The Politics of Social Inclusion and Labor Representation: Immigrants and Trade Unions in the European Context

THE POLITICS OF SOCIAL INCLUSION AND LABOR REPRESENTATION

Immigrants and Trade Unions in the European Context

HEATHER CONNOLLY, STEFANIA MARINO, AND MIGUEL MARTÍNEZ LUCIO

ILR PRESS

AN IMPRINT OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ITHACA AND LONDON

CONTENTS

Foreword by Richard Hyman

Preface

List of Abbreviations

1. Understanding and Framing the Questions of Trade Union Responses to Immigration and Social Inclusion

2. Uncovering the Nature and Tensions of Inclusion and Labor Relations

3. Trade Unions and Immigration in the Netherlands

4. Trade Unions and Immigration in Spain

5. Trade Unions and Immigration in the UK

6. Trade Union Responses to Immigration in Europe

7. The Geometry of Trade Union Responses to Immigration and the Politics of Inclusion

Notes

References

Index

FOREWORD

The modern nation-state is usually regarded as the product of the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War and asserted the principle of national sovereignty in the political (and specifically religious) realm. Yet economics has never respected national frontiers: cross-national trade and labor migration have existed throughout recorded history. For some scholars, indeed, globalization is not a modern phenomenon but can be traced back at least five millennia. What is distinctive about recent decades is not so much the movement of people across national borders as the growth of multinational corporations, the elaboration of global (surplus) value chains, and the liberalization and transnationalization of finance capital. These trends receive substantial reinforcement from the European Union with its treaty commitment to the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital, and labor.

All these developments have undermined the nation-specific production regimes (or varieties of capitalism) that were consolidated in the middle decades of the twentieth century, have gravely weakened nationally embedded labor movements, and have disrupted once seemingly stable employment relationships and working-class communities. Unsurprisingly, there has been a political backlash, but in most countries with a perverse imbalance of focus. In the notorious British referendum on Brexit in 2016, a key slogan of the Leave camp was to take back control. However, this did not mean taking back control from multinationals, hedge funds, or financial speculators; and certainly not from the nondomiciled millionaire press barons whose editors acted as cheerleaders for the Leave campaign. Rather, controlling our borders meant keeping out foreign workers and their families (even though it has subsequently become clear that much of the British economy and public services would grind to a halt without them).

The political agenda in recent years has been increasingly shaped by this one-sided reaction to globalization, certainly not just in Britain, nor indeed only in Europe. In many countries, xenophobic right-wing parties draw much of their support from the manual working-class constituencies that trade unions have traditionally sought to represent. This clearly presents an ideological and discursive challenge for union policymakers to convince those in their own ranks of the relevance of an alternative and progressive narrative.

Unions also face broader practical challenges. The growth of a vulnerable and precarious workforce, within which migrant labor is overrepresented, reinforces other sources of declining membership density and hence erodes union power resources. Such a workforce, often under the aegis of posting or of bogus self-employment, is widely used by employers as a form of social dumping to drive down labor costs and of divide and rule to inhibit worker solidarity. The growth in the number of workers who are in practice—and often officially, according to national legislation—second-class citizens, undermines the social cohesion that most trade unions have pursued throughout their history.

In response, unions have had to develop new structures and practices of inclusion, representation, and regulation, as part of a broader search for revitalization. How they do so, and with what success, differs substantially within countries, and even more so between them. In part this reflects national differences in opportunity structures (unions’ institutional power resources, the legislative framework, the mechanisms of industrial relations) and in the degree of economic and labor market transformation; but in addition, and crucially, it reflects the distinctive trade union identities and ideologies that are the product of long historical evolution.

In this important book, Heather Connolly, Stefania Marino, and Miguel Martínez Lucio compare and contrast trade union responses to a more diverse labor force in three countries, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and they also explore pan-European initiatives. They demonstrate that it is vital to grasp the very complex dialectic between material and ideational causal forces. Beyond this, their analysis stresses the dynamics of union-migrant relationships: though the patterns in each country are to an important extent path-dependent, in some respects it has been possible to break with the past. Not long ago, it was common in Britain to characterize trade unions as pale, male, and stale: dominated by middle-aged white men. An observer at any union conference today would see significant differences. A similar story can be told in most other countries. Trade unions face hard challenges, but trade unionists are crafting new and imaginative responses. This book, based on an intensive research effort, is a vital resource for anyone wishing to understand the complex interaction between migrant labor and union policy.

