De Rotterdamse havenarbeiders: verburgerlijkt of strijdbaar Enkele hoofdlijnen uit de ontwikkeling van hun mentaliteit en levensstijl sinds 1900

Samenvatting

Rotterdam Dock Workers: Bourgeois or Militant? Developments in their mentality and life style since 1900. Dock workers traditionally belong to the most deprived layers of the working class; their position on the labour market is weak and insecure, their work is hard, filthy and unskilled, their social status is correspondingly low. It is often assumed that this ‘casual labour’ position is related to an undisciplined and ‘unadjusted’ life style in the old lower class urban districts; and that this complementarity of work situation and living situation has led to the formation of a strong subculture which for a long time has remained immune to middle class efforts to ‘civilize’ these people and make them “bourgeois’. On the basis of an investigation of Rotterdam dock workers in the period 1900-1987 it could be assessed, however, that for the majority of this group the assumed relationships between working conditions, living conditions and life style never existed. Coming from the surrounding countryside, these people developed a regular, ‘bourgeois’ family life, in spite of adverse working conditions.