Filipinx nurses on strike: On organizing a fragmented, migrantized workforce in a German hospital

Abstract

In the summer of 2022, the largest nursing strike campaign to date was conducted in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, to demand improved working conditions. Over several months, nursing and other staff were unionized at six publicly operated university hospitals and then went on continuous strike for 77 days until a collective bargaining result was reached that was acceptable to the movement. The campaign represents the strengthening of care workers’ self-confidence and renewed commitment on the part of unions in hospitals in recent years (Dück 2022).

The workforces in German hospitals are disproportionately female and migrantized. Whereas this has been the case for some time, the nursing workforce has changed in recent years with the active recruitment of workers from abroad, particularly the Philippines. This recruitment is postulated as a policy response and ‘spatial fix’ to the hospital staffing crisis (Kordes 2019). It is based on processes of globally unequal development, for example between Germany and the Philippines, and it raises questions about new fragmentations of the workforce that are significant for union mobilization (Marino, Penninx und Roosblad 2015). These run along questions of residency status, recognition of formal vocational qualifications, language skills and others.

This talk presents the results of temporally embedded research that followed the nursing relief campaign over a period of several months. Participant observation and interviews were used to draw out the perspectives of Filipino colleagues in particular, but also to reflect on the broader context of the campaign. The campaign is in line with recent organizing approaches discussed in the context of renewing union representation and mobilization.

The talk will show that within workforces, experiences of everyday racism as well as solidarity mobilization of newly recruited nurses are both relevant. It discusses possible spaces for channeling and making visible the specific position of recruited nurses in the context of such a campaign. It also examines the extent to which material demands of Filipino colleagues could be developed and introduced beyond symbolic visibilities, or whether this had to fail, consciously or unconsciously. The talk thus aims to contribute to an understanding of the intertwining of glocal migration and border regimes with the position of a struggling workforce in the hospital from a perspective of labour geography.

Dück, J. 2022. Soziale Reproduktion in der Krise: Sorgekämpfe in Krankenhäusern und Kitas. 1. Auflage. Arbeitsgesellschaft im Wandel. Weinheim, Basel: Beltz Juventa.

Kordes, J. 2019. „Anwerbeprogramme in der Pflege: Migrationspolitiken als räumliche Bearbeitungsweise der Krise sozialer Reproduktion.“ PROKLA 49 (197): 551–67.

Marino, S., R. Penninx und J. Roosblad. 2015. „Trade unions, immigration and immigrants in Europe revisited: Unions’ attitudes and actions under new conditions.“ CMS 3 (1).