Workplace processes and employment opportunities for vulnerable social groups

Abstract

Employment opportunities and conditions of vulnerable social groups are affected by multiple agencies (including unions and employers) and labour market institutions. This study, drawing on iterative long-term research within workplaces, aims to discover the key interrelations among factors that are peculiar to different contexts. The research questions are pursued through a comparison of the treatment of women and migrants, respectively, in an Italian and a US car-manufacturing plant. Labour legislation is particularly important in the US case, whereas in the Italian context employers have more discretion. In both environments, unions have only a limited role.

Keywords

Employers Italy labour market conditions labour market institutions unions USA vulnerable social groups

Introduction

How is diversity managed within workplaces (Klarsfeld et al., 2012)? Certainly, vulnerable social groups – those who are marginalized for their social characteristics – can be subject to discrimination (Blanpain et al., 2008). For instance, in the EU-28, the average gender pay gap was 16 percent in 2017 (Eurostat, 2019). Inferior employment opportunities and conditions may result from a failure not only to apply equality measures but also to meet their particular needs deriving from complex social identities (Meardi, 2007; Perret and Martínez Lucio, 2009).

Research has shown that unions can be strategic actors for the representation of vulnerable groups (Heery, 2005, Heery and Conley, 2007). In this article, I focus attention on women and migrants. Although migrants may be more vulnerable than women, because they often need work urgently (Oesch, 2013; Rodriguez, 2004), both groups can be considered together for several reasons. First, they are the largest groups outside the traditional union constituency (full-time employed white men) (Chun, 2009). Second, unions seeking to attract non-traditional membership have focused on these groups by creating dedicated structures within their organizations (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2018). Third, previous academic contributions have demonstrated that union approaches towards inclusion have involved both groups (Geary and Gamwell, 2019; Silver, 2003).

I use the term ‘migrant’ to refer non-native workers who do not have citizenship, not to Black and minority ethnic workers who possess such rights. The latter group is present in substantial numbers in the USA and in Europe, although discrimination may still occur (Blanpain et al., 2008). My decision to focus on (documented) migrant workers reflects their specific needs in terms of legal support (citizenship, residency permits) and social integration (housing, tax systems), which are less relevant in the case of more established ethnic minorities or non-native people in general (Marino et al., 2017).

Academic contributions often concentrate on the UK and the USA, where unions increasingly address the needs of vulnerable workers (Alberti and Però, 2018; Fine and Tichenor, 2012; Fitzgerald and Hardy, 2010). However, unions are not the sole actor in this field: they interact with other key actors like employers and vulnerable social groups, and with multiple external factors (Connolly et al., 2014; Hyman et al., 2012; Rodriguez, 2004; Tatli et al., 2012). At the same time, it is still important to understand the context-specific role of unions as key actors.

As Almond and Connolly (2020) highlight, much recent comparative research on work and employment has followed ‘fast’ strategies based on standardized variables, and fails to understand how the most important factors and mechanisms are socially constructed. In this regard, their ‘manifesto’ for a ‘slow’ comparative approach is very important. Long-term immersion in local environments allows iterative informal conversations and observations, revealing interrelations between multiple actors and external factors. Moreover, working in the field for an extended period of time enables one to develop relations with people through open conservation, facilitating the collection of deeper information (Hyman, 2001; Rupp and Taylor, 2011). Here, it is essential that ethical research principles are met (Qu and Dumay, 2011).

My aim in this article is twofold. First, I apply an analytical framework which considers multiple agencies and multiple external factors in order to advance our understanding of the work dynamics related to employment opportunities and conditions of disadvantaged groups. Second, within this framework, I highlight the key factors and interconnections, which may differ across contexts, relying upon the slow comparative approach. My study is conducted at the workplace level, where it is important to understand how and why laws, institutions and general conditions are framed and used by local actors (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2018). I compare two car-manufacturing plants operating as first-tier suppliers, in Turin and Detroit.

