What labour experiences and common struggles migrant and local workers share across European countries? Recommendations for policymakers and practitioners
We hereby present the you with results of our research project ‘Towards shared interests between migrant and local workers’. The prominent component has been a series of interviews conducted in five EU countries. Based on the research outputs, three policy briefs were produced with following topics: precarisation and social citizenship, competition and labour standards, and solidarity in fragmented workplaces. The publications (1) outline main issues in three interlinked thematic areas that often hamper solidarity between migrant and local workers and (2) suggest the main points of intervention in other to safeguard decent labour conditions.
We discuss these issues based on five case studies examining migrant labour in a variety of occupational sectors in five EU countries: all-inclusive hotels in Bulgaria, multinational supermarket chains in the Czech Republic, temporary workers in Poland, the commercial cleaning industry in Italy, and domestic and care work in Spain. Inside the sectors, migrant workers are employed in the worst occupations in terms of wages, precariousness, and work and health conditions. They share this position in the lower levels of the labour market with other categories of native workers.
The publications were prepared within the framework of the project ‘Towards shared interests between migrant and local workers’ supported by the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union.
The project consortium involved
Multicultural Centre Prague (lead)
University of Padova
Fundacja "Nasz Wybór"
Red House Center for Culture and Debate - Sofia
Estudios y Cooperación para el Desarrollo (ESCODE) SOLIDAR
With the support of the Europe for Citizens programme of the European Union
Solidarity in Fragmented Workplace