Changing Work

Life in modern societies is defined at its core by the type of work pursued. In the second half of the 20^th century, however, the working world changed fundamentally. While it was the effects of the war and the new political framework that brought about change at first, change was later driven by technological and economic factors such as digitalization and automatization, globalization and the massive expansion of the service sector. What social consequences did these processes of change have in general and for working people in particular?

The graduate seminar “Social Consequences of the Changing Working World in the Second Half of the 20th Century”, supported by the Hans Böckler Foundation, researches its topic from an empirical historical approach.  The first phase of the project explored effects within companies, forms of new social inequality, and the actions of trade union leaders. For this, the group connected the historical analysis of palpable processes of change and specific actions within the political and workplace arenas with perception and interpretation. The history of work was thus embedded in the post-war history of culture and society.

The following sub-projects are part of the first project funding phase:

• The Workforce in the Automotive Industry between Boom and Crisis: The Example of BMW (Mario Boccia)
• Industrial Worlds at a Crossroads: The Changes in Work and Working Practices in the Ruhr Steel Industry, 1960-1987 (Malte Müller)
• The Working Worlds of Saleswomen in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-1996 (Manuela Rienks)

The seminar entered into the second funding phase in 2021:

This doctoral seminar is supported by the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich (Andreas Wirsching), the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam (Frank Bösch, speaker, and Winfried Süß), and the Institute for Social Movements in Bochum (Stefan Berger). The coordinator is Sebastian Voigt.

The project website can be found at www.wandel-der-arbeit.de