Unions and migrant workers: strategic challenges in Britain

Introduction

Labour migration to developed economies has expanded dramatically in recent decades (McGovern, 2007; Fix et al., 2009). This growth of inward migration has confronted national union movements with a number of challenges and dilemmas. At the most general level, it has raised the issue of how far unions lend weight to domestic policies that are supportive – or not – of inward migration. Meanwhile, it has also generated important questions concerning the stance unions adopt towards the organizing of migrant workers, the resources they should devote to this activity and the way in which these resources can best be used to facilitate union joining and participation among migrants.

These last questions, moreover, cannot be sensibly considered in isolation from the wider context of union recruitment and organizing, for at least two reasons. The first is that existing evidence highlights that a significant proportion of migrant workers work in sectors of the labour market, and in forms of employment, within which unions are, in any case, struggling to recruit and organize (Anderson et al., 2006). The second is that, in a situation of constrained resources, unions have to strike internally an acceptable political balance between devoting resources to, on the one hand, servicing and supporting existing members and, on the other, seeking to expand their membership and organization in areas where they are weak or under-developed (Willman, 1989).

Against this background, the present article explores attempts by a range of British unions to access and engage with Polish migrant workers at the community or labour market level, rather than workplace level. ¹ It draws, in summary form, on the findings of a recent study undertaken by the authors, and uses them to identify the challenges facing unions in their attempts to renew themselves by expanding their recruitment of migrant and other workers, above the workplace level. The article commences by briefly reviewing the key factors that are likely to influence how unions in general respond to the challenge of revitalizing themselves in a context of membership decline and the relevance of these factors to the recruitment and organization of migrant workers. The background context and nature of the authors’ study are then outlined and its key findings summarized. Following this, a concluding section discusses the implications of these findings for British union strategies relating to membership expansion among migrants, notably in relation to the ‘new labor movement’ prescriptions that have been advanced in the United States in relation to the organization of such workers, as well as other underrepresented categories of worker (Milkman, 2006; Sherman and Voss, 2000; Voss and Sherman, 2003).

British unions and migrant workers

Union membership in Britain, as in many other developed economies, has declined significantly over the past three decades (Achur, 2010). There has been much debate concerning the most important drivers of this decline (see, for example, Fernie and Metcalf, 2005; Simms and Charlwood, 2010). Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that the failure of unions to retain and gain employer recognition has been an influential factor. It is similarly accepted that this failure has been influenced by significant shifts in the structure of employment that have worked to the detriment of trade unions. The most notable of these have been a shift of employment to the service sector, a rise in the proportion of workers employed by small or medium-sized organizations and growth in the various types of non-standard working.

In response to these adverse labour market developments, a variety of strategies have been identified that unions could pursue in an attempt to renew or revitalize themselves, including ‘servicing’, ‘partnership’, ‘organizing’ and ‘community unionism’ (Heery et al., 2004a). Much debate has also taken place regarding the strengths and weaknesses of these different strategies, the potential synergies that exist between them and their relative value to particular categories of workers and/or particular organizational and sectoral contexts (Cunningham and James, 2010).

At the same time, it is recognized in the literature that aspects of the wider institutional context of unions, their internal decision-making structures and the ideological and identity-related beliefs that inform union decision-making act – both individually and in combination – to constrain their ‘strategic choices’ (Boxall and Haynes, 1997; Frege and Kelly, 2003; Pernicka, 2009). Furthermore, it has been noted that union policies are shaped not only by the ‘present’ but also by ‘historical inheritances’ embodied, both materially and conceptually, in their prevailing cultures, and hence in the structure and operation of their governance structures and related dominant ideological frameworks and senses of union identity. This point has been well captured by Hyman who, in discussing the differing strategic orientations of union movements in Britain, Germany and Italy, has observed that:

The dominant identities embraced by particular unions, confederations and national movements – themselves reflecting the specific contexts in which national organizations historically emerged (Crouch, 1993) – have shaped the interests with which they identify, the conceptions of democracy influencing members, activists and leaders, the agenda they pursue, and the type of power resources which they cultivate and apply. (Hyman, 2001: 1)

This analysis therefore points to the fact that a range of external and internal contextual factors influence the priority which unions accord to membership expansion and how they pursue it. The literature focused on the relationships between unions and migrant workers points in the same direction.