Richard Hyman

PREFACE

The question of immigration has always been of fundamental importance in the discussion of work and employment. The mobility of workers and their influence on national labor markets, and the manner in which they have been treated and included/excluded in those labor markets and the wider social dimension, have attracted a great deal of political and academic interest. The relationship between so-called indigenous workers and immigrant workers has raised broader questions of solidarity and mutual support. The role of trade unions in this area has, since the early 2000s, become a greater focus of organizational interest within trade unions themselves and has also led to greater academic engagement from a range of research-based institutions. The question of whether wages and salaries are affected by immigration, the nature of skills and how they change within any given labor market, matters of integration and mutual support within the workplace, and the general perspectives and views of social and economic actors on the matter—not forgetting those of the state—are drawing much more attention. In part this is due to the accelerating and changing nature of immigration. Ongoing issues of social exclusion and racism have remained significant in the reality of labor and employment relations.

This book presents an analysis of the way trade unions—particularly more established and institutionalized trade unions—respond to immigrant workers. We locate the discussion in the period since the 1970s, with a particular focus on the late 1990s to the early 2010s. To this extent we traverse a period of increasing—and changing—immigration patterns, as well as the emergence of a significant crisis in the context of capitalism and new forms of xenophobia. The research we conducted was financed mainly by the Leverhulme Trust (2008–12) and in part by the Economic and Social Research Council (both British-based national funding bodies). The aim was to look at the dynamics of change in relation to trade union responses and their differences across three distinct national contexts in the European Union: the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The nature of labor and employment relations, the form of the state, and the experiences of immigration vary in the three countries. Our research sought to observe how trade unions understood issues related to immigration, such as the needs of immigrant workers, and to map the responses of those trade unions. The way trade unions respond to the question of immigration arguably consists of four variables: the nature of immigration, the structure of the labor market, the structure of the social contexts, and the patterns of employment regulation in each country (see Marino, Roosblad, and Penninx 2017a). Furthermore, the way trade unions have historically developed distinct projects in relation to social inclusion and broader matters of equality has also shaped the nature of current responses. In this respect, we believe it is necessary to understand the competing meanings of solidarity and institutional traditions that frame such responses. The question of social inclusion has been framed and mediated by national structures of regulation and traditions of state intervention.

Hence, in this book we study the different ways that trade unions interact with the working class (and the meanings of class to a certain extent), the link with the state and the broader question of social rights, and the engagement with immigrant communities and questions of race and ethnicity—noting how they develop and interact in each national case. We problematize the question of social inclusion and trade union responses by looking at the way trade unions have approached immigration and immigrants, focusing on what they perceive to be the important points of renewal and change that are required for a more integrated and supported immigrant community to emerge. We also engage with the role of cross-national trade union relations on the question of immigration and how trade unionists have attempted to deal with very different national configurations of trade union action.

We start the book with a chapter that looks at issues of trade union change and renewal in the context of the debate on immigration. We map how debates have emerged and how sensitive they are becoming to social issues such as immigration and race-related issues. The chapter establishes a framework for understanding the different choices and patterns of trade union responses and the way they sometimes face competing choices. The second chapter sets out the context for each of the national case studies and the research methods used in the different national contexts. We outline how we structured our research and went about understanding how trade unionists engaged with the issues at hand.

In the following three chapters we look closely at the national cases studies, starting with the relatively more coordinated and social partnership–based approach of the Netherlands (chapter 3), followed by the aspiring and flexible neocorporatist approach of Spain (chapter 4) with its emergent systems of regulation yet with a decentered economic context. In chapter 5 we present the United Kingdom, a broadly liberal market economy, but with a strong history of equality politics and direct trade union engagement with immigrants. The three cases broadly reflect different systems of regulation and welfare politics but exhibit different trade union traditions of community or social engagement (as well as immigrant engagement) that are not always reflective of the overarching structures of the state and civil society. In these chapters we follow how trade unions engage with matters of class, regulation, and social rights as well as ethnicity and race in each of these countries. We focus on relatively larger established trade unions as a way of evaluating and critiquing the embedded institutional spaces of these contexts and exploring the tensions in the incumbent and established practices and structures of labor and employment relations. We are aware that, more recently, the nature of the research focus and choice would require a study of newly emergent bodies and networks within and around organized labor and immigrant communities,¹ but our intention was to look at the fissures and challenges—as well as changes—in organizations that because of their resources and legitimacy should have been well-placed to respond to these social challenges. Our cases build on the development of key aspects of the work of Richard Hyman and his interest in trade union politics and identity, and a series of pieces we have developed previously and have expanded into the narrative of the text through in-depth cases and a concern with the issue of solidarity and inclusion. Hence, while as Fine and Tichenor (2012) have argued we see that most trade unions in Western Europe—similar in aspects to the United States—have started historically from a position of ambivalence and even opposition toward migrants, for various social and political reasons, there has been a steady move to more pro-immigration policies. It is our argument though that very different dimensions and meanings remain in regard to these pro-immigration policies due to the nature of different national contexts of regulation, histories of social struggle, and the language and practice of solidarity.

