Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe

Migration, Work and Employment Perspectives

Olena Fedyuk, Paul Stewart

• Publisher: ECPR Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781786605405
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Einwanderungspolitik

Recent decades have seen the EU grappling with a major struggle between the securitization of its external borders and demand for exploitable and disposable cheap workforce in various sectors. As a result, the EU has multiplied its borders by pushing them both outwards and inwards, and the distinction between migrants’ status as regular and irregular, legal and illegal, citizen and non-citizen, has been continuously portrayed as black and white. This produces and sustains an analytical, political and practical divide that often obscures commonalities in workers’ dispossession and is an obstacle to unified struggles to secure workers’ rights. This volume moves beyond a perspective of migrants’ exclusion and inclusion as solely a product of migration processes. It contextualizes migration in the larger transformations of the local, national and transnational labour markets and relations that point to the ongoing precarization of working lives. These processes of inclusion are methodologically approached through exclusion at macro, micro and meso levels. This positions the ethnographically documented experiences of immigrant labourers in the challenges of contemporary labour and migratory regimes, and traces new forms of collective response and contestation emerging in these reconfiguring contexts.

Section III

COLLECTIVE PERSPECTIVES ON INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION

Chapter III.1

Trade Unions’ Responses at the Intersection of Class and Migration

Karima Aziz, Ben Egan and Radosław Polkowski

The changing context of work and migration patterns mean that it is important to develop an understanding of the formulation of collective responses. To this end, this chapter uses union approaches to migrant workers in three countries to develop an understanding of how this can be pursued successfully. Trade unions can provide an opportunity for advancing the rights and citizenship of migrant workers while migrant workers also create opportunities for unions as institutions in a hostile environment of austerity and the transformation of the labour market that are the subject of this book. However, migration also poses a range of challenges and dilemmas for trade unions (Penninx and Roosblad 2000). With the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements, migration became a topic of renewed interest for trade unions in many European countries including those previously unaffected by inward migration to any significant extent (Krings 2009). Yet the policy context in which trade unions have had to develop their responses to migration is arguably a more complex one compared to post-war guest worker schemes in that it draws a sharp divide between EU and non-EU migrants that results in a highly fragmented workforce and a segmented labour market.

Because ‘labour processes and hierarchies vary depending on regional histories and social structure’ (Stewart et al. 2013: 98), inevitable legacies remain in relation to how unions confront these challenges. This impacts on strategies, attitudes and outcomes in relation to all members (and non-members), including migrants and other groups of workers seen as ‘under-represented’, in the workplace and beyond. It presents existential questions for unions. Questions in which the role of class can be central in establishing whom exactly each union sees itself as representing and what the boundaries are of this representation. Where does membership end? Does a prominence for class politics in a union lead to a more inclusive environment for migrant workers? And if so, why? These are the key questions we address.

This chapter therefore contributes to the literature on migrant worker organising efforts in European trade unions by integrating a class analysis of the unions as ideological organisations (Connolly et al. 2014). In particular, it builds on the framework developed by Penninx and Roosblad (2000) to explain union responses as well as the outcomes for migrant workers. We argue that the dilemmas with which trade unions traditionally contend in relation to migrant workers are ‘re-experienced’ as union identity politics – including the role of class politics – leads to adaptations in approaches to engagement with subsequent migration flows.

We further propose that class and identity politics are therefore important elements in shaping trade unions’ approaches and outcomes for migrants. This is not saying that class and identity politics are either synonymous or contradictory but that the result of their presence can be a more robust union organisation in relation to including migrant workers. This argument is illustrated using qualitative data collected between 2012 and 2014 in England, Northern Ireland and Italy. Showing the divergence in outcomes between unions with different approaches to class and other elements of identity politics, we see class, and broader identity politics, as an essential feature in this analysis because without it a union is reliant upon its professional staff to ‘service’ the membership in strictly workplace issues (Waddington and Kerr 2009). Only through engaging activists on a broader political basis are unions able to renew and grow to include new worker types.

