Organising migrants as workers or as migrant workers? Intersectionality, trade unions and precarious work

Abstract

This paper considers precarious work from the point of view of trade union practice in the area of equality and diversity, exploring the way in which unions organise and recruit low-paid, vulnerable migrant workers. A theoretical approach is developed in order to understand the particular vulnerability and diversity of migrant workers in the labour market. Insights from the literature on intersectionality are applied to the study of employment, industrial relations and human resource management practice. Drawing from four case studies, the strategies of three UK trade unions towards organising low-paid migrants are compared. It is concluded that trade unions tend to consider migrants primarily as workers (taking on a so-called ‘universalistic’ approach), rather than as migrant workers with particular and overlapping forms of oppression (a ‘particularistic’ approach). As a result, unions tend to construct a dichotomy between workplace and migration issues, impeding the effective involvement of diverse and marginalised workers into unions. Based on these findings, we argue that integrating universalistic and particularistic approaches to union organising and recruitment strategies is critical to promote the successful involvement of vulnerable migrants into trade unions.

Keywords::

• diversity
• equality
• intersectionality
• migrants
• trade unions
• vulnerability

Notes

^1. Migrant workers from the eight Eastern European countries that accessed the European Union in 2004 (namely Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia) were allowed free movement in the UK labour market immediately after Enlargement.

^2. Initially, the three authors were working on independent research projects, but later they came together to work on a joint project in 2008. This latter work was a comparative study of union strategies toward immigrant workers in four countries: Germany, France, the UK and USA and included researchers from across the four countries (Adler, Tapia and Turner, forthcoming). As a consequence, we decided to bring all our material together to re-analyse our data in order to compare and contrast how UK unions were responding to the organisation and recruitment of migrant workers. Given our similar research focus, the interviews we conducted, the questions we asked our interviewees, as well as the interview selection process took place in a very similar matter, allowing a fruitful comparison of our data.

^3. TELCO was the founding chapter of London Citizens.

^4. Unite the Union was formed in 2007 arising from a merger with the Transport and General Workers Union and Amicus. Although this study began before 2007, it continued after this date, thus the name Unite is used to avoid any confusion.

^5. The MWSU's initial task was to conduct research to assess the specific needs of migrant workers, including issues such as the effects of migration regulation on migrants' terms of employment, the impact of EU Accession migrants on the UK labour market and the peculiar forms of exploitation experienced by temporary and agency workers.

^6. For instance, the Unit launched the ‘all party Parliamentary group on migration’.

^7. An illustration of the failure of reaching a genuine ‘two-way process’ of integration of the MWSU into the whole union business is provided by fact that the MWSU's original task to deliver training to union officers on the specific issues faced by migrants was never completed.