Penninx and Roosblad (2000), for example, have argued that national differences in union policies towards immigrants are a product of variations in a range of factors, including the prevailing economic and labour market situations; the power, structure and institutional position of trade union movements; national ideologies and discourses in relation to immigration; and the characteristics of immigrants themselves. Subsequent studies that have drawn on their framework of analysis have served to reinforce the relevance of such factors (Wrench, 2004; Krings, 2009). In doing so, they have also concluded, more specifically, that British unions have recently embraced a relatively liberal approach to immigration, in large part because of a recognition that migrant workers could form an important source of new recruitment in a period marked by declining membership, political weakness and challenges to union legitimacy (see also Avci and McDonald, 2000). This conclusion therefore adds support to the more general argument that the British union movement, like its counterpart in the United States, has a relatively strong incentive to pursue the organization of unorganized workers as a result of a number of structural factors, most notably its weaker institutional position as a result of the surrounding political environment and the decentralized nature of collective bargaining arrangements (Frege and Kelly, 2003; Heery and Adler, 2004).

Meanwhile, Martinez and Perrett (2009: 330), in an analysis of how unions represent and respond to migrant workers and black and minority workers, have observed that they ‘perceive issues in different ways, and they construct solutions in relation to interests, internal politics and organisational capacities’. This observation was echoed by Wills (2004) in a review of the experiences of the living-wage campaign conducted by the East London Communities Organisation (TELCO) on behalf of low-paid, often migrant, workers, arguing that the willingness of particular unions to engage with the campaign varied depending on how it was seen to fit with their wider organizing priorities.

The now extensive literatures shedding light on the internal barriers and facilitators with regard to a greater commitment to both organizing and social movement unionism have further demonstrated how such priorities and union approaches to renewal more generally are intimately connected to internal systems of governance and the political dynamics within them (see, for example, Carter, 2006; Voss, 2010). In particular, the effective use of social movement unionism as a means of expanding union representation among groups of migrant workers in the United States has been seen to have been marked not only by concerted attempts to build supportive community and political alliances, but relevant union leadership commitment to change and a range of supportive internal reforms. These reforms include a radical reallocation of internal staff and financial resources away from the servicing of existing members towards membership expansion; the empowerment of local activists in a way which is supportive of greater local control over the focus of local organizing campaigns and the way in which they are conducted, albeit in the context of appropriate levels of central support; the provision of education and training initiatives to support this local empowerment and to engender a reorientation of attitudes among existing activists and officials; and the recruitment of new staff that, in terms of orientation and previous work experience, can lend weight to the change process (Erickson et al., 2002; Milkman, 2006; Sherman and Voss, 2000; Voss and Sherman, 2003).

The literature also points to the fact that considerations of relative costs and benefits are likely to loom large in internal debates surrounding attempts to implement such renewal strategies. Thus, even advocates of the adoption of social movement unionism acknowledge that it is likely to be highly resource-intensive, with the result that the ‘cost-benefit dilemma is a serious one for union leaders’ (Milkman and Voss, 2004: 4). Furthermore, there are grounds for believing that this dilemma may be more pronounced in the case of British unions given that, as Frege et al. (2004) have pointed out, the institutional context – in terms of the structure and nature of local political processes – is likely to be less conducive to the creation of effective joint union–community campaigning. Indeed, more generally, the work of Milkman (2006), as well as the wider literature (see, for example, Clegg, 1976), indicates that the nature of collective bargaining arrangements and related legislative provisions – concerning such matters as the obtaining of union recognition and the taking of industrial action – are also likely to influence significantly the feasibility of potential union strategies.

Overall, then, the literature suggests that, because of the institutional context, British unions are likely to embrace relatively liberal policies towards inward migration as a result of the incentives they have to recruit and organize migrant workers. It further highlights that the ways in which unions respond to these incentives can be shaped by the structure and nature of their internal governance systems and, more particularly, by cost-benefit dilemmas, including those related to the need to strike a politically acceptable balance between the representation of current members located in existing unionized territories and the recruitment and organization of unrepresented ones based outside them. Furthermore, there are grounds for believing that the feasibility of particular renewal strategies is itself likely to be shaped by aspects of the institutional context, with the result that such contexts may somewhat paradoxically both incentivize membership recruitment and constrain how it can viably be pursued.