Migration and Shifting Union Strategies

Being interested in explaining unions’ responses to migration, it is nearly impossible not to refer to Penninx and Roosblad’s (2000) seminal work on the same topic, as it makes us sensitive to a range of factors that may shape these responses. In what follows, we critically discuss their framework and its applicability to the context of contemporary migration in Europe. In the present chapter, we are interested in the dilemmas instrumentally, rather than as being insightful themselves. That is to say, by identifying the dilemmas confronting unions in England, Italy and Northern Ireland, we are able to explore the factors that influence these changes – most significantly for our thesis, that of class and identity politics. Penninx and Roosblad identify three dilemmas that unions must historically go through in their engagement with migrant workers. Individual union groupings will be at different points of this dilemma structure at different times, according to several factors which we address in the following section.

The Three Historical Dilemmas

The three union dilemmas can be identified as (1) resistance or cooperation; (2) inclusion or exclusion; and (3) mainstreaming or special treatment. The first relates to the attitudes of unions towards the employment of foreign workers from the outset. The authors here draw reference to several European examples in the 1960s and 1970s of a mixed approach in this regard before recognising that the restrictions placed by governments on the growing body of refugees and asylum seekers from the mid-1980s onwards largely relieved trade unions of this dilemma. They merely needed to agree with employment restrictions on these potential workers. This was the point at which undocumented migrants were ‘made and kept “illegal”’ (Penninx and Roosblad 2000: 8) with the consent of some trade unions, who at this point were tied into the tripartite decision-making of the post-war era. The second dilemma relates to union attitudes once migrant workers do arrive. Are they to be included or excluded from the union? This engagement can also be taken to mean both direct recruitment and representation of migrant workers as individuals as well as engagement with autonomous migrant organising groups that emerge in relation to the unique status of migrants in society or even as a response to traditional trade unions being unable or unwilling to incorporate such workers from the outset. Castles and Kosack’s (1973) observation of the tipping point at which even unions that have been hostile to immigration must hold back in expressing this view if they wish not to alienate new potential immigrant members is used to back up Penninx and Roosblad’s (2000) second dilemma. The third dilemma relates to the treatment of migrant workers who do join the union once they have arrived and a union has taken the approach of recruiting such workers to the union: whether to give such members special treatment or treat them as any other member. Within the now accepted view that minority groups do, to some extent, need ‘special treatment’ to thrive in unions, Penninx and Roosblad (2000) conceptualise a scale which at one end provides for extra, often advisory, groupings, and at the other end a more proactive agenda. This can include active anti-discrimination policies, training and activities, as opposed to a ‘colour-blind’ treatment, as well as employing and promoting immigrant workers within the union.

‘Setting the Clock’ on Migrant Organising

In order to assess the role of class and identity politics in unions and its connection to migrant strategies, it is necessary to be clear on how and where this influence is exerted. The transition between the dilemmas cited is influenced by several factors (outlined below) so it is within these transitions from one dilemma to the next that the roles these factors play in influencing union practices become salient. One potential problem in analysing this is that the three dilemmas debate risks overlooking the crucial importance that historical and cultural legacies impose on the countries in which our trade union case studies are situated. Not only did England, Italy and Northern Ireland experience migration upturns that were qualitatively different in character, but they also occurred at different times and so clearly no uniformity will be observed. Moreover, these national experiences engender differentiated responses: not all unions in each country react in the same manner to all migrant groupings. This can be guided by many factors from the ease of integration of arrival populations into existing union structures to the political power of certain factions over others inside the union at any given time as well as the state of the labour market. It can also be heavily influenced by the more simple preferences and actions of a small number of people in influential positions within the union, such as a charismatic leader, in either direction. The result of these various influences is that at any time the clock can be reset on migrant organising approaches.