Chapter 6 is concerned with trade unions at the European Union (EU) level and how we have seen the emergence of projects to try to create a common framework of responses toward immigrant workers. We focus on the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which has conducted projects that allow national trade unions to share the nature and usefulness of their responses to immigration and social inclusion. This chapter demonstrates the fundamental challenges related to this cross-referencing of practice across different countries and the limits of this for the development of transnational trade union strategy. The concluding chapter returns to broader questions of national contexts and the issue of solidarity. There, we argue that we should appreciate the complexity of trade union traditions and their trajectories of solidarity. We point to the need for a greater politics of democratic engagement and participation in relation to immigrant workers. We end with a reflection on how organizations remain wedded to specific trajectories and we maintain that trade union renewal remains an innovative but at times problematic set of choices and aspirations.

The book is based on interviews with a wide range of individuals: 150 interviews in our national case study countries and 12 interviews at the European level during 2009–13. The experience of the research was intense. We conducted a range of semistructured and unstructured interviews along with extensive observations of national and local conferences and meetings in each national context and in the ETUC and European industry federations. We interviewed workers in local establishments and other informal spaces and collated a wide array of trade union materials and policy documents. The earlier parts of the book—especially the opening chapter—draw from and develop some previously published work that underpinned the initial stages of the project.

We thank everyone who participated in the research, who are too numerous to mention individually. We would like to thank especially specific individuals who were helpful and concerned advisers in the British, Dutch, and Spanish labor movements as well as in the European-level structures: Bill Adams, Valery Alzaga, Jose Antonio Moreno Díaz, Jorge Aragon, John Burgess, Steve Craig, Susan Cueva, Irina de Sancho Alonso, Dirk Kloosterboer, Margriet Kraamwinkel, Mohammed Haidour, Zita Holbourne, Frank Hont, Herrie Hoogenboom, Mustapha Laboui, Ann Lafferty, Alan Manning, Roger McKenzie, Manuel Riesco, Lola Santillana Vallejo, Henny Siwabessy, Mohammad Taj and Greg Thompson. Seeing trade unionists innovate and engage on matters of equality and social inclusion and following their experiences and struggles helped us appreciate that it is the engaged and committed activists at all levels who create the spaces and opportunities for a more socially inclusive society to emerge. We would also like to thank Richard Hyman and Paul Stewart for supporting and commenting on aspects of the book, and to Keith Povey for copyediting an early draft of the book.

ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter 1

UNDERSTANDING AND FRAMING THE QUESTIONS OF TRADE UNION RESPONSES TO IMMIGRATION AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

Since the early 2000s, labor and employment relations researchers have focused increasing attention on the influence of immigration on the labor market of the host countries and, more broadly, on the social, economic, and political contexts. This growing interest in the study of immigration, race, and ethnicity is highly welcome given previous tendencies to consider them to be secondary or even irrelevant features—especially in the European context. The ambivalence displayed historically by trade unions toward immigration and immigrants cannot be ignored as a contributing factor in limiting scholarly attention in this area. However, increasing concerns with regard to immigration—paralleled by the relative weakening of the position of trade unions in Europe and North America—means that the study of this topic has become increasingly important and mainstreamed. As Lowell Turner (2014, 13) has stated in relation to the growing importance of this issue: Union campaigns to join or lead the mobilization of immigrant workers carry the promise of a more integrated, sustainable society. Hence there is not just a political and intellectual interest in the subject of social inclusion and immigration but a moral one and, within this, the social movement turn is fundamental, as trade unions seek to rekindle their origin as a social organization, and not just an economic or industrial one (Fine and Holgate 2014).

