Do Immigrants Trust Trade Unions? A Study of 18 European Countries
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12466 |
| Published date | 01 March 2020 |
| Author | Andrew Richards,Anastasia Gorodzeisky |
| Date | 01 March 2020 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12466
58:1 March 2020 0007–1080 pp. 3–26
Do Immigrants Trust Trade Unions?
A Study of 18 European Countries
Anastasia Gorodzeisky and Andrew Richards
Abstract
Migrants form growingproportions of national workforcesin advanced capitalist
societies. Yet little is known about their attitudes towards the principal agents
of worker representation in their host countries, the trade unions, much less via
cross-national research. Using European Values Survey data, we redress this
imbalance by examining migrants’ levels of trust in unions, compared to native-
born. We find higher levels of trust in unions by migrants (compared to native-
born) in generaland especially by migrants during their first decades after arrival
and whose countries of origin are characterized by poor quality institutions.
These findings have significant implications for unionization strategies towards
migrants, especially givenreceived wisdom portraying migrants as indierent or
distrustful towards unions.
1. Introduction
Migrants now form a growing proportion of national workforces of
contemporary advanced capitalist societies,yet relatively little is known about
their attitudes towards the principal agents of worker representation in their
host countries, the trade unions, much less by way of large-scale cross-
national comparative research. In fact, the phenomenon of major waves of
immigration into Europe and North America and the future fate of trade
unionism are strongly intertwined. Union movements have, over the last four
decades, lost considerable power. In general, levels of union membership and
rates of unionization have declined everywhere (albeit at varying speeds and
to dierent degrees) at the same time as migrants form an ever-increasing
component of national workforces. As such, migrants represent — at least
potentially — a powerfulnew constituency with which unions might be able to
arrest and reverse their own decline. Yetthe relationship, historically, between
unions and migrant workershas been complicated and dicult — unions have
Anastasia Gorodzeisky is at Tel Aviv University. Andrew Richards is at Carlos III University.
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2019 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
4British Journal of Industrial Relations
often either been unable or unwilling to organize migrant workers or defend
their interests.
Nonetheless, it is also true that unions since the late twentiethcentury have
been attempting (with varying results, for sure) to do more to address the
concerns of migrant workers (Tapia and Holgate 2018: 189–204). One key
issue that has arisen is whether unions have been able to gain the trust of
migrants, given that such trust is a necessary condition for joining the trade
unions’ ranks. In this article, we examine this issue via a systematic analysis
of migrants’ attitudes towards— or more specifically, expressed levels of trust
in — trade unions in 18 European countries.
2. Unions and migrants
Nothing reflects the problematic nature of the relationship between unions
and migrants more than the simple, and highly significant, fact that
unionization rates for the latter consistently lag behind those of native-born
(Gorodzeisky and Richards 2013). At the same time, many recent empirical
studies support the argument that unions are increasingly attempting to
close this representation gap, albeit with varying degrees of success. For
example, Greer et al. (2013) present the case of the European Migrant
Workers Union (EMWU), created by the German union IG BAU, as
an important shift away from traditional national protectionism towards
genuinely transnational organizingas a means of incorporating migrants into
the ranks of organized labour. For sure, the EMWU wasdirecting its strategy
towards the specific constituency of highly mobile posted workers (rather
than migrants in general), thereby explaining its emphasis on transnational
organizing. Nevertheless,the initiative largely failed as a resultof other unions’
opposition to such an approach and their defence of existing institutional
arrangements.Tapia et al. (2014) reached somewhatmore positive conclusions
in their analysis of union strategies towards immigrant workers in Germany,
France,Britain and the USA. Via case studies including a carwash organizing
campaign in the USA, a sans papier movement in France, ‘Justice for
Cleaners’ in Britain, and integration approaches by IG Metall in Germany,
these authors emphasize the promise inherent in the adoption of more
dynamic strategies towards the recruitment of migrant workers. Likewise,
in their comparison of multinational factories in Belgium and Germany,
Pulignano et al. (2015) conclude that unions in Europe are increasingly
trying to defend the interests of temporary agency workers — among whom
migrants are over-represented. In addition, several case studies also support
the thesis of increasing attempts by unions to organize migrant workers.
For example, Connolly and Marino (2017) found that certain Dutch unions
that developed strategies inspired by the US ‘organizing model’ have been
relatively successful in recruiting and mobilizing workers in such sectors
as cleaning, in which migrants are, again, very prominent. In contrast,
Alberti (2014) describes the ultimate failure of the British union Unite,
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2019 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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