The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation

Précis of The Right Not To Stay

“…First, these organizations can provide services and forms of advocacy that are specifically targeted to the needs of temporary migrants, thus creating an incentive for them to join and mobilize (Heyes 2009;Fitzgerald and Hardy 2010;Martinez-Lucio et al 2013). Second, they can involve transnational or multinational forms of membership, which allow migrant workers to engage and be represented even before departure, or when they are back home (Gordon 2007;Piper 2015;Connolly et al 2019). Third, membership in migrant organizations and trade unions does not require, on the part of temporary migrants, inclusion in the host society or any deep engagement with its social and political system, although of course, the organizations themselves often need, and have, deep ties to the territory and extensive networks, and make the presence of migrants within the host society highly visible.…”

Guest editorial: Debates on social movements and trade unionism in Europe. New forms of interaction and transformative identities in work and society

“…The changing nature of migration, for example, has been a determining factor in shaping the new realities of precarious work (Rogers, 2017;Goods et al, 2019). Trade unions likely require a different relationship with migrant populations than with workers born in the country due to factors such as differences in trade union and political culture, migrants' unfamiliarity with trade unionism in their destination countries, and, above all, material conditions that make it more difficult for migrants to join and be active in unions, although much depends on the context and the migrant community (Connolly et al, 2019).…”

The improvised language of solidarity: Linguistic practices in the participatory labour-organizing processes of multi-ethnic migrant workers

“…Labour organizing has been described as an effective approach to represent migrant workers given its capacity to obtain workplace rights in precarious sectors (Connolly et al, 2019) and, therefore, reach out to the 'unorganizable' (Jiang and Korczynski, 2016). Compared to mobilizing, labour organizing entails worker organizational capacity, self-organization and autonomy rather than a short-term, bureaucratic, transactional relationship between labour organizers and workers (Han, 2014;Holgate et al, 2018).…”

“…By focusing on trade unions rather than workers (as argued in Atzeni, 2021;Jiang and Korczynski, 2016), studies of attempts to overcome the language barrier to organizing among multi-ethnic migrant workers have tended to examine linguistic practices that can be seen as bureaucratic and assimilationist rather than participatory and multicultural ones (Ciupijus et al, 2018;Connolly et al, 2019;Heyes, 2009;Holgate, 2005;Martínez Lucio and Perret, 2009;Mustchin, 2012). Yet, top-down practices such as like-recruitslike and free educational training may leave both migrant workers and union officers unsatisfied.…”

“…There is growing interest in how trade unions can organize an increasingly diverse workforce (Alberti et al, 2013;Connolly et al, 2019;Holgate, 2005). A worldwide rise in international migration (IOM, 2020) is turning receiving countries into diverse societies.…”