Labour Migration from Turkey to Western Europe, 1960-1974

A Multidisciplinary Analysis

Ahmet Akgunduz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351005760
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Groundbreaking in its comprehensiveness, this book illuminates the migration of workers from Turkey to Western Europe with new perspectives previously overlooked in research. Indeed, this is the first study of its kind to cover the entire migration process, making extensive use of primary as well as secondary sources in four languages, and it draws on both the historiography and the social sciences of migration. It presents new analyses of the so-called 'push' factors behind this movement and explores the role of the sending state, the system and channels through which labour exits, the labouring population's attitudes towards moving to the West and the relevance of social networks in the migration process. The volume offers a critical assessment of the significance of Turkish labour migration with regard to the demand for foreign labour in Europe, with particular emphasis on the cases of Germany and the Netherlands.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Why this Study?

This study is about the migration of Turkish nationals to Western Europe as migrant workers during the official recruitment period from 1960 to 1974. The studies available on this subject are usually from the 1960s or 1970s. It seems that, since roughly the second half of the 1970s, the focus of academic research has shifted from the labour migration itself to issues pertaining to its transformation into permanent settlement. With regard to the studies of the past, three main points can be made. First, they are marked by the theoretical limitations of their time and, thus, are rather narrow in theoretical approach and methodology. Second, with to a certain extent the exception of only one publication,¹ they are either case studies or merely address selected aspect(s) of the subject. And third, and rather unusually, the assessments of some of them in various areas are based on pure supposition – not on an existing and at that time easily accessible set of hard evidence – and thus are erroneous.

Moreover, misperceptions and erroneous assessments of the 1960s and 1970s, sometimes in updated forms, have re-emerged in several later publications that also touch upon the post-war labour migration to Europe in general and the Turkish labour migration in particular. For example, the Turkish labour migration to Western European countries was implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, presumed to be Turkey’s first participation in international migration. Perhaps due to the scarcity of research on historical migrations to and from Turkey as well as the lack of a multi-disciplinary approach in migration research, the question of whether Turkey had experienced international migratory movements before 1960 – and if so, whether they have any relevance to the labour migration to the West – was never raised. Some two decades after the end of the official labour migration, an institute in Germany known to be an authority on Turkish origin immigrants asserted that Anatolia² had historically never been a region of emigration before 1960 (see Chapter 2).

Causes of migration pressure (or ‘push’ factors) in the sending countries of the post-war migration to Western Europe, in general, and in Turkey, in particular, were explained through traditional concepts such as ‘slow economic and industrial growth’, ‘fast population growth rate’, ‘disparity between economic growth and population growth’ and ‘unemployment’ in the studies of the 1960s and 1970s. But whether these arguments were consistent with the available data was not checked, let alone whether the explanatory value of these concepts was tested. In later years, when some studies sought to mention ‘push’ factors of the Turkish labour migration they confined themselves to reiterating some of the existing arguments (see Chapter 2).

Issues – such as for which aims the Turkish authorities justified sending workers to the West and how they managed the labour migration throughout the period – were not thoroughly examined in the studies of the past. Even a complete and accurate list of Turkey’s bilateral labour recruitment agreements was not presented. Some years later, some studies came to claim that the reason for the Turkish government’s decision to send workers to Western Europe was to alleviate unemployment by the export of surplus unskilled labour (see Chapter 3).

The jobs for which guest workers were recruited were identified simply as the jobs in the secondary sector that were either rejected by, or unattractive to, native labourers. Overlooked or not given due consideration were country-to-country variations in the sector of employment of foreign workers. For instance, in Germany³ from 1965 onwards, more than half of the foreign workers were employed in the two most important sectors of industry; this meant more than 60 per cent for the Turks. Some two decades later, the 1970s definition of migrant workers’ sector of employment came back simply as ‘agriculture, construction, and mining’ (see Chapter 4).

How the Turkish labour migration came onto the demand side’s agenda, and how it developed — especially vis-à-vis Turkish workers becoming the largest foreign labour contingent in Germany over time — were not evaluated by taking into account major variables in the process. However, in the 1970s, it was claimed that due to both foreign policy reasons and historical ties between Germany and Turkey, Germany gave preferential treatment to Turks in the recruitment of foreign labour. Some years later, similar views re-emerged in more publications. More recently, the claim has been brought to the point of putting the Turkish labour migration to Germany in the same category as the post-war colonial migration to the (former) colonial or dominant countries. This claim presumes that dependence or clientelistic relationships had long existed between Turkey and Germany that had to a varying extent transformed the social order of the former to reflect those of the dominant power (see Chapter 4).