Actor-based and external factors for the representation of disadvantaged groups

Multiple agency

I first problematize multiple stakeholders’ agency, before considering the external factors that affect their potential interactions in the regulation of the conditions of disadvantaged groups at workplace level. Different unions can be more or less solidaristic towards the representation of women and migrant workers (Martínez Lucio and Perret, 2009). The historical process towards a more inclusive approach followed by US unions is evident in the case of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and first involved Black workers. In its initial years, the union showed little interest in Black workers, but they were increasingly organized in the second half of the 1930s in order to achieve success in union struggles (Meier and Rudwick, 1979). A similar process occurred with migrants and women (Gray, 1993). During the 1960s, thanks in part to vulnerable workers’ battles for rights within the union, the UAW strengthened its attention to their inclusion within its collective bargaining (Milkman, 1990). However, at least in the case of women, their reduced presence in the most senior union positions (Gray, 1993) and the inadequate representation of their specific needs has been sometimes highlighted (Milkman, 2007). For instance, long working time, which may be enabled by collective agreements, entails high family and social costs, especially for women (Munts and Rice, 1970).

In Italy, immigration and migrant workers became a significant phenomenon in the mid-1980s. Italian unions view themselves as representative of all workers, whether they have a communist tradition like the Confederazione generale italiana del lavoro (CGIL), a Catholic tradition like the Confederazione italiana sindacati lavoratori (CISL) or a socialist tradition like the Unione Italiana Lavoratori (UIL). Thus, they take an inclusive approach towards migrant workers. The metal union FIOM-CGIL in particular pioneered such a approach (Marino, 2012). The economic recession of 2008 weakened this strong engagement because unions began to concentrate on basic issues of employment (Rinaldini and Marino, 2017). Women’s participation in paid work has been more limited than in many countries (Colombo and Regini, 2014), but feminist movements have been vibrant and, in alliance with unions, obtained important parity legislation in the 1970s (Cereseto et al., 2010).

Employers constitute the other fundamental labour market regulatory actor endowed with considerable power (Klarsfeld et al., 2012). Firms might decide to hire people belonging to vulnerable groups as cheap labour (Hyman et al., 2012). On the contrary, companies may engage and invest money in meeting equality goals and in addressing the needs of disadvantaged groups to meet national laws and/or to avoid conflicts with unions (Greene et al., 2005). The US-owned multinational companies (MNCs) play an important role, given their diffusion and influence in European countries and their tendency to impose centralized programmes in the design of employment systems at their subsidiaries (Almond et al., 2005). Some studies have shown that these programmes are often sensitive to the conditions of vulnerable social groups because management is affected by US laws on this matter (Ferner et al., 2005). Other scholars have found significant variation in practices adopted by American MNCs in host countries, depending upon labour market conditions (Meardi et al., 2009), the business sector and the institutional environment (Marginson et al., 2010). As highlighted by Edwards et al. (2013), in the case of the US multinationals, there are clear differences in the extent of the policy control exercised on subsidiaries which also depends on the host country institutional system.

It has been claimed that vulnerable social groups pose difficult issues for unions because they reflect distinctive social identities compared with the traditional workforce (Alberti and Però, 2018; Meardi, 2007). For instance, women may experience difficulties in carrying out physically demanding jobs, requiring unions to bargain for changes in work organization (Ledwith, 2012). Migrants may demonstrate low familiarity with their new production and social environment in terms of safety hazards and union activities (Fitzgerald and Hardy, 2010; Perret and Martínez Lucio, 2009). It may prove difficult for unions to consider these specific needs and fully to represent such groups while maintaining a sense of unity within the workforce (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2018). Certainly, a universalistic approach to representation that includes vulnerable groups as a part of a union’s collective-based logic of collective bargaining would fail to consider their specific claims (Ledwith, 2012), whereas a particularistic model that sustains such claims may generate competition between these groups and the traditional constituency. Alberti et al. (2013) have suggested that an effective inclusive strategy would consist of integrating universalistic and particularistic approaches. They describe this process in relation to migrants, but it might be extended to other vulnerable groups.

