism. Many people perceived the health checks that took place in their countries of origin as an intrusive imposition. Women were also required to undergo a pregnancy test. If pregnancies were overlooked and women were nevertheless placed, they were regarded as controversial cases of ‘misplacement’; employers wanted above all to avoid the costly ‘problem’ of maternity protection. Around ten per cent of those examined were excluded from placement. The reasons for rejection were varied – conspicuous scars could suffice – and allowed a high degree of discretion. The so-called migrant labour struggles, which then took place in Germany and were mostly organised by migrants themselves, demanded not only better working conditions but also changes in the reality of migrant life. They reached their peak in 1973 with the particularly well-known labour disputes at the Ford plants in Cologne and the strike by women at Pierburg in Neuss. While the Ford strike escalated into a split in the workforce, alienation between migrant employees and the representative bodies and a massive police operation, the strikers at Pierburg achieved a major success: German colleagues joined the strike and jointly fought for the abolition of light wage group 2. The strike can be seen as a milestone in the fight to equalise the wages of migrant employees, but also of female and male employees.
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One of the strike leaders, Baha Türgün, on 28 August 1973 with a megaphone at the Ford plants near Cologne-Niehl. -
Employees in front of the factory premises during the strike at the Neuss-based automotive supplier Pierburg in August 1973.
