Migration and trade unions: challenges and opportunities

The hitherto separate problematics of migration and trade unions need to be brought together to consider the challenges and opportunities for trade unions organizing migrant workers. Migration—the free mobility of labour—has traditionally been viewed as a problem for trade unions. Migrant workers have been seen as undermining well-established labour norms and as a ‘difficult to organize’ sector. Much as workers are divided by gender, age and ethnicity, they are also divided according to national origin and citizen status. Trade unions—as organizers of the ‘factor of production’ called labour—have often, in practice if not programmatically, displayed a protectionist attitude towards the free mobility of workers. More recently, however, there has been a recognition within the trade unions themselves that solidarity with migrant workers might help them get back to the basic principles of the labour movement, and also rein in the ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of global labour standards. The global labour movement increasingly recognizes that migrant workers are an integral part of the working class, and that they have often played a pivotal role in the making of labour movements. Turning today’s global crisis into labour’s global opportunity, migration acts as a hinge both in terms of the future of globalization, and for trade unions as the voice of the working class. As national protectionism, xenophobia and racism are coming to the fore, trade union engagement with migrant workers can play a positive role in terms of defending democracy and promoting social transformation.