“Our Turks make the best German cars”: Racism as a Tool to Break Workers’ Power in the 1973 Ford Strikes
2022; Wiley; Volume: 54; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/anti.12811
ISSN1467-8330
Autoresnicole Kleinheisterkamp González,
Tópico(s)Political and Economic history of UK and US
ResumoAbstract A wave of wildcat strikes spread throughout the industrial region of North Rhine Westphalia in 1973. Drawing on a critique of Cedric Robinson’s concept of European racialism, Karen Fields and Barbara Fields’ work on racism as an ideology, and a Gramscian understanding of hegemonic ideologies from above, I analyse untranslated reports of the failed migrant‐led wildcat strike at the Ford Köln/Niehl plant. An important reason for the unsuccessful strike was the consent building of racial stereotypes against Turkish workers by the press and Ford management. I develop the term “racism from above” to denote the explicit use of racist stereotypes against migrant guest workers to undermine the strike and German‐Turkish solidarity. The reproduction of racism at the workplace demonstrates how consent‐building with racialised (and gendered) capitalist relations of production serves the owning class. Understanding how racism is reproduced in certain spaces will help better counteract attempts to split solidarity from above.
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