This article reviews seasonal migration from Poland to Germany from the perspective of functioning of the Polish-German agreement on seasonal work. The title calls for attention to two issues – firstly, the new agreement which was – as compared to other signed by EU member states with third countries – of outstanding relevance due to the scale of migration; on the other hand – migration that followed was well known and established among Poles. The paper suggests that seasonal migration in the state as it is today, has its roots in the distant past and concludes that development of particular migration schemes may be considered as a result of power relations and inequalities between states, which are reproduced on the actors level.
Este artículo se detiene en la migración estacional polaca hacia Alemania a partir del análisis del funcionamiento del acuerdo polaco-alemán sobre trabajo estacional. Su título destaca dos elementos principales. El alcance numérico del nuevo acuerdo en comparación con otros acuerdos firmados por Estados de la Unión Europea y terceros países y la corriente migratoria derivada de este acuerdo. El artículo sugiere que la actual migración estacional tiene sus raíces en la historia migratoria polaco-alemana y concluye que el formato y desarrollo de este sistema de regulación migratoria puede ser considerado resultado de las desiguales relaciones de poder existentes entre Estados, que se reproducen en la esfera de los actores.
Recruitment of migrant workers has become popular in states facing the ever-changing nature of labor markets and the challenges of economic development. This is often done by signing a bilateral agreement regarding temporary workers which regulates the general conditions of entering a particular sector of the labor market, such as recruitment, time span and overall conditions of residence (Kaczmarczyk and Łukowski,
In the following parts of the article we want to discuss the wider context of labor migration between the two states. The first part of the paper, therefore, looks back at the past in an attempt to show the importance of the previous links and existing migration patterns or traditions which can be considered factors contributing to the future success of the scheme designed to attract seasonal workers. Then the changing socio-political situation on the eve of Poland’s transition is described, followed by an explanation of the rationale behind and construction of the Polish-German agreement. These parts discuss in detail the general conditions of employment and the functioning of the system, and present the reality of seasonal migrants. The final parts of the article focus on the outcomes of this migration from various possible perspectives, although due to space limitations this vast subject cannot be exhausted and many issues are only mentioned in passing but still call for more attention and scholarly debate.
This paper is based on the desk research combined with results of research in sending and hosting communities of seasonal migrants from Poland conducted within the frameworks of the project entitled “Socio-cultural effects of seasonal migration for local communities: Case Studies of Poland and Germany” realised in cooperation by Bielefeld University and University of Warsaw
Migration in order to take up short-term work in German agriculture has a long tradition in Poland. At least since mid-nineteenth century people inhabiting Polish territories, which back then were under Prussian, Russian and Austrian partition, traveled seasonally to East Prussia and Saxony, only later to reach industrial centers in the Ruhr region (Marek,
By and large, seasonal migration took place among Poles inhabiting territories under German control as a result of the partition of Poland in the 18th century. This was, therefore, internal migration within the boundaries of the German Empire at the time. Those living in Russian- or Austrian-controlled areas faced restrictions in access to work in agriculture in Germany as it was feared that many of them would settle down. General policy at the time was to keep the Polish minority under control so that it would eventually assimilate, whereas the influx of Poles from the outside would put a question mark on the effects of this policy. Nevertheless, it soon became clear that demand from German farmers was growing, especially since a considerable number of workers (both of Polish and German nationality) had eventually moved to work in growing industries in the Ruhr region. Therefore, in 1912, of nearly 600,000 workers, half were from outside the German Empire, and the number was allocated according to the demand of farmers (Landau,
The time of World War II was exceptionally different. The Third Reich used forced labor in many branches of the German economy, including agriculture, to ensure undisturbed production and avoid labor shortages during war time. The war and its aftermath also changed the migratory situation between two states and put a halt to economic migration from Poland for decades to come. The fast-developing economy in post-war West Germany quickly experienced labor shortages. Therefore, to minimize production costs, recruitment from abroad was seen as viable option to achieve the goals of economic development. Moreover, the pool of jobs which locals were unlikely to undertake was growing, which called for one of two options – either to increase the earnings of the locals or to recruit workers whom they could pay less. This called for recruitment of workers from other parts of the world – therefore respective agreements were signed with Turkey (1961) and Yugoslavia (1968), among others. Some sectors of industry, much like agriculture, were, to a great extent, relying on the work of newcomers. Geographical proximity and the changing political and economic situation in Poland, alongside German demand for workers, were some of the many reasons why seasonal migration soon re-emerged on the migration landscape of Poland and Germany.