External factors

Although the strategies and actions of multiple actors may develop a degree of autonomy in terms of understanding and reacting to problems, such framings are affected by external factors found primarily within institutional and socio-economic domains. Within the institutional domain, labour market institutions constituted by law and collective bargaining systems are significant power resources for unions at the firm level (Benassi et al., 2019; Doellgast, 2010; Tatli et al., 2012) while acting as constraints on employer attempts to circumvent inclusive measures (Kochan et al., 2003).

Legislation to protect women and migrants from discrimination exists in both countries under study, although only more recently in Italy. Here, the first important law on gender equality in labour market access and employment conditions was approved in 1977 and has been improved in subsequent decades, particularly with the application of the European Directives. The national agreement (Contratto collettivo nazionale di lavoro, CCNL) in the metal sector adopts these principles. However, previous studies have shown that while Italian legislation is now formally aligned with that of other European countries, significant differences remain in terms of its actual implementation (Banca d’Italia, 2011; Zitti, 2008). Moreover, European legislation frames gender equality within an arguably paternalistic set of norms (Suk, 2012). For instance, the 2006 Codice per le pari opportunità (equal opportunities code) in Italy prescribes that employers are allowed not to hire women for particularly heavy jobs identified by collective agreements. As regards migrants, the main anti-discrimination law is a Decree of 1998; the main workplace level-issue consists in exploitation by employers in terms of work contracts and employment conditions, given migrants’ urgent need for work and their lack of information about the national institutional system (Rinaldini and Marino, 2017).

In the USA, the backbone of anti-discrimination legislation is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is in general well enforced. The USA was the innovator in employment discrimination law, developing principles that were later adopted and adapted by European countries (Blanpain et al., 2008). Suk (2012) highlights an important difference from European systems: employment equality requires that individuals (including women) make free choices over their work, unconstrained by stereotypes or collective beliefs. For instance, employers cannot hire only men for heavy jobs on the assumption that they are stronger than women. However, legal principles are not automatically mobilized; there is leeway which can be exploited by employers (Doellgast, 2010), so institutional provisions can require union action to ensure implementation (Gasparri et al., 2018; Geary et al., 2017).

As regards the socio-economic domain, labour market characteristics can affect the search for jobs by vulnerable groups. For instance, migrants tend to concentrate in areas with good labour market performance and superior employment opportunities (Oesch, 2013). Conversely, if labour market opportunities are scarce, unions and workers may be under pressure to accept inferior working conditions (Cella, 2011; Hunter and Katz, 2012). As noted previously, such conditions can stimulate unions to focus on basic issues of employment, reducing their specific attention to vulnerable groups (Rinaldini and Marino, 2017). The economic crisis hit both local contexts and the sectors examined here, although with differences. In the province of Turin, unemployment was slightly above 11 percent and migrants represented 9 percent of the total local population. Unemployment was as high as 20 percent in the Detroit metropolitan area (Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2011) and local newspapers estimated the figure to be as high as 50 percent in the city where the case study plant was located. According to official statistics (US Census Bureau, 2017), foreign-born persons constituted 5.5 percent of Detroit’s population in the period 2012–2016. Given that the Census Bureau defines the foreign-born population as anyone who was not a US citizen or national at birth, this means that the number of migrants was lower than 5.5 percent (indeed, people who were not US nationals at birth might still have citizenship). Therefore, the labour market situation was more favourable for labour in the Italian context although problematic.

In order to understand the most important agencies, factors and interconnections which may differ by location, intensive research within particular environments is required. In other words, variables highlighted in the literature may be used as an analytical guide to explore which among them contribute most to the observed outcomes in specific workplaces. A case study design facilitates the explanation of phenomena by considering simultaneously and in interaction the multiple internal and external variables of workplaces (Yin, 2009). My study goes beyond standard (both quantitative and qualitative) methods, taking into account historical traditions (Hyman, 2001). Working in the field enabled me to develop relations with people, enabling open conversation. In this way, people start to know each other and develop positive (or at least not negative) expectations about the behaviour of the researcher (Rupp and Taylor, 2011). This can be especially relevant when dealing with sensitive subjects like the employment conditions of vulnerable workers (Kochan et al., 2003).

