Workers of the World, Travel!

Never before in Western Europe have so many journeyed so far with just one object: jobs. And never before have the job seekers been so successful. The spectacular Common Market boom has created millions of new jobs, and even common laborers are the most eagerly hunted, gently coddled, widely traveled wage slaves in history.

In the Dutch town of Almelo last week, 13 Spanish girls worked in a garment factory by day, at night retired to a private guesthouse under the guard of six nuns. The textile mills of chilly Yorkshire were crowded with hundreds of Pakistanis who combed wool, almost forgot hot Karachi while toasting themselves in front of wool-drying machines. A West German businessman in a Munich restaurant asked his Italian waiter for an explanation of a venison dish. "How should I know?" replied the waiter in English. "It's your language, not mine."

Migrants & Magnets. In restaurants and factories, on construction sites and in steel mills, Europe's frantic effort to satisfy increasing consumer demand for housing, automobiles, refrigerators has caused an acute labor shortage in the prosperous Common Market nations. At the same time, lowering national barriers by the Six has encouraged migration; of the Common Market's total labor force of 72.5 million (unemployment rate: 2.3%), more than one million are foreign workers from partner nations lured from home by the promise of higher wages and learning new skills. About 60% of the Belgian coal-mining industry is composed of Italians.

Outside the Common Market, labor scarcity is just as serious. In newly prosperous Austria, where there are three jobs for every worker who wants one, the government has finally cracked union opposition and is negotiating for 50,000 workers from Yugoslavia, Spain, Greece and Italy. A Danish newspaper carried 17 pages of classified advertisements offering jobs in every field from farming to physics. In Britain, where full employment has become a way of life, a Birmingham newspaper pleaded for toolmakers. "Come and work in Cornwall," begged the ad. "It's atom bomb-free."

The strongest magnet for job hunters is France, where 750,000 migrants have settled since the war. Most of them are Italians (who have formed their own Association of Italian Workers in France), but since the booming Italian economy is itself badly in need of skilled workers, Paris economic planners are turning to the more ample labor pool in Spain. So are Paris housewives. Almost the only available maids in the capital come from Spain. Most of the women are reluctant domestics, hope to return home with a nest egg large enough to start a small business.

Broadcasts & Bocce. Rivaling France as a choice target for job seekers is West Germany, which has absorbed 541,000 foreign arrivals (not including 13 million refugees from East Europe) and still has vacancies for 553,000 more workers. About half the recruits make the trip on their own; the rest are signed up by official German labor commissions in Athens, Madrid, Naples and Verona. The commissions administer health examinations, sign contracts stipulating wages, fringe benefits (up to 44% of the hourly cash wage), housing. Then the migrants are put aboard trains for their new jobs. Last week in Cologne's massive Bahnhof arrived 1,000 Spaniards, 300 Italians, 180 Greeks, 80 Turks and a smattering of 20 other nationalities. Cried the Spaniards, as they were greeted in their native language by eager German officials: "Gracias, gracias!"

Less than two years ago, most of Germany's imported labor worked at menial jobs in the building and construction industry. But recently the scarcity of domestic skilled labor has forced employers to train the unskilled foreign apprentices. Some German workers complain that the new arrivals work too hard, even though the labor shortage last year pushed wages up 9.6% while productivity rose only 2.9%. To keep the foreign employees happy, the state government and the Ford plant in Cologne plan to spend $12 million on new housing for 4,000 workers; other employers have hired Italian cooks, set up bocce ball courts. German radio stations feature Spanish-and Italian-language broadcasts; Italian newspapers in Germany are flourishing with a potential readership of 187,000. Still, homesickness is rampant. Said Francesco As-coli, a transplanted construction worker from Bologna: "It's a dreary country, it's a cold country. We try and forget it with a few drinks, but we can't afford them. All we can think of is saving money to go back. Now we understand why Germans save for a month's vacation in Italy."

Another cause of minor friction was the happy Italian custom of shooting birds out of the sky with the nearest available firearm. Horrified German matrons pleaded for peace in the name of European unity, and most Italians reluctantly agreed. German mothers, who call the Italians "macaronis," would be happy to see the Roman romantics go. Not so their fun-loving daughters, who are even willing to pay for the drinks of their newfound cha-cha-cha partners. "It's worth it," said one Teutonic lovely: "You don't find Germans who can catch that rhythm."

Potatoes & Piracy. Such fraternization with the native population is unusual among normally clannish foreign workers' colonies. In the Dutch textile town of Enschede, when young Italian workers tried to date local girls, street fighting with Dutch boys broke out and dance halls put up signs warning, "Italians Not Wanted." The row brought an investigating commission of European Parliamentarians to the scene, who concluded that part of the upset was gastric: Italians boarded with Dutch families, ate heavy Dutch food, and "digesting potatoes, even for one day," concluded the committee soberly, "is a punishment for an Italian.'' A happier solution to the Italian housing problem in Holland was found by lodging 100 Latins on a 30,000-ton ship anchored in the North Sea canal at Ijmuiden. directly opposite the steel plant where they work. Aboard the floating hotel they were served Italian food.

To fill about 150,000 job vacancies, Holland last year opened a recruiting station in Milan, signed up 4,000 workers. Some 2,000 Spaniards are also on their way. The largest foreign labor force in Holland is composed of Belgians, hundreds of whom leave Antwerp daily by chartered bus.

But while the Belgians enter Holland from the south, Dutchmen themselves cross the border on the east: German contractors have lured away several thousand experienced construction workers by paying wages 20% higher than their salaries back home. Nor do the West Germans stop searching for manpower at the frontiers of Europe. This month Bonn captured the record for long-distance hiring by welcoming the vanguard of 700 Japanese miners who will dig in the Ruhr coal fields.

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