After Arbeitsschutzkontrollgesetz. Strikes and organic intellectuals in the German meat industry

Abstract

For decades, migrant workers with temporary and service contract work in the German meat industry have rarely been recruited by trade unions. The Arbeitsschutzkontrollgesetz (Occupational Safety and Health Inspection Act) law, implemented in 2021, aimed to grant equal employment conditions to the majority of workers in slaughterhouses, creating new avenues for trade unions to gain more members and organise industry-level negotiations for better wages and a collective agreement. This article explores the lessons from the series of strikes that accompanied those negotiations. Relying primarily on participant observation in the meat industry strikes and employing an actor-centred perspective, the paper reveals the role of shopfloor organic intellectuals – Gramsci’s term for those who grasp class interests and who generate cohesion and self-awareness of their class’s position in society – in mobilising and demobilising workers. Analysis of the strikes shows that organic intellectuals can be instrumental in articulating the resistance of subaltern groups, but they can also be co-opted by dominant groups to manufacture consent.