With the decreased control of the Polish socialist state over its borders and increasing economic crisis in the late 1970s and 1980s in Poland, the government relaxed the visa regime, allowing its population freer crossings of the western borders. The times of 1970s and 1980s where the economic crisis was more severe in Poland were also the beginning of increased shuttle migration, which, in Polish migration literature, has been dubbed a phenomenon of “incomplete migration” (Jaźwińska-Motylska and Okólski,
Migration from Poland to Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s was mainly circular in contrast to the general trend of European migration, which was rather of a permanent character (cf. Jaźwińska-Motylska and Okólski,
Socio-political changes in Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain created an opportunity to sign bilateral agreements related to labor migration between countries of Western Europe and those from the former communist bloc. Very quickly, on 8th December 1990, the Polish and German Ministers of Labor released a joint statement on the possibility of employment of Polish workers in Germany. The statement determined the pattern of migration in the coming years and for a long time was indeed the only really functioning and significant bilateral document considering labor migration to Germany.
It took almost ten years from signing the joint Declaration of 1990 to the adoption of a Polish-German agreement dated July 8, 1999, which laid down the conditions of employment of seasonal migrants, their accommodation and defined the rules for social security (see Kępińska,
Seasonal employment became an important instrument in the labor market on both sides of the border. Informality and simplicity of procedures proved to be encouraging for German employers and Polish employees, and the number of seasonal migrants has grown ever since. The statement of 1990 did not specify the branches of the economy available to Polish seasonal workers, but access was to be granted based on earlier research into the labor market. According to this, in 1993, the possibility to take up employment in the construction sector had been excluded (Kępińska,
It is worth quoting the preamble of the statement of 1990. Authors referred there to the agreement concluded in the previous month: on 14thNovember 1990 the border between Poland and newly reunified Germany (3rd October 1990) was finally confirmed after World War 2.
The opportunity of employment was supposed to be a contribution to the “new economic deal” and “rapprochement” of Poland and Germany, for decades antagonized by existing in two different economic and political blocs. Such fine words surely captured the atmosphere of joy after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but the reasons for concluding this agreement were wider than the enthusiasm of Europe in the process of uniting. Georg K. Menz notes that in the late 1980s Germany was experiencing labor force shortages and the idea of seasonal workers was in fact the re-invented concept of ‘Gastarbeiter’. He writes: “the ‘new’ paradigm might not be viewed as new at all, but merely old wine in a new bottle” (
The same author mentions the following five reasons why Germans were interested in recruiting a seasonal labor force from Poland. (1) The German government intended to explore new regulatory approaches towards migration from EU applicant countries. (2) Poland was also a natural partner for Germany and close bilateral relations could have helped German investments in Poland. (3) The
The political transition in Poland entailed profound social and economic changes, and thus relatively high unemployment. The agreement with Germany has therefore been considered an instrument to fight structural unemployment. This was evidenced by a document published by the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy in April 1991 (Requirements for easing the effects of unemployment) in which seasonal work in Germany was described as one of the tools to minimize the negative effects of transformation, of which unemployment was one of the most sensitive social problems. Similarly, in 1994, one of the documents issued by the same ministry stated that “Seasonal work is considered to be a means to reduce the negative effects of unemployment” (Okólski,
From the moment of signing the respective agreements with Germany seasonal work was one of the most popular options among Poles – firstly due to restrictive criteria surrounding other groups of workers: guest-workers had very high qualifications, employment in the borderland zone (cross-border workers program) was limited to those who had a permanent address in those areas, and contract workers were people who were employed by a Polish company to be then posted to work for the German company – this was used especially by the construction industry and as soon as in 1993 more restrictions were placed upon this field to protect the local workers.