Research design and method

The plants studies shared several important characteristics. This enabled several potentially relevant factors to be held constant, thereby avoiding excessive heterogeneity among cases, which entails non-comparability (Benassi, 2017). The effect of differences in labour market institutions, labour market conditions and potentially diverse union and employer behaviour in different countries should thus emerge more clearly. In terms of similarities, the two factories were both subsidiaries of the same US MNC, were of similar size, operated as first-tier suppliers, made the same product and operated in local contexts with long traditions in automobile production and industrial relations. They employed primarily blue-collar workers, representing more than 80 percent of the total workforce, the traditional union stronghold (Regalia, 2000); these are the subject of the research. In both locations, unions were affected by the long process of erosion of industrial institutions (Baccaro and Howell, 2011), deepened by the 2008 economic crisis. In Italy, the militant metal union FIOM-CGIL opposed employer demands for deviations from the sectoral collective agreement, whereas the other unions adopted more conciliatory positions (Benassi et al., 2019; Gasparri et al., 2018), as to some extent did the confederal CGIL. As a result, the employer signed separate collective agreements with the other unions; the unions have only recently started to bargain together again. Nevertheless, FIOM remained the union with the highest membership (Tolomeo Studi e Ricerche, 2013). In the USA, an unprecedented level of concessions followed the government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, agreed by the UAW that since the 1980s had acceded to company demands with the aim of safeguarding job security (Caulfield, 2010). The union was thus able to maintain its representative relevance in the sector, but at the cost of these concessions (Hunter and Katz, 2012). The dominant unions in the two cases were those with the highest membership in the sector, the UAW and FIOM, with the latter operating within the company-level councils (rappresentanze sindacali unitarie, RSUs), where the rival metal federation UIL-UILM was also present. In both plants, workplace union representatives were effectively assisted by and integrated into their unions.

The research method involved the triangulation of different qualitative research techniques, implemented during a period of approximately 3 months in each plant (in 2010 in Italy and in 2011 in the USA). The subjects analysed were labour market access, pay rates and benefits, working time, safety and ergonomics, and job rotation (Connolly et al., 2014; Heery, 2005; Klarsfeld et al., 2012). Along with extensive documentary analysis, I conducted semi-structured interviews and informal conversations on the shop floor with managers and workplace union representatives (whenever possible during the period spent in the factories and recorded as brief field notes). To comply with the principles of research ethics, I disclosed the main aims of the study in a preliminary meeting with some managers and workplace unionists and then to all the individuals participating in interviews. I also obtained from managers and workplace union representatives the possibility of collecting further data through informal conversations, always guaranteeing anonymity and confidentiality (Qu and Dumay, 2011).

I conducted semi-structured interviews with all the managers in the two plants (19 in Italy and 20 in the USA) as well as with all RSUs and shop stewards (three in each case). In the USA, informal conversations with some managers helped integrate their recorded interviews, as questions concerning women’s employment were usually answered quickly and formally and thus of limited use in understanding the mechanisms underlying the outcomes found on the shop floor. Informal conversations were also particularly helpful in understanding Italian managers’ views of migrants’ employment. This attests to the sensitivity of the subject (Kochan et al., 2003). Given that the study was iterative, informal conversations enabled deepening, clarifying and triangulating information collected from other social actors. Furthermore, it was possible to contact the RSUs when returning from the USA. Employees belonging to the social groups investigated were also interviewed, but these were not recorded, hence notes were written during and immediately after each conversation. In the Italian plant, 15 of the 45 migrants working in the factory were interviewed. One woman was consulted because (as will emerge below) only two women were employed as blue-collar workers. In the USA, 31 women out of the 80 employed were interviewed. In contrast, the number of migrants was negligible. Thus, the intersectionality constituted by the combination of gender and migrant status did not emerge as significant in either plant.