Context and nature of the study

The study undertaken by the authors was prompted by three related considerations:

The data obtained came from three main sources: in-depth interviews with union staff; searches of the websites of the Trades Union Congress and those unions in which interviews were carried out; and a range of documentary evidence obtained from these sources. Some use was also made of information gained from documents and the websites of other organizations concerned with migration-related issues, attendance at several meetings connected to a migrant workers’ branch established by the GMB union in Southampton and visits to a new multi-union learning project at Gatwick Airport and informal discussions with staff and activists involved in this. In addition, further information was obtained from interviews with representatives of four Polish community groups, attendance at relevant conferences and seminars and informal conversations with union officials and activists, as well as Polish migrants themselves, during the course of these.

The interviews and website searches were conducted with a view to obtaining information on (i) the existence and nature of any strategies and specialist organizational units/positions that had been established to develop policy and/or coordinate activities in relation to the organization of migrant workers; (ii) materials that had been prepared specifically for such workers, such as information about a union and its activities, and written advice about employment, social security and immigration rights, and how far these were available in languages other than English; and (iii) particular initiatives that had been undertaken to expand recruitment and organization among migrants, and the degree to which these had been successful.

In all, 28 interviews were undertaken. Those interviewed included a range of officials from a number of Britain’s largest unions – Community, GMB, Unite-Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), Unite-Amicus, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT), UNISON and the Royal College of Nursing – and, more particularly, project workers, organizers and a small number of migrant worker activists directly involved in initiatives aimed at recruiting and organizing among Polish migrant workers. They also included the President of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain, an organization that, it was found, has been actively collaborating with a variety of unions, representatives from several Polish community groups, a manager from an employment agency involved in a collaborative partnership with Community in relation to the provision of English-language classes for migrant workers and the secretary of a Polish Catholic Centre that had been undertaking joint work with Unite-Amicus. The interviews lasted between one and two-and-a-half hours. All were recorded and subsequently transcribed for analysis.

Study findings

In reporting the findings of the study, attention is first paid to what British unions have been doing to attract, support and organize Polish migrant workers. Attention is then given to the resourcing and ‘authorship’ of the activities concerned, and an evaluation of their impact.

Conclusion

The findings reported indicate that British unions have been engaged in a variety of initiatives to recruit among the substantial number of Polish migrants at the wider labour market level, and add weight to the view that they have a relatively strong incentive to pursue the organization of such workers. While it was found difficult to determine how far these activities had resulted in union joining, interviewees in general expressed positive views as to the organizability of Polish migrants. This received clear support from the decision to establish a (largely Polish) migrant workers’ branch within the GMB in Southampton.

Many of the initiatives concerned, however, had flowed from the – often opportunistic – actions of local officials and relied heavily on various forms of relatively short-term, external financial support. As a result, there was little sign of them being embedded in a wider national (or regional) union strategy related to the organization of migrant workers that was backed up with the provision of potential access to additional internal financial and staffing resources. Instead, a picture emerged of initiatives occupying an essentially supplementary role relative to unions’ more general ongoing recruitment and organizing activities.

More specifically, it cannot be said that any of the initiatives were clearly being undertaken against the background of a comprehensive utilization of any of the four ‘renewal strategies’ mentioned earlier, namely ‘servicing’, ‘partnership’, ‘community unionism’ or a concerted approach to workplace organizing. New services were being provided – most notably in the form of English language classes – but these were arguably geared more to meeting the immediate needs of migrant workers rather than to providing the basis of a long-term, calculative relationship with them and were strongly shaped by the availability of external sources of funding. Engagement with community groups was in no case found to extend beyond its use as a recruitment aid and therefore to encompass the undertaking of joint organizing campaigns. Meanwhile, only three examples of concerted engagement with employers resulting from the initiatives were identified. The first of these encompassed training collaboration with an employment agency that had led to the union securing representation rights and gaining support for union membership, and the second two involved the pursuit of recognition, one of which was successful.

In general, the findings suggest that none of the unions had extensively embraced any of the strategies of renewal proposed in the extensive literature on union renewal. Similarly, there was little evidence to suggest that any unions were in the midst of meaningfully challenging – in Hyman’s terms – their existing identities.

