Workshop: Memories and Re-Analysis. Industrial Work and Social Conflicts at Shipyards and in the Automobile Industry since the 1970s

Thursday, 24 September 2015, 11:00 AM to 18:00 PM, in Göttingen. Host: Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut Göttingen (SOFI/ Re_SozIT) & Max Planck Institute for Human Development, IMPRS Moral Economies of Modern Societies

In recent years, both sociological and historical work has focused on structural shifts and changes within the world of work. The development of new forms and contents of work, the rising relevance of so-called atypical contracts and / or the de-bordering and informalisation of labour all seem to point to the urgency of that question. Hence analysing social conflicts over wages and working conditions, and the restructuring of the workplace, has gained a certain importance. In this workshop, we aim to discussing six research projects that focus on developments in the shipyard and automobile industries between the late 1960s and the early 2000s. The projects discuss different aspects of industrial work – health and safety issues, trade union organizing, the implementation of group work and other forms of lean production, the role and status of migrant workers and the increasing relevance of temporary work agencies. They differ in their methodological perspectives in that they are based on different sets of material (or sources), such as oral history studies, the secondary analysis of sociological work and others.

 

Programm

11.00–11.45: Wolfgang Hien, Bremen: oral history interviews with workers from the Bremen Vulcan Shipyard. Experiences from a project performed after the closing of the yard in 2001.

11.45–12.30: Sarah Graber Majchrzak, Potsdam: The Gdańsk Shipyard: Production regime and workers conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s in the People’s Republic of Poland

12.30–13.30: Lunch break

13.30–14.15: Johanna Wolf, Leipzig, Bremer Vulkan: A case study of the West German shipbuilding industry and its narratives in the second half of the twentieth Century

14.15–15.00: Felix Bluhm, Göttingen: Strikes and "writing air". Collective forms of self-representation at a West-German shipyard in the 1970s

15.00–15.45: Marie Schubenz, Berlin: Contested Solidarity: Moral economies of the trade union movement of the 1970s and 80s. Opel Bochum as an example

15.45–16.30: Peter Birke, Göttingen: Detour to paradise. Everyday conflicts and interest politics in the German automobile industry, 1993 and 2001

17.00–18.00: Discussion and Perspectives

 

Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut Göttingen, Friedländer Weg 31, D 37085 Göttingen. Please announce your participation at: Erika.Beller@sofi.uni-goettingen.de