This chapter provides an overview of the challenges of studying and trying to understand the effect of new forms of immigration on labor and employment relations, considering questions of context and the diverse meanings and strategies of solidarity and inclusion.

We heed Janice Fine’s (2006) warning of the need not just to focus on established relationships and how they adjust, but to be sensitive to new relationships and politics within these spaces, to the choices that are made and how gaps are assessed in labor and employment relations. The methodological consequences of this are clear: we need broader maps and broader methods based on an ethical understanding of the role of voice. In particular we need multidimensional approaches that emphasize (a) the social context (the history and context of change in social constituencies); (b) the formal institutional context (the new mechanisms of representation and change within communities); (c) the political context (the role of the political in terms of discourses and resources); and (d) the regulatory and welfare context (the broad play and spaces of regulation and social policy). We argue for a more nuanced approach to the way we understand trade union responses to immigration and the way we compare and contrast these. Our approach and heuristic framework allow for analysis of the more complex choices and contexts that underlie trade union renewal. With our framework we are able to map trade unions’ response to change in a more dynamic manner that looks at the tensions across responses and the different questions of regulation and representation facing trade unions in relation to immigration and social inclusion.

The Steady Realization of the Limitations of Traditional Forms of Representation and Institutional Adjustment

Both in the United Kingdom and the United States, research on issues of immigration and labor and employment relations has developed at a rapid pace since the early 2000s (Connolly, Marino and Martinez Lucio, 2017; Krings 2009; Marino, Roosblad, and Penninx 2017b; McGovern 2007; Meardi 2012; Penninx and Roosblad 2000). There are various reasons for this. First, new waves and forms of immigration began to raise levels of interest in questions of social inclusion and exclusion. This new wave has emerged in part due to the changing nature of capitalism and the way it began to globalize and organize production across borders in a more interconnected manner. It has also emerged, in part, due to the failures of capitalism to develop the economic and social infrastructure of developing countries. What is more, labor market shortages in developing countries, and the rapid demand for specific jobs with a low level of labor supply, have created a basis for new forms of immigration. Second, the debate has been spurred on by institutional factors. The declining levels of trade union membership in both the UK and the United States, where this debate has been developed more extensively, along with problems of coverage in terms of trade union roles in various parts of the economy, means that the issue of renewal began to take on a central dynamic within the labor and employment relations discipline (Frege and Kelly 2003). In political terms trade unions were confronted by the presence of new groups of workers, which were in many aspects outside the sphere and influence of the labor movement. Immigrants in particular, who constituted a substantial part of these new groups, were finding gaps in their voice and representation, even in contexts where immigration (external and internal) was an established feature of the national contexts. Third, new forms of xenophobia were also emerging toward Eastern Europeans and Muslims in the United Kingdom and in socially oriented welfare states such as Denmark (Wrench 2004). This brought forth a new dimension to the antiracist strategies that trade unions had—with varying degrees of success and commitment—developed in the UK and the United States.

These developments have required the rethinking of research and activity in relation to immigration. To date, research on such immigrant communities in the context of labor and employment relations has been mainly fixated—one could reasonably argue—on the issue of organizing immigrants within trade unions (Milkman 2000, 2006). The question became one of how trade unions develop strategies capable of sustaining immigrant participation in the labor movement. In the case of Ruth Milkman’s broad work, the issue was the way in which resources and leadership were engaging with communities and local struggles for trade union and worker rights. The combination of leadership and mobilization—of strategic knowledge, local networks, and grassroots action—is fundamental according to Milkman. On their own, these two dimensions of trade union action can lead to failure and demoralization. Milkman’s approach suggests that the ways in which trade union democracy, questions of leadership, and local structures combine in such strategies must be seen as a paramount feature of any discussion. However, existing research suggests this is rarely the case (Martínez Lucio and Perrett 2009). The question should not be solely one of how trade unions service or represent immigrants and their needs as part of the workforce, but how questions such as trade union representation, the establishment of good working conditions, and the development of equality strategies are organized and led. The US debate has been concerned with the organizational logic of such developments and challenges (see Bronfenbrenner et al. 1998).

The relation between trade unions and immigrants reflects the broader concern about how trade union renewal is torn between two models: it is either hierarchically service driven or based on local mutual aid approaches to organizing and trade union roles (Bacharach, Bamberger, and Sonnenstuhl 2001; see also Adler, Maite, and Turner 2014). The need to build immigrants and their experience into the