How far this situation was a product of the types of barriers to internal union change noted earlier is difficult to judge conclusively, given the nature of the study. Some interviewees did, however, allude to internal political tensions surrounding particular initiatives, for example in relation to the possible diversion of resources away from servicing existing workplace-based members. There also seem – more conceptually – to be potentially good grounds to explain why union leaderships might have been (rightly or wrongly) hesitant, on cost-benefit grounds, to embrace the initiatives examined more widely.

This – it must be stressed – is not to argue that focusing on engaging with migrant workers, as well as other types of underrepresented groups, at the level of the wider labour market is intrinsically misguided. Thus, the limitations of ‘worksite unionism’ to the organization of large parts of the current world of work identified by Cobble (1991) and others (Wills, 2004; Marchington et al., 2004), seem to the authors to be well founded. In addition, such a focus on recruitment at the level of the external labour market cannot, in either historical or contemporary terms, be viewed as inherently problematic. Craft unionism, for example, developed historically on this basis in Britain and elsewhere (Hyman, 2001). Meanwhile, Heery et al. (2004b) have, more recently, drawn attention to the viability of a number of British unions that represent freelance workers and the much reported success of the Justice for Janitors campaign in the United States (Erickson et al., 2002) also highlights how it is possible to combine such external labour market engagement with workplace-focused campaigning.

A common feature of each of these examples, however, is that they (i) involve a focus on the representation of distinct occupational groups and hence on workers with a substantial degree of common labour market interests and (ii) encompass the provision of wider labour market services or benefits. In the case of Heery et al.’s study of freelancers, for example, it is noted that such unionism is distinguished ‘by its emphasis on organising and representing workers in the external labour market where they seek to work and develop a mobile career’ (Heery et al., 2004b: 20). In a similar vein, an often overlooked feature of the Justice for Janitors campaign, as well as others in Southern California that have been successful, is that they have not only been marked by concerted attempts to build supportive community and political alliances, but have also emphasized ‘occupational unionism’ aimed at regulating labour markets by taking ‘wages out of competition’ (Milkman, 2006).

These features contrast markedly with much of the activity we identified, particularly its focus on individual representation and the provision of educational and other types of services, as well as the recruitment of workers regardless of their occupational or sectoral locations. Consequently, doubt inevitably arises concerning how far this alternative approach can provide a basis for the creation by unions of a long-term nexus of interest with those recruited, given the absence of both a strong set of common ‘industrial interests’ and a clear and adequately resourced strategy centred on systematically pursuing the regulation of external, and for that matter internal, labour markets.

Other potential bases for such a nexus arguably exist, notably a comprehensive ‘service appeal’ based on treating members as individual labour market actors and/or more general ‘market consumers’ (Bassett and Cave, 1993) or a wider ‘social and community rationale’ for membership (see, for example, Yates, 2010). However, not only is there only limited evidence to support their viability, but neither of these alternatives can be seen to have been strongly embedded in the union activity identified, at least when it is borne in mind that much of it was focused on meeting the immediate – and potentially transitory – needs of Polish migrants.

This is not necessarily to argue that the option of ‘occupational labour market regulation’ is itself viable since it confronts at least two major challenges: first, a possible need to build supportive political and community alliances in an environment which, as Frege et al. (2004) argue, may be less conducive to their creation than that of the United States; and second – and more fundamentally – a need to find a viable means of regulating such markets in an institutional context marked by a strong reliance on decentralized collective bargaining arrangements and a common absence of strong sector-level employer associations with whom to negotiate.

Union leaderships can possibly be criticized for failing to develop clear and viable strategies to support the effective use of the types of initiatives reported above. They can also therefore be potentially criticized for failing to challenge prevailing internal barriers to change linked to existing identities and related interests. At the same time, it seems clear that unions do face real challenges in identifying such viable strategies, particularly given the devolved nature of British collective bargaining. Consequently, it cannot be ruled out that the ‘strategic failure’ alluded to above may stem less from a lack of leadership per se and more from the difficulties unions have in finding convincing cost-effective ways to advance in an institutional environment that is not only prompting a need for change but also severely constraining how unions can respond to it effectively.

In short, the initiatives focused on the ‘beyond the workplace’ recruitment of Polish migrant workers reviewed here can be seen as encompassing interesting examples of how British unions can access and engage with such workers at this level. However, they also serve to raise difficult questions about how unions can effectively build upon initiatives of this type to create viable avenues of membership and organizational renewal that may also be relevant to other national union movements.