Page 185 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 185
A Respected Profession After All: Work Structures and Self-Perceptions ...
from an outside perspective: as a slow, imperceptible process, as also
mentioned in many interviews. The journalist explained that qualified
workers were in demand, as from now on ‘two big Cs’, container and com-
puter, were trend-setting. He highlighted the continuous success of the
port as a trading and transshipment centre, in contrast to the negative
developments that occurred in the shipbuilding industry. However, now
the ‘typical’ dock worker, represented in the article through Mr. Steiner,
was praised as a qualified technician: ‘Today he no longer needs biceps,
but brains. As a loading master, he sits on the tower of the container ter-
minal at the computer screen and is responsible for hinterland control.
[...] Steiner’s working world is still the port. But nothing is as it used to be’
(ibid). Workers with a foreign background remained marginal figures in
the public representation.
Over the years, a romantically idealized image of the dock worker
prevailed, and has spread since the 1980s as the number of workers and
their traditional occupations has decreased. The traditional worker’s im-
aginary has been turned into a nostalgic figure that is represented in var-
ious reports. The image functions as a projection screen for protagonists
from the outside and for the workers themselves, and by using it, they
combine the positive features and values of the traditional work with
those of the new.
In many interviews, the narrators point out that, for various rea-
sons, the dock worker can no longer be compared with that of the past.
Uli Amling, who was responsible for the handling equipment in a ste-
vedoring yard, puts the professional activity in perspective: ‘Even today,
dock worker sounds just so negative. After all, really qualified professions
make up dock work today’ (Uli Amling, 1949). The bargeman and train-
ing instructor Gustav Paulsen refers to the often one-dimensional media
portrayal that circulated about the profession: ‘That’s still in the news-
paper today, the job title, when someone committed a crime somewhere.
Once, I complained to the BILD newspaper, as they always wrote, the dock
worker such-and-such. So they said, “yes, but we also write, the doctor, or
whoever”. (...) After all, it’s a respected profession today’ (Gustav Paulsen,
1927). In many descriptions of work practices, qualification plays an im-
portant role regarding the upgrading of the occupational profile, but also
regarding the quality and the status of dock work, which from 1975 on-
wards was skilled work from a legal perspective. Above all, Paulsen de-
fends the occupational profile against simplistic media portrayals in the
185
from an outside perspective: as a slow, imperceptible process, as also
mentioned in many interviews. The journalist explained that qualified
workers were in demand, as from now on ‘two big Cs’, container and com-
puter, were trend-setting. He highlighted the continuous success of the
port as a trading and transshipment centre, in contrast to the negative
developments that occurred in the shipbuilding industry. However, now
the ‘typical’ dock worker, represented in the article through Mr. Steiner,
was praised as a qualified technician: ‘Today he no longer needs biceps,
but brains. As a loading master, he sits on the tower of the container ter-
minal at the computer screen and is responsible for hinterland control.
[...] Steiner’s working world is still the port. But nothing is as it used to be’
(ibid). Workers with a foreign background remained marginal figures in
the public representation.
Over the years, a romantically idealized image of the dock worker
prevailed, and has spread since the 1980s as the number of workers and
their traditional occupations has decreased. The traditional worker’s im-
aginary has been turned into a nostalgic figure that is represented in var-
ious reports. The image functions as a projection screen for protagonists
from the outside and for the workers themselves, and by using it, they
combine the positive features and values of the traditional work with
those of the new.
In many interviews, the narrators point out that, for various rea-
sons, the dock worker can no longer be compared with that of the past.
Uli Amling, who was responsible for the handling equipment in a ste-
vedoring yard, puts the professional activity in perspective: ‘Even today,
dock worker sounds just so negative. After all, really qualified professions
make up dock work today’ (Uli Amling, 1949). The bargeman and train-
ing instructor Gustav Paulsen refers to the often one-dimensional media
portrayal that circulated about the profession: ‘That’s still in the news-
paper today, the job title, when someone committed a crime somewhere.
Once, I complained to the BILD newspaper, as they always wrote, the dock
worker such-and-such. So they said, “yes, but we also write, the doctor, or
whoever”. (...) After all, it’s a respected profession today’ (Gustav Paulsen,
1927). In many descriptions of work practices, qualification plays an im-
portant role regarding the upgrading of the occupational profile, but also
regarding the quality and the status of dock work, which from 1975 on-
wards was skilled work from a legal perspective. Above all, Paulsen de-
fends the occupational profile against simplistic media portrayals in the
185