Findings

Employment opportunities

In the US plant, women represented 39 percent of blue-collar workers, almost half of these working on the assembly line; in Italy, only 2 percent of blue-collar workers were women, none of these on the assembly line. There were few migrants employed in the US plant, the number was low, but in Italy they represented almost a quarter of blue-collar workers (45 out of 176). Therefore, the opportunities available to vulnerable groups differed dramatically and resulted in a diversified composition of the workforce. These differences occurred despite similar physical demands of this type of production and a diversity management policy adopted worldwide by the MNC. Moreover, the documents analysed affirmed that diversity could bring new ideas and solutions to problems and would facilitate the full appreciation of employee capabilities. Thus, the global diversity policy was supposed to increase both the company’s competitive advantage and people’s capabilities. Regular executive review of corporate metrics was prescribed in order to verify foreign branches’ engagement in the implementation of the policy. However, the results differed.

In the USA, managers were willing to hire women. The assurance of equal employment opportunities for women was shared with the UAW. The principle was reaffirmed in the plant’s collective agreement, which established that employment applicants and employees had to be judged on the grounds of qualifications and ability without regard to sex and other personal or social characteristics. Effectively, women were employed in sufficient numbers within different departments, for instance, quality and shipping. The interviews revealed a shared inclusive view among social actors towards the hiring of women. Managers seemed to have internalized the requirement to employ women and men equally. When asked about the far higher level of employment of women in comparison with the Italian plant (the US plant was studied after the Italian case), they felt uneasy, claiming that it was obvious that women and men should have the same employment opportunities. They repeatedly expressed the principle that ‘everyone has the right to work’. Shop stewards emphasized the historical commitment of the UAW to defending vulnerable social groups. This principle was affirmed in the leaflets periodically distributed in the plant, which emphasized past fights to defend such groups from discrimination. In this way, a sense of solidarity within the whole workforce was maintained. Such attention was considered one of the main principles guiding the union:

Women must have the same opportunities and treatment as men. The principle of the union is that everyone has the right to make a living . . . Our history is full of fights for black people and women. In this plant, we have had no issues, but you must be always attentive in this field. We always remind our members of the importance of solidarity among all people. (Shop steward)

However, by remaining inside the plant and talking informally with managers and shop stewards, I could discover different explanatory interrelations between factors. The iterative collection of information was helpful in clarifying processes. Moreover, people seemed to be more relaxed both because they talked informally and because we knew each other. After a while, a few managers criticized the production process pertaining to the deployment of women, particularly during informal conversations. Their criticisms mainly focused on the time and costs related to the technological investments that allowed women to work in the production process, probably because these interventions did not automate production and reduce the workforce, but instead assisted people in performing their jobs. Plant managers articulated an approach that considered the specific physical characteristics of women (strength, stature) to enable their employment by introducing tailored technological tools. Crucially, these interventions served to prevent them contracting occupational illnesses or injuries as far as possible, although the work remained physically demanding. Occupational illnesses entailed significant financial and organizational costs, as workers affected had to stay home or be exempt from certain work stations, jeopardizing the job rotation all workers were required to perform. As regards the technical adjustments, for instance, workers at the beginning of the manufacturing flow were required to lift a heavy metal structure; an automatic system was introduced to allow women to lift this. In other cases, platforms or height-adjustable tools were introduced to help women to work, given that they tended to be of smaller stature than men:

When I used to build the equipment, fixtures and stuff like that, I always had to keep in my mind that there would have been a small operator, which was a little lady . . . The presence of women affects the technology quite a bit, because now you have a lot of ergonomic issues that you would not have with men. (Maintenance supervisor)