What do we mean by ‘setting the clock’? The original framework, intended to specifically apply to the period 1960–1993, seemed somewhat linear in its approach. That is to say that unions pass through the dilemmas sequentially. However, subsequent spikes in the levels of inward migration have shown employment relations scholars that as new groups arrive it cannot be taken for granted that if a union has reached dilemma three (i.e. how to include migrant workers in the union, rather than whether) that that union will stay there. New groups of arrivals can reopen debates about whether to include or exclude them (i.e. dilemma two). Therefore, the clock can go back on migrant organising approaches. Difficulties of the model in relation to more recent migration movements have in fact been acknowledged by the original authors in a recent article, ahead of the anticipated publication of an updated version of the volume (Marino et al. 2015). We propose an understanding that accounts for this reversal with a ‘delinearisation’ of the dilemmas, as shown in Figure III.1.1.

Figure III.1.1 Delinearisation of the Three Dilemmas. Source: Own elaboration based on Penninx and Roosblad 2000.

Most major trade union organisations in Europe today have some nominal commitment to organising migrant workers – broadly defined. It is the historical legacy of more overt public displays of racism and xenophobia from which the three dilemmas emerge, and which have informed the considerations confronting unions. Put simply, overt public exclusion of migrants is no longer a tenable position. A result of this is that all union strategies in these countries are concentrated around the third dilemma, with some at the second, but none at the first – primarily due to the restrictions governments place on migration. This is because of shifting ideas of what is ‘politically acceptable’ both inside unions and in broader society. This is not a one-way street, however, and different migrant groups and different union organisations will result in different outcomes at different times. That is to say each wave of immigration can result in moving back to earlier dilemmas – the resetting of the clock metaphor. However, it is important to be clear at this point what dilemma one actually means. The resistance or cooperation dilemma relates to unions’ role in developing government policy – not internal union policies, or rhetoric and so on. Therefore, an observation that this union or the other is resistant to migration or migrant workers is not tantamount to dilemma one. Rather it represents most likely the latter option of dilemma two, inclusion or exclusion. The first dilemma entirely presupposes a certain level of ‘social partnership’ with the state for trade unions to have any impact on migration policy.

Dilemmas in the Three Countries: Unions and Migrant Workers in England, Italy and Northern Ireland

The trade union landscapes of England, Italy and Northern Ireland differ significantly due to ambiguous statuses and historical legacies. Variation inevitably exists in the approaches taken by different unions and confederations in relation to a whole range of organisational challenges, not least migration with its political and social baggage. The development of Italian union structures and industrial relations mechanisms in relation to migrant organising are relatively recent, with significant numbers of migrant workers representing a new social phenomenon: before 1990 there were few migrant workers whereas today they account for more than one in eight workers. This has meant that each confederation has had to be experimental in how it approaches these new workers and potential members. Before the late 1980s, there were relatively few migrant workers and consequently union strategies in relation to the three dilemmas have emerged over the course of the last twenty-five years or so. The wide diversity of the migrant groups has pre-empted the establishment of numerous migrant organisations within the various confederations and beyond. Meanwhile, the conflictual model of industrial relations in Italy has largely ruled out any consideration of dilemma one (Regalia and Regini 1998). The current focus is on dilemma three and ways of integrating such special interest groupings into mainstream union business (Marino 2015).

Similarly, the decades-long civil conflict in Northern Ireland had for a long time insulated unions from the dilemmas of immigration. The first noteworthy inward migration began with the 2004 EU enlargement and it was indeed unprecedented in scale as in a short time Northern Ireland had one of the highest concentration of CEE workers in the UK (Department of Learning and Labour 2009). Trade unions supported freedom of movement of workers from 2004 accession states. Interestingly, however, they found themselves in a peculiar position with regard to 2007 accession states in that British trade unions were against transitional measures whereas the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) supported them and, being the amalgamation of both, the trade union movement in Northern Ireland found itself between two contrasting stances. As explained by the representative of the Northern Irish Committee (NIC) of ICTU interviewed for this study, ‘NIC-ICTU did not have a separate position on th...