This briefly outlined state of affairs is the first and foremost reason why this study is necessary and unique. Another important reason is that there have been some significant theoretical developments in the field of migration studies since the mid-1970s, thus compelling a re-examination of the very subject. Yet, as Morawska, Pedraza-Bailey, Massey et al., Lucassen and Lucassen, Brettell and Hollifield, and Lucassen et al.⁴ point out the disciplines within social sciences (including history) are not sufficiently integrated with each other in their respective studies of migration. Or, as Lucassen and Lucassen⁵ describe it, ‘the migration landscape is full of canyons and fast running rivers. The deepest canyon separates social scientists from historians, and swift rivers divide scholars within disciplines’. Nevertheless, this should not undermine the fact that the historiography and the social sciences both have provided important contributions to improve our approaches to the phenomenon of migration. A more recent contribution to the debate on migration has come from philosophers and is centred on the issue of first admission of international migration.⁶

Presently in migration research considerable consensus has emerged on one issue in particular: to explain the initiation and persistence of international migration, traditional push-pull approach⁷ and theoretical models rigidly operating on one level or within one discipline only are insufficient. Interacting macro- and micro-structures of each migratory movement need to be studied in a broad approach.⁸

This is, in fact, the first-ever study on the labour migration from Turkey to the West that covers the whole migration process, while making use of extensive primary as well as secondary sources, drawing on both the historiography and the social sciences of migration, and adopting a multidisciplinary approach. It also takes care to detail characteristics of the migrants. Moreover, the study critically evaluates assessments of prior studies when pertinent.

Period and Methodology

Although Turkey signed its first bilateral labour recruitment agreement on 30 October 1961 with Germany, this agreement merely regulated a migratory movement that was already underway. According to the BfA statistics, by the end of July 1960, for example, there were a total of 2,495 legally employed Turkish workers in Germany, 200 of whom were female. In the same month representatives of German employers established an unofficial bureau in Istanbul, the Deutsche Verbindungsstelle, in order to channel workers to Germany through the mediation of private Turkish agencies. By the end of June 1961 (that is, three months before the agreement) the number of Turkish nationals working in Germany came to 5,200. The Deutsche Verbindungsstelle (its Turkish name was Alman İrtibat Bürosu) was legally recognised as the official German recruitment bureau in Turkey by the 30 October 1961 agreement.⁹ I have therefore taken 1960 as the beginning of the period for analysis, rather than the year when the first bilateral labour recruitment agreement was signed.

I have marked 1974 as the end of the period. While Germany stopped recruitment of labour from Turkey with its decision to ban recruitment from non-EEC countries on 23 November 1973, France and the Netherlands continued to recruit labour especially in the early months of 1974. In the second half of 1974, however, official labour recruitment — and thus a nearly 15-year long period — was definitively ended,¹⁰ notwithstanding the fact that the recruitment of certain specialised personnel, like Turkish language teachers and imams, was maintained in very small numbers.

This study has made use of different research methods. I have used and analysed statistical data from the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (BfA) and the Statistisches Bundesamt (SB) in Germany; the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (CBS) in the Netherlands; the Statistiska Centralbyrän (SC) in Sweden; the Devlet İstatistik Enstitüsü (DİE), the Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı (DPT) and the İş ve İşçi Bulma Kurumu (İİBK) in Turkey; and from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). I have also made use of other publications from some of these institutions, especially of the DİE, the DPT and the İİBK as well as the relevant publications of the Turkish Ministry of Labour and the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.¹¹In 1973, each of Turkey’s bilateral labour recruitment agreements (social security agreement included, if it existed) or social security agreements (in the case that there was no bilateral recruitment agreement) with the Western countries was re-published as a separate booklet by the İİBK. The agreements were made both in Turkish and in the language of the country concerned. Since both versions are equally valid and authentic — and I have been able to obtain the relevant İİBK booklets — I have chosen to consider versions of these agreements in Turkish.

I have drawn materials from two Turkish dailies, Cumhuriyet and Milliyet. I have also examined the Istanbul Sanayi Odası Dergisi, the official monthly of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry (Istanbul Sanayi Odası). I have likewise considered interviews with first generation labour migrants published in the European edition of Milliyet during the 1990s and broadcasted by the one of the public TV channels of Turkey (TRT International) in December 2001 within the context of a special programme for the anniversary of Turkey’s bilateral labour recruitment agreement with Germany.

