Albert Knotter

Perspectives on Cross-Border Labor in Europe: "(Un)familiarity" or "Push-and-Pull"?

Abstract A common explanation for the incidence and development of cross-border labor are cross-border economic disparities and uneven economic developments: in border regions with high levels of cross-border labor, important growth poles with high wages and employment opportunities at a short distance at one side of the border, attract workers from a less developed side. Recently, however, geographers Henk van Houtum and Martin van der Velde have argued that this can only be part of the story. Because of “unfamiliarity” with life in bordering nation states there are invisible mental “thresholds of indifference,” that prevent an orientation towards the other side and an optimal allocation of labor across borders. In this collection of articles my co-editor, Martin Klatt, and I want to assess how these two approaches can be balanced in research on cross-border labor markets in Europe. Is it possible to overcome the inherent tension between them? We will address the historical impact of state borders on cross-border labor mobility in borderlands. When could mental barriers of “unfamiliarity” be overcome by localized “push-and-pull”? In what circumstances could the full effect of “push-and-pull” be hampered by “unfamiliarity”?

Transnational cigar-makers. Cross-border labour markets, strikes, and solidarity at the time of the First International (1864-1873)

Several authors have argued that one of the main goals of the International Working Mens Association was to control transnational labour markets. In the eyes of trade unionists, especially in Britain, uncontrolled cross-border migratory movements threatened to undermine wage standards and working conditions. Their solution was to organize internationally, both to prevent strike-breaking and wage-cutting by workers from abroad, and to support unions elsewhere to raise wage standards in their home countries. Cigar-makers operated on a cross-border labour market and were very prominent in the First International. In this article I describe the connections between the German, British, Dutch, Belgian, and American cigar-makers as migratory workers, and their actions to stimulate, support, and coordinate trade unions internationally. I argue that the international cooperation of cigar-makers was primarily motivated by a wish to regulate their cross-border labour market, not so much by an abstract ideal of international solidarity.

Trade unions and workplace organization: regulating labour markets in the Belgian and American flat glass industry and in the Amsterdam diamond industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Abstract In all three industries, internal subcontracting as a way to organize the workplace determined the emergence of craft unionism in the nineteenth century. In both Belgian and American window-glassmaking craft unionism, originally based on exclusion of low-skilled workers who had been underhands in the system of subcontracting, persisted well into the twentieth century, until full mechanization made artisanal glassblowing obsolete. Only then all workers could be united in an industrial union. In diamond manufacturing, craft unions were replaced by a unified industrial union already in the 1890s. In all three industries, trade unions had the biggest impact when they were able to regulate product markets and industrial competition through labour market control. Methods, time frames