ABSTRACT
The postwar push for heavy industry created high demand for a mobile labor force. Philips worker transport manager P. Dekker recalled in 1953, that besides the shortage of materials and machines, there was a huge shortage of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, and mobility challenges had to be solved. 1 Like in previous decades, the postwar decades’ blue-collar workers had to overcome a spatial mismatch between their homes and job locations. Labor historians mention that employers were confronted with these challenges, but do not detail the specific barriers. 2 “Mobility Barriers during Postwar Industrialization” argues that workers’ (im)mobility was addressed as an issue of mobilizing workers for vital industries between 1947 and 1970—not for a war economy, but for postwar reconstruction and industrialization. The Dutch government built transport infrastructures and subsidized public (rail) transit as mobility historians have shown, but did not develop a vision on workers’ mobility like employers. Mobility scholars attribute an important role to (local) governments in identifying and reducing mobility barriers for low-income citizens. 3 Even though rapid industrialization was a national policy, it was not the government, but paternalistically oriented employers who identified workers’ mobility barriers in order to make the everyday commute governable.
