An online seminar organized by the Nordic Labour History Network.

During the so-called Schleswig-Holstein campaign, about 800 – mostly female – young Germans arrived in Sweden in 1950–1951. The campaign was a German initiative, emphasising vocational training for young and unemployed refugees and expellees, even though it ended up in a more pragmatic labour recruitment. In his research, economic historian Johan Svanberg investigates the international relationship between West German and Swedish labour-market authorities, by concentrating on industrial relations in the Swedish garment industry and focusing on the streamlined clothing factory Algots in Borås. He analyzes the mutual interplay between migration and industrial relations and clarifies how industrial relations on different levels of society intersected and reciprocally moulded a framework for the actors involved in the migration process. Svanberg illuminates how the campaign affected the industrial relations and observes to what extent perceptions of gender, age, ethnicity, and class among the actors involved influenced their argumentation and agency.

Presenter: Johan Svanberg, Stockholm University