Seasonal work was focused mostly around work in agriculture and gardening. Also, high geographical concentrations were to be noticed, as most of the workers were employed in the western parts of Germany, and those with relatively long traditions of agriculture and a high percentage of migrating workers in the past (such as Lower Saxony, Bayern, North Rhine-Westphalia, North Rhine-Palatinate) (Kaczmarczyk,
The number of seasonal workers in agriculture grew steadily through the 1990s and reached 300,000 in the year of Polish accession to the EU (Kępińska and Stark,
Agreement about seasonal work was demand-based and gave initiative to German employers who wished to recruit a labor force from Poland via cooperation with labor offices in both countries. Construction of the agreement allowed for recruitment in two ways – via anonymous job offers and named job offers. The procedures which were established provided that the German employer would submit a job offer to a particular employee (a named job offer) or an anonymous offer open to anybody, in particular to the residents of Polish regions with high unemployment rates. The offers had to be authorized by both German and Polish labor offices. Polish local labor offices delivered offers to specific Polish workers, or conducted recruitment in cases of anonymous offers. Authorized offers guaranteed access to special visas with work permits with a small administration fee of up to 30 Euros (depending on whether it was a single or multiple entry visa; lower prices applied to students) (Kaczmarczyk and Łukowski,
Soon it became evident that most of the offers sent to Poland were the named job offers, which were reaching specific employees, meaning that recruitment through the offices soon lost almost all importance (Kępińska and Stark,
This situation was the major cause of recruitment mostly relying on informal networks and contacts with employers, or with the middlemen who could provide these contacts. This very much resembles the situation of the seasonal workers back in the 19th century, where so-called immigration agents and middlemen were sent by employers to recruit workers. Over the years it became clear for many employees that in order to secure a work position they had to keep good contacts with the employer, because the nature of temporary employment meant that once those relations were under strain their contract for the next season would be at risk.
Employers gladly cooperated with those Poles they had already met – they either employed them or relied on them in searching for more workers (previous contacts made in the 1980s). The pioneers of migration were very useful in this respect, as from them the network of migrants and employers started growing. According to research (Kępińska,
In the course of time it became evident that some families monopolized access to specific employers – for example in case of small family farms, where in the season only a dozen people were employed. Those contacts were distributed only amongst members of the family and friends. Also in many cases migration to work for this employer continued for many years and, eventually, it often happened that children of the first workers were employed there in later seasons (Piechowska and Fiałkowska,
In many cases employers used their employees to recruit workers, not being bothered with advertising positions in Poland or with contacting the job centers – firstly this would be time consuming to them, and secondly, not necessarily effective, due to the fact that some people would fear to answer job advert in the press (due to the high risk of fraud). Therefore these tasks were shifted to employees who were to be trusted, mostly those who had worked for the farmer for a long period of time. Often those employees, acting as middlemen, demanded money for the position and the job was given only if the specific amount of money was paid to the middleman. It is enough to say that those practices are outlawed in Poland and Germany, but the assumption can be made that they were known to the employers and were tolerated by them. On the other hand people were not always aware of the fact that this practice was illegal, as for some of them this seemed to be a chance to secure a job during the season.
