Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

German trade unions and Polish migrant workers 205
an epidemic’ (Foundation Stone 10/91: 7). In May 1993 IG BAU demanded, in a joint
declaration with the employers’ association, the abolition of the contract for services
system, with an immediate limit on the numbers of East European workers with
German employers. At that time IG BAU was in accordance with the proposal of
the social democratic party that the contract for services system should be changed
into a new guestworker programme:
IG BAU joined the campaign to replace the contract for services employment
with an immediate temporary limited employment with German employers
and a flexible granting of work permits according to the labour market situation.
The decisive argument for IG BAU was the employment of foreign experts
according to the conditions of the German social and employment stipulations.
IG BAU believed that this could be guaranteed only by the pattern of individual
employment.
(Faist et al. 1999: 153)
This position now advocated in the membership magazine shows that the foremost
attitude of trade unions is more protectionist than exclusionist. But the subsequent
refusal of the federal government to terminate the contract for services agreements,
or at least to turn them into a new guest worker programme, led to the following
statement:
But the problems remain unsolved. Many ten of thousands of German
construction workers are without a job and meanwhile about 70,000 contract
workers are working in their place, on the basis of intergovernmental agreements.
And it is well known that in the wake of the intergovernmental agreements
some thousands work illegally on construction sites. Low wage workers and
criminal gangs of human smugglers will proceed to profit. In the near future
loyal enterprises will be ruined with cheap tariff offers in front of our very eyes.
(Foundation Stone 8/93: 6)
Such quotes stress that IG BAU marked the employment of East European contract
for services workers as an illegitimate intrusion. As a result of a fierce trade union
campaign against the employment of East European contract workers, the limits
were reduced and controls were tightened (cf. Treichler 1998; Faist et al. 1999).
However, the employment of East European workers remained a permanent issue
on the agenda of IG BAU. Towards this category of interlopers, the trade union
retained an openly exclusionist position.
Posted EU workers as interlopers
At a time when the trade union was still campaigning to restrict and to abolish the
contract for services agreements with CEE-countries, the completion of the Single
European Market, with the full realisation of the free movement of capital, services,
goods and labour, had already changed the situation. From 1 January 1993, the