Chipping Away at the Fortress: Unions, Immigration and the Transnational Labour Market

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that in liberal industrialized countries, times of economic recession and high unemployment create pressures for restrictive immigration legislation, proposals which will be supported by trade unions as a means of safeguarding their interests.Drawing on a case study of British trade union opposition to the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act, this article argues that trade unions, which traditional interpretation suggests support such protectionist measures, are actually at the forefront of opposition to them.We suggest that the increased transnationalization of labour markets, combined with the particular nature of the legislative response, had led unions to adopt this apparently paradoxical position.

Union members’ attitudes towards immigrant workers: A 14-country study

“…Research on unions in Western Europe between the 1960s and 1990s also suggested that unions preferred restrictive immigration policies and focused on protecting the interests of their national members (Penninx and Roosblad, 2002). However, more recent empirical studies, beginning in the 1990s, show that union organizations are, in fact, becoming more inclusionary (Avci and McDonald, 2000;Freeman, 1995). In addition, there is now a very rich, mostly qualitative, body of literature which has documented the very considerable inclusionary efforts of certain unions -especially in the United States and to a lesser extent in Britain and elsewhere in Europe -to recruit immigrant workers as a means of boosting their memberships and halting long-term organizational decline (Holgate, 2005;Milkman, 2006;Ness, 2005;Trades Union Congress (TUC), 2003).…”

The global economic crisis and international migration: An uncertain outlook

“…Other authors view the role of trade unions differently. For instance, Avci and McDonald (2000) found that the position of trade unions is influenced by the increased transnationalisation of the labour market and the nature of the legislative response. In general a recession fuels an anti-immigrant mood.…”

Swedish Employers and Trade Unions, Varieties of Capitalism and Labour Migration Policies

“…Studies have predominantly centred on the role of trade unions, who should oppose labour immigration because of its potential for lowering wages within regulated labour markets and providing alternative labour in times of conflict (Castles & Kosack 1973;Haus 2002). Thus, a recently developing body of research has shown that the labour movement during the last few decades in the context of globalisation has become more open to managed forms of labour immigration compared to a restrictive approach and substantial unregulated migration (Avci & McDonald 2000;Haus 2002;Krings 2010;Watts 2002). These studies reviewed thus far have had much to offer regarding the understanding of both trade unions' migration policy preferences and migration policy outcomes influenced by organised labour.…”