The function of middlemen is, for many reasons, interesting – it seems that many middlemen were those who had double (Polish and German) citizenship (Piechowska,
The informality ruling seasonal employment, especially recruitment via migration networks and, to some extent, their commercialization (paying for the job offer), meant that no formal intermediaries were involved in the process of recruitment, i.e. temporary work agencies. In recent years new EU member states have helped the interests of recruitment agencies and, in Poland specifically, the rise in numbers of recruitment agencies since the 2004 has been significant (Napierała and Fiałkowska,
By taking a job in German agriculture Poles are positioned in a specific situation. As “an army of goblins” (Heinzelmannerarmme), as German sociologist Jorg Becker describes them, they arrive, do their job and they go back home (Becker,
The work is usually organized on a piecework system or is paid hourly. Obviously, the organizational system depends on the type of work and harvest period, and it has an impact on the daily life of the migrant, especially with regard to cooperation and competition with co-workers (Fiałkowska,
Sizes of farms also have an impact on how work is organized and how relations between workers themselves or between them and their employer are characterized. In bigger farms there are usually persons called “
German employers are supposed to organize accommodation for the workers (which does not mean they do not have to pay for it). Usually it is some kind of basement, cellar or the attic in an outbuilding. In bigger farms, where the number of workers can reach the hundreds, this usually takes the form of containers. It is worth emphasizing that in the contract which seasonal migrant is supposed to sign with his employer, one can find, spelled out, the minimal conditions of accommodation which had been specified in the previously-mentioned agreement of 1999. These are: a minimum of 6 square meters per person, a maximum 6 persons in a room – women and men separately, bed and a cupboard should be provided for every person as well as a chair and place by the table, there should be a place to prepare food – minimum one kitchen stove per 2 persons, access to the fridge, one toilet per 8 persons, and one shower per 10, access to a washing machine and access to a first aid kit. These were suggestions for newly-built accommodations as was outlined in the agreement of 1998. As light departure from these norms was tolerated. It goes without saying that not every employer complied with those requirements – containers were often too small to host six people, some workers still lived in caravans during the harvest season, the number of showers or toilets was below the required amount, there was a lack of hot water, limited or no access to the washing machine and, in extreme cases, power cuts in the accommodation of employers. These were the findings from fieldwork, and interviews with other seasonal workers confirm that these are still frequently experienced problems (Piechowska and Fiałkowska,
Due to the type of work and lack of language skills migrants are practically excluded from the life of the host community. Migrants spend most of their time working or resting, which usually means sleeping. They hardly have any opportunities to have outside contacts or relationships, if we speak in a more general way, with the host community. The host community for them usually means their farm, so the most important issue here is what kind of relation they have with their employer or their employer’s family. In big farms contact with the German employer is usually severely limited – all things such as documents or payment can go through Polish middlemen. In smaller farms, however, the situation can be very different so that German employers even work side-by-side with their employees (i.e. in vineyards). They usually know their workers, their families and friends. More personal and frequent contacts allow for better understanding between employers and their employees. What is more, work positions in smaller farms are often monopolized by families or groups of workers from the same area in Poland – any free positions are therefore safely guarded and distributed only among the closest circles. This also shows the significance of the migration networks and the importance of social capital, as mentioned previously in this paper. Those relationships, although based on economic benefits for both groups, may, however, lead to the occasional sending of a postcard or an invitation to visit Poland, which shows some deeper level of understanding or friendship struck up between workers and their employers (Fiałkowska and Wagner,
The signing of the bilateral agreement in December 1990 was an event of key importance: it opened the way for legal labor migration into German agriculture for a growing number of people, who organized their life so that it fitted the enduring temporary mobility, without permanent change of residence (Kępińska,
As to the popularity of seasonal migration, even after the EU enlargement and after more than two decades of functioning of the agreement
In the overall well-functioning bilateral agreement there is, however, a clear gap between policy and outcomes – from the Polish perspective the agreement was initially meant to function as a labor market mechanism fighting structural unemployment (Okólski,
An immediate outcome as regards the commencement of functioning of the system was the possibility to engage in legal work in Germany for thousands of Poles. The situation of the eighties was clearly known by the authorities of both countries (legal migration on a tourist visa and illegal work), therefore the agreement paved the way for legal employment and it was a chance that many took, despite the fact that upward social and economic mobility was rather limited and migrants were put on the margins of the labor market in Germany.
As for Germany the scheme was important mainly to manage the inflow of foreigners to those sectors of the economy which were not popular among local workers or suffered from labor shortages and which, due to high competitiveness on an international level, needed a cheap labor force to maintain its productivity. Selectivity – meaning that only few sectors of the labor market were accessible – and control over the process – especially regarding the time span one could spend working – proved to be very successful.
From a research evidence from the project “Seasonal migration as everyday practice. (…)” one issue also calls for more attention on the part of authorities in both countries and this is the average low levels of awareness of the rights that seasonal workers have and readiness to confront employers for betterment of the workers position – especially in terms of living conditions, which are often substandard but accepted as they are because workers fear that employers will shorten their contract, cut their hours or perform some other act of retaliation, such as declining to offer an invitation for the next season.