Managers highlighted the constraints from the law regulating discrimination in order to explain why it was impossible to hire only men. Almost every answer started ‘in the United States you cannot do that’, referring to the national labour market laws. This is confirmed by the historical roots of the company’s guidelines on the hiring of women. In the early 1990s, in another production facility of the MNC, the company only hired men; it was then sued by the UAW, leveraging the national legislation against discriminatory practices. The company argued that it’s policy was justified on grounds of women’s health and safety, but this was rejected by the judges, who ruled that women should freely decide whether to privilege their employment or their health as much as men (health that employers should safeguard as much as possible). The judicial decision forced the company to amend its hiring policy. Thus, while the institutional constraint was mobilized by the union, it was crucially the court’s decision that forced the corporation to change its hiring policy towards women in all its business sectors. Confirmation union pressure was not the main driver that comes from the experience of concession bargaining, demonstrating the union’s weak position: the UAW accepted managers’ demands for stressful changes in working practices such as increased working time (as discussed below). Moreover, the union’s inclusive approach can still be considered incomplete, as the maintenance section was almost exclusively composed of men despite the contractual provisions regulating internal labour markets, hence reflecting the notion of a gendered vision of specialist technical knowledge. Furthermore, in terms of worker representation, all three shop stewards were men. As noted, the number of migrants in the plant was negligible; management did not appear to discriminate against them in terms of employment opportunities and the shop stewards did not mention any issues in this regard. At any rate, both Black and minority ethnic workers and White workers were employed by the plant and this did not entail issues for union activity.

In the Italian factory, managers argued that women were not hired for physical reasons linked to the effort required in the production process. Occupational health and safety was an issue at the plant, with the same financial and organizational costs highlighted in the case of its US counterpart. The doctor connected to the plant suggested that managers should avoid hiring women for assembly-line jobs since they were more vulnerable than men to occupational injury and sickness. Managers avoided employing women for cost-related reasons and did not contemplate introducing automated or facilitating technology, even though it was clear with the managers in charge of designing the assembly line that some work stations performed the same activity as in the US factory:

Because the production process is physically demanding, jobs are better suited to men – robust men – than to women. Women are employed in offices or as forklift drivers. The doctor suggests that we only hire men, too, because although it is bad to say, men are stronger than women. Moreover, the doctor told us that women are more prone to getting occupational diseases than men. (Human resources manager)

Italian managers were periodically required to send reports containing equality metrics to the European and US headquarters to show that they were respecting the corporate policy. Given that Italian managers did not hire women, they emphasized the numbers of migrants employed. The partial and selective application of the policy was not contested by headquarters, and managers did not express any problem in this respect. Instead, headquarters focused on the staff-production ratio and on complaints from the final customer. Nor did managers mention problems connected with Italian labour market laws or local unions. The RSUs were represented by two men and one woman (an office worker, elected by UILM). When they were informed of the contrast with the US plant, the RSUs remarked that they had never thought of encouraging the company to modify its hiring policy and that local union officials had not advanced the issue. They also observed that they did not have the institutional resources at their disposal and were hence not fully aware of them. However, although the type of production in question was not identified within collective agreements as a particularly heavy job requiring employers to avoid hiring women, it certainly was heavy. Thus, it was considered that women would have difficulty carrying out such jobs, as explicitly argued by FIOM member of the RSU. At the same time, the RSUs were forced to focus on the defence of basic and collective rights given the difficult labour market situation and the employers’ attacks at both the national and plant levels.

Managers were more amenable to hiring migrants, who were appraised as hard workers endowed with positive attitudes. They needed to work and their current job often represented an improvement compared with their previous work experiences. Also in this case, by staying inside the plant I could undertake more relaxed and open conversations with the iterative triangulation of information collected. Managers explained that migrant workers did not complain and did not require particular interventions to lessen the workload, and thus they exploited the situation for cost-based reasons. Migrant workers’ accommodating behaviour that went beyond good work attitudes was especially underlined by middle managers and was subsequently confirmed by trade unionists. In the words of a team leader, ‘here work is tiring. In some work stations migrants have proven themselves strong and they have been hired. They do not complain; they accept conditions as they are. Other people keep asking for everything’. According to an RSU member from FIOM, ‘they accept what they find because they are already great improvements for them’.

On the contrary, employment of migrants presented certain issues, especially in terms of safety, despite the training provided. They usually had less experience with manufacturing work and in some respects, they were not fully aware of the risks associated with their jobs. Nevertheless, managers continued to hire migrants because they appreciated the element of their social identity constituted by their commitment to working, which was brought to the fore by cost-based evaluations. Thus, this partial application of the global diversity policy met managerial cost-saving goals.

