A Greek immigrant who has not stopped fighting for equality even today.

If the economic migrants in West Germany, the workers of the so-called “economic miracle” of post-war Germany, had a face in today’s narrative then it would undoubtedly be the face of a man. However, labor migration was not a male phenomenon.

Female workers were 30% of immigrants in the period 1955-1973. Many of them even came to West Germany alone and, in some cases, their husbands and families followed later.

An event at the small, rather alternative Filmhaus cinema in Cologne shed some light on this “unknown” aspect of immigration. The guest speaker is Irini Vavitsa, of Greek origin, with many years of trade union activity in Germany.

Difficult first years for women. And the next too

Born in Tashkent in 1950 to refugee, rebel parents, Irini returned to Greece without papers but “with dreams” in 1966, where she stayed until 1971.

“Our parents taught us to love Greece, to learn Greek well,” he says. But the situation, which she faced with her family there, led her again to the path of alienation: “In Greece, Germany was considered a paradise. We, because we were from a political family, knew that there was exploitation there too, we saw about the strikes that the workers made and demanded. But we wanted to leave Greece, we had no rights there.”

As the daughter of communists, she did not have Greek citizenship. However, he married a Greek woman and managed to come as a worker to West Germany. She worked from 1971 until her retirement in 2016 at Hella in Lippstadt, North Rhine-Westphalia. There he fought for equal treatment of workers – as a trustee, a long-time member of the works council, the immigration committee of the IG Metall trade union and later an active member of the Greek Community in the area.

“It was difficult for women in the early years,” she says. Of course, if one listens to her more, one soon understands that the following years were not easy either. “German women got more than us, but less than German men,” she says.

Working with the approval of the husband

Women and more often immigrant women were recruited as a “low-wage group” (Leichtlohngruppe), which involved ostensibly lighter work. Being in this category they earned 30% to 40% less than men working in the lower wage groups. However, more than what they would earn in their home country. “We, as women, as immigrants, were doubly punished: we had to be twice as good as German women and three times as good as German men. At all levels. On a professional as well as trade union level”, says Irini Vavitsa.

In order for women to work in West Germany, they first had to have their husband’s approval. “We women were the last hole in the world. The woman in the Soviet Union had gone into space and I had to be signed by my husband to work (…) And after the first year of work, to sign the next contract I had to sign that I am not pregnant.” The strict control not only of the health of the female workers, as was also done with the male immigrants, but also of whether they were pregnant was indicative of the extent of the measures that specifically concerned women. Such a possibility would have, after all, bureaucratic complications: Who would have to cover the costs, the competent German authorities or the employer?

Paraphrasing the well-known phrase of the Swiss writer Max Fries, Irini Vavitsa characteristically says: “Germany needed workers, but people came. We were quite young, healthy, I would say ‘ready for the Olympics’, but it never crossed our minds to have families.”

The church, unionism and (unwanted) politicization

Irini Vavitsa did not grow up in Greece – she went to school in the Soviet Union. He grew up with the values ​​and morals taught there. This perhaps gave her a head start in emancipation, but also a structurally different basis compared to other Greek immigrant women: “At school, in the fifth grade, we learned about the history of the labor movement. And Germany was presented in this as a model. When I was 15 years old I knew who Rosa Luxemburg was, Karl Liebknecht, I knew who Marx and Engels were. I knew what class consciousness meant – that there are two classes. I knew what a capitalist system meant. What does bourgeoisie and working class mean? But in Greece, Germany seemed like a wonderland, a paradise.”

Reference point for the workers in West Germany in the early years the church. The Evangelical Diaconia was responsible for the Yugoslavs and Greeks, while Caritas was responsible for the Italians and the Spanish. But Irini did not accept this – she turned to trade unionism. “The church doesn’t solve our problems,” he repeats over and over. “The Diaconia had shunned us and did not want us to form a community so as not to become politicized. But we were young, we were working, we weren’t disabled, we didn’t want a social worker. We wanted the Greek communities to be recognized by the Greek state.”

Tireless and active to this day, aged 74, still a member of the IG Metall union and active in anti-racism and peace movements. “We all want to live in peace, for our children and grandchildren to have jobs. It is not a utopia to have the right to work, to have a proper health system.”