Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

German trade unions and Polish migrant workers 211
With regard to this universal attitude, the organisational ‘because motive’ is thus not
a xenophobic or an exclusionist, but a protectionist one. The claim for exclusionist
practices and the use of xenophobic images among its own members is a more
derived ‘in-order-to motive’.
The political opportunity structure, however, restricted and prevented for
particular constellations the realisation of strict exclusionist strategies. In the case
of the East European contract workers, the German government could not cancel
the intergovernmental agreements for diplomatic and foreign policy reasons. In
this situation, IG BAU demanded alternatively the reduction of limits set by the
intergovernmental agreements and the tightening of controls. In the case of the free
movement of workers from accession states, IG BAU demanded as an alternative
to the impossible exclusionist measure, the postponement of free entry. IG BAU
turned to inclusive measures only in constellations which lacked exclusionist options.
In the case of GDR workers, the organisation expanded to the accession area and
integrated the construction workers from East Germany. In the case of posted EU
workers, IG BAU demanded from the beginning the integration of temporarily
employed workers in the German system of social protection.
Continuation of traditional stereotypical
argumentation
The above account has revealed that the undoubtedly existing difficulties within the
German construction labour market are framed by IG BAU persuasion efforts as
problems caused by outside interlopers. The categories of interlopers examined are
differently evaluated: the influx from other EU member states is reluctantly accepted
(in the law-abiding form). But interlopers from East Europe – with a particular
stress on workers from Poland – were principally rejected. In the German discourse
on the employment of East European contract workers as well as on the Eastern
enlargement and the illegal employment, an outstanding role is ascribed to
the Polish nationality: a good indicator for this constellation was the use of the term
‘Polish prices’ covering the cheaper bargain tender offered by foreign enterprises
(Faist et al. 1999). Two reasons probably may have caused the prominent perception
of the Polish nationality: Poland was and is the most important of the East European
sending countries and holds in all categories the greatest share of temporary migrant
labour in Germany (Cyrus 1994 and 2001b; Hönekopp et al. 2001). To explain
particular attention to Poland, it is insufficient to refer to empirical facts. The
perception and interpretation of facts or situations is guided by the cultural
embedding. The meaning which social actors attach to social reality and situations
depends on the social and cultural context. In the case of labour migration from
Poland, the cultural embedding is framed by a far-reaching historical experience
of Polish labour migration to Germany (Bade 2001). In Poland the contemporary
use of old fashioned terms like ‘going to Saxony’ or ‘going to the Reich’ signal that
the perception of the contemporary labour migration is still framed by the historical
experiences (Morawska 1998; Korczynska 2001). On the other side, in Germany
the image of Polish labour immigration is deeply rooted as well in the national