Employment conditions

In the US factory, managers and shop stewards alike demonstrated a degree of attention to women’s specific needs, for instance, by establishing a no-harassment policy within the plant’s collective bargaining agreement. However, collective bargaining and thus unions as well mostly followed a universalistic approach whereby women were treated as workers rather than as a group with gender-specific needs.

As regards pay, differentiation was only defined on the grounds of seniority in the company. Health insurance was highly important. The union negotiated two different options from which workers could choose: one was advantageous for single workers and the other for those with family responsibilities, without differentiating between men and women. ‘Family’ insurance involved greater costs for the company, which might explain why it tried to remove it, instigating the union to protest for its restoration.

Work time was very long (up to 11 hours per day) and its duration was often communicated without advance notice as a result of managerial pressures. This applied equally to women and men. However, the long and especially uncertain duration of work created difficulties for people with family and care responsibilities, an issue of particular concern to women. For this reason, shop stewards asked for earlier notification, referring to people’s needs in general. Job rotation was equally applied between men and women; given the facilitating technology, women could execute different jobs along the assembly line as effectively as men and carried out the same job rotation implemented to protect workers’ health in ergonomic terms. According to a production supervisor,

women do not meet more difficulties than men in coping with the assembly line speed. They carry out the same job rotation. They are workers, they are not treated differently from the others. There is no way of paying them less or assigning them different workstations.

Overall, the women interviewed appreciated union action and collective bargaining outcomes, with 24 of the 31 (77 percent) expressing satisfaction. Appreciation centred on pay, the assurance of fair treatment (as in the case of job rotation) and disciplinary sanctions. According to one female worker, ‘I am satisfied with the union. I feel that it defends workers. For instance, if a worker is suspended for three days, the union stops the sanction and the worker gets the money back’.

This positive evaluation may seem a little surprising in relation to rather controversial practices, especially for women, such as the long and uncertain working time, which would appear to require further consideration of their specific needs. Women’s evaluations seemed to be influenced by the high unemployment rate afflicting Detroit. The difficult situation made women (and the workforce as a whole) to accept adverse working conditions and collective bargaining outcomes because, as explicitly acknowledged by some, the labour organization had to consider such conditions during the period in question. Under this situation, it was complicated for the union to take into account the specific needs of vulnerable groups.

In the Italian plant, managers were attentive to treating native and migrant workers equally, and the RSU monitored the application of legislative and contractual provisions. No particular issue was registered. All workers earned the same wage (benefits were not negotiated at plant level, being largely established by law and the CCNL), followed the same working time arrangements and carried out the same job rotation. The RSU followed a universalistic approach of representation. Leaflets distributed by FIOM inside the plant focused on fierce opposition towards employer requests for concessions at the national level. The RSU accounts of past battles through which many worker rights were achieved always had a collective flavour. This universalistic and collective approach avoided the concession of worse employment conditions and favoured equal treatment by informing migrants (and the workforce as a whole) of their work rights, but did not lead to their full representation. This was demonstrated by their lower union membership compared with native employees. However, migrant workers were mostly uninterested in union activity, given that it was difficult to understand and was not perceived as useful for their needs. As one migrant worker put it, ‘I am not interested in the activities of the RSU. I have other things on my mind’.

Thus, the complex social identities of migrant workers did not favour the recognition of union activity. Again, as highlighted before, the difficult labour market situation faced by the unions is part of the explanation, alongside employer attacks on previously attained collective rights both at national and plant level. These elements forced unions to focus on basic collective provisions in terms of employment conditions, complicating any actions that paid specific attention to vulnerable groups.

