“Who is for us now, or who we are for?” Hungarian automotive workers on their role in the global value chain

The study examines the perceptions of Hungarian automotive industry workers regarding their own roles within the global value chain. It is based on extensive in-depth interviews conducted with 20 employees of a sectoral plant. In the discussion, I aim to shed light on the experiential aspects of the German automotive industry’s expansion into Central and Eastern Europe and the emerging East-West division of labor from the perspective of the interviewed workers. During the examined period, work overload and one-sided internal communication intensified employees' sense of uncertainty and job insecurity. At the same time, however, disillusionment with the presence of the multinational company also emerged. In light of the worsening working conditions, the majority of workers began to question the assumed positive impacts of the automotive investments, as exemplified by the quote in the title, and increasingly viewed their presence as a case of regional exploitation. In the concluding section, I frame my findings within the contextual findings of political economy and regional studies, complementing them with insights from labor sociology and anthropological research on precarious employment, with particular emphasis on the experiential aspects of the low-road work model.