I have interviewed five former top officials on the Turkish side who occupied significant positions in the migration process: Dr. Bekam Bilaloğlu, Murat Işık, Günay Özveren, Turgut Kınay and Erdoğan Barutçu.¹² The interviews were semi-standardised centring on certain questions that sought additional information to further elucidate the available written sources on certain topics.

I have examined the Archive of the Dutch Recruitment Bureau in Ankara (ADRBA). The other archive I have examined is De Werkgroep Buitenlandse Arbeiders Leiden (Working group for Foreign Workers in Leiden), 1969–1974. Both archives are kept at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.¹³

And finally, I have made use of available ‘secondary sources’. I have made all efforts within my capacity to obtain and review all relevant published materials (in four languages: Dutch, English, German and Turkish). Unless indicated otherwise, all translations are my own.

Outline of the Study

The main body of this research begins with addressing causes of migration pressure, or ‘push’ factors, in discussion with the assessments of the previous studies on the subject (Chapter 2). The chapter looks into economic and industrial growth rates, wages, and distribution of national income during the migration period. It documents in detail why prior-given explanations for ‘push’ factors, such as ‘slow economic and industrial growth’ and ‘disparity between economic growth and population growth’ do not actually help explain migration pressure. By focussing on characteristics of the labour market, the forms of unemployment, registered job seekers and unfilled vacancies, and real wages in the formal sector the chapter analyses why the unemployment argument can only be helpful to a limited extent. It also explores how capitalist transformation process in the socio-economic structure is essential for understanding the specific contents of ‘push’ factors, especially how and why both urban and rural (lower-)middle classes in most developed, modernised areas immediately became eager to take up work in Europe. It provides an analysis on the changing significance and structure of population growth and how it came to act in the formation of migration pressure. And finally, the chapter argues that four more factors should be brought into the analysis, without which the mass character of the desire to go to Europe cannot accurately be explained. In this context, the chapter analyses: historical dimensions of Western-Turkish relations, and both Turkey’s own modernisation-Westernisation policies in the Republican era and the state of relations between the West and Turkey in the post-war years; and which migrations in the pre-1960 period played a part in making large numbers of people in the largest cities and most developed areas eager to work in Europe from the very start and how.

Both Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 focus on the migration process (that is, the initiation and continuation of the labour migration). Chapter 3 is concerned only with aspects of the migration process related to the sending country while Chapter 4 focuses on aspects related to the receiving countries. Chapter 3 begins with addressing the role of the state and mainly aims to explain: why the role of the state was important in the migration process; on which grounds sending workers to the West was justified; how the nature of migration was defined; what the initial system of sending workers abroad was; and which changes were made in the system, for which reasons and their consequences. The chapter then analyses the attitudes of the populace towards migration to the West and characteristics of the labour outflow by dividing the period into two, pre-1965 and post-1965. It dwells primarily on how the labour migration was initiated by the country of destination; what the channel of the exit of labour in the first period was; why the applicants in the İİBK registry and aspirant migration candidates in general waited their turn for an official exit in the first period despite swollen registry lists, and the ease of both entering most receiving countries and acquiring the status of a legal worker there; and why the populace in certain rural areas, where internal economic migration of male labourers had long been established, shunned the idea of working in Europe in the initial years despite local authorities’ encouragements and the advantages of the official scheme. The chapter analyses how and why both the channel of the exit of labour and the attitude of the initially reluctant populace changed in the post-1965 years. It also addresses: the number of applicants as well as candidates on the waiting lists; the number of migrants sent abroad through the İİBK and their distribution both by country of destination and gender; the number of those who went abroad outside the İİBK; the total number of Turkish workers in the recruitment period; the change in the social composition of the migration; and the return migration. Finally the chapter conceptualises the role that social networks played in the migration process and brings a further insight into the understanding of its structure.

Chapter 4 starts by focusing on how and under which circumstances Turkish labour migration to Western Europe was initiated and developed, and how Turkish labourers eventually became the largest foreign labour contingent in Germany. In this context, it analyses the state of international migration in the post-war years; the structure of registered unemployment and unfilled vacancies in each of the foreign-labour-receiving European countries; their migrant labour recruitment policies; and the position of Southern European countries vis-à-vis sending labourers abroad. Then the chapter deals with the jobs for which migrant workers were recruited and analyses the employment sector of Turkish migrant workers during the recruitment years, with special attention to Germany and t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Causes of Migration Pressure
• 3 The Migration Process: Aspects Related to the Sending Country
• 4 The Migration Process: Aspects Related to the Receiving Countries
• 5 The Migrants
• 6 Conclusion
• Appendices 1–5
• Bibliography
• Index