Discussion and conclusions

My study has demonstrated the validity of the holistic frameworks usually adopted within the comparative industrial relations tradition (Connolly et al., 2014; Martínez Lucio and Connolly, 2010), to explain employment opportunities and conditions of different social groups through a comparison of two diverse national and local contexts. At any rate, the ‘slow’ comparison and its iterative logic has enabled the identification of the most important explanatory factors and interrelations for the outcomes observed, by going beyond what can be captured through the ‘faster’ methods followed by several studies in the last years (Almond and Connolly, 2020; Hyman, 2001). In this regard, immersion in context combined with a deeper research relationship that leads to open conversations may be regarded as particularly relevant. From this comparison, it emerges that union attitudes and actions did not play a strategic role, as they had been weakened by adverse economic conditions. Other relevant factors and interconnections that differ between the two cases have also arisen from the comparison.

In the USA, labour laws play the key role in determining the employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups. In neither country do managers put the principle of inclusion at the forefront; rather, they seek cost saving by exploiting the complex identities of vulnerable groups. In the US plant, although managers expressed sensitivity towards hiring disadvantaged groups, immersion in context revealed their complaints about the financial and organizational burden resulting from such policies. However, the content and enforcement of labour law assure workers’ freedom of choice (Suk, 2012), counter to managerial cost-saving strategies. A court decision has compelled the company to change its hiring policy, forcing managers to include vulnerable people despite the additional cost. In contrast, in the Italian plant, employers play the key role. Managers avoid hiring women and employ migrants for their own benefit in terms of cost saving. Equality laws have a lower tradition of enforcement and are not strongly centred on women’s employment choices. This managerial decision is accepted by headquarters management (that in other situations imposes its decisions), demonstrating the rather formal commitment of US management towards inclusion.

Labour market conditions also exert an important influence (Tatli et al., 2012), but in an indirect way. First, the high unemployment rate explains the low proportion of migrant workers in the US plant, as immigrants typically move to places where jobs exist (Oesch, 2013). Above all, in both cases, the difficult labour market situation weakens unions, whether they oppose employers’ demands or acquiesce, and employment opportunities and conditions of disadvantaged groups have reduced priority. Unions are impelled by labour market circumstances to concentrate on basic and thus encompassing employment issues (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2018). It is true that within these universalistic approaches, there are differences between the two local unions in the interpretation of the principle of representation of disadvantaged groups, influenced by historical trajectories (Hauptmeier, 2012). The UAW has mobilized the labour court’s decision and strongly recognizes the importance of considering vulnerable groups. However, this result has been moderated by the characteristics of equality laws. The US legal system is amenable to union mobilization and unions in general can be confident about the outcomes of judicial procedures in this field and rely on the law to monitor its implementation. In contrast, Italian unions (and employers) do not perceive the strength of the law.

From these context-specific explanations, a general analytical implication can be drawn. Under difficult labour market conditions, the complex identities of vulnerable groups, rather than being represented by unions to pursue full inclusion, may be overlooked or exploited by employers to realize cost-saving strategies. Two important implications emerge. First, cost minimization strategies by MNCs (Meardi, 2007) entail important revisions of a company’s global diversity policy, which comes to acquire a rather formal character (Hyman et al., 2012). Second, labour market institutions constituted by law are crucial in countering cost-based employer strategies, because they are usually less affected by contingent economic conditions than are capital-labour power relations (Blanpain et al., 2008; Cella, 2011).

Future research should explore the processes that shape employment opportunities and conditions of disadvantaged groups in different types of production and sectors (Bechter et al., 2012), as confirmed by this study as well as by country. Moreover, with improved labour market situations, unions can regain a more central role. To understand better union differences towards inclusive approaches, research should examine different unions within the same institutional context (Benassi et al., 2019). At the same time, in this study I privileged breadth of determinants over depth, given the need to consider the potentially relevant factors involved in the process of determining vulnerable people’s working conditions. More nuanced analyses focusing on single aspects would help disentangle specific mechanisms, such as the relationship between unions or employers and disadvantaged groups. Above all, future studies should follow the method of iterative and long-term engagement in local contexts, in order to develop a greater understanding of the factors and mechanisms that are most relevant in specific contexts in generating the outcomes under study (Almond and Connolly, 2020).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks John Geary, Miguel Martínez-Lucio and Stefania Marino for helpful comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Andrea Signoretti is a Lecturer in Sociology of Organization at the University of Trento, Italy.

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