Soon, the other visible outcome of seasonal migration came to the fore – the economic remittances of the workers. Despite the fact that earnings may not be attractive for the native worker, earning an average of 5 Euros per hour made it possible for many to accumulate a sum of a few thousand Euros at the end of the harvesting season (by working more extensively when paid by the unit, or working more than 8 hours per day)
Seasonal migration may be time-limited (a few months per year), however its repetitive nature and only slowly improving situation in the local labor markets in Poland, plus long-term investments that many of them undertook, meant that for many workers episodes of seasonal work have become circular and repetitive over many years. This allowed them to accomplish some of their projects, i.e. renovating the house, earning money for the weddings of their children, or supplementing family incomes while the children were still at school or studying. Soon, researchers observed that those who were in fact unemployed and had been migrating seasonally (although the group was relatively smaller from those who were inactive on the labor market or took vacation to go and work abroad), were less likely to actively search for employment in Poland. There is also evidence that some individuals decided to focus entirely on seasonal employment and gave up their employment in Poland as not as rewarding in economic terms as work abroad (Fihel,
The scarce possibilities of work in some (especially rural) regions, and the recognition that some groups of the population had special difficulties in the labor market overall (i.e. women in their fifties, who worked most of their life for one company during the socialist period) contributed largely to the preservation of this migration pattern in some regions. The problem, however, is that, besides money, this employment does not allow for the betterment of one’s qualifications, allowing for more sustainable economic and/or social activity in local communities in Poland. Being on the margins of the German labor market for many workers, especially those who had been inactive on the Polish labor market, could mean further social and economic marginalization (Kaczmarczyk and Łukowski,
Less tangible, however not less important, are the outcomes of this mobility on family life. As was proved in the literature on Polish seasonal migration, the pioneers were usually men, mostly from small- and medium-sized towns and villages in Poland (Jaźwińska-Motylska and Okólski,
Despite the fact that all European labor markets are now open for Polish nationals, the popularity of seasonal migration to Germany is still high. This is so especially in the rural and provincial areas where work opportunities are scarce, as they were in the beginning of the 1990s when the transition from one political system to another caused massive unemployment. Seasonal migration, accompanied by temporary work in services such as care or cleaning industries seems still to be an appealing option for several thousand Poles. In the course of more than two decades the gap between earnings in Poland and Germany narrowed and the cost of living in Poland has risen, therefore the economic rationale is not as attractive as it was previously. As the concept of cumulative causation (Massey,
Most of the time, circular migration determines the nature of employment - large part of the job opportunities for Polish migrants were in the so-called low-wage sector and these were at least until 2011 agricultural harvest work, seasonal work in restaurants, activities in the care sector and services such as cleaning. These often meant that low income and low social status were combined in the country of destination. Constructed in this way, inequalities can be considered on many levels – family, migration network or between countries. The latter is objectified in bilateral agreements, which are interrelated with power imbalances between certain countries and thus reproducing inequalities on the agent level, limiting scopes of action. For example, when not allowing migrants to work legally in other sectors of the labor market. Consequently, migrants from respective emigration contexts are faced with limited chances for social upward mobility in the receiving community, when constrained to work in the secondary labor market. Not only does this represent an interesting insight into how, in this case, seasonal migration affects the people involved. Also, routinization of this migration strategy has had a tremendous impact on the family and local life of those involved in this mobility, which still calls for more attention, especially in the light of recent developments on the migration scene in this part of Europe.
“Seasonal migration as everyday practice. Socio-cultural effects of seasonal migration for local societies: Case studies of Poland and Germany” realised in 2009-2011 during which we conducted fieldwork among seasonal workers. The project was financed by the German-Polish Foundation for Science.
On 16th January 1991 the European Agreement establishing an association between the European Communities and their Member States and the Republic of Poland was signed. It was not a direct Polish-German agreement, but it maintained in force the existing agreements regarding access to the labor market established earlier under bilateral treaties.
The agreement of 1990 effectively functioned since 1991 till January the 1st, 2011 – this date is the end of restrictions for Polish seasonal workers in accessing the labor market in Germany, and as of 1st of May, 2011, the restrictions were waived for all categories of workers.
It is important to note that during the picking season workers usually do not have days off – such as in the case of a strawberry plantation where harvesting must be done promptly, because the fruits are very delicate.
Issues related to liberation from family life were frequently mentioned, especially by women taking part in the research “Seasonal migration as everyday practice (…)”.