Unions and migrant workers: strategic challenges in Britain

Abstract

This article is based on a recent study of attempts by a range of British trade unions to access and engage with Polish migrant workers at the community or labour market level, rather than workplace level. The findings suggest that migrant workers can indeed be recruited at this level. Doubts are expressed, however, about the sustainability of new membership gained in this way. These doubts are linked to a marked absence of clear union strategies to create a longer-term nexus of interest with those who are recruited, of the type advocated in, for example, the North American ‘new labor movement’ literature. This absence – it is argued – may be less a reflection of a lack of strategic leadership than a product of the difficulties unions face in identifying viable strategies relating to the representation and organization of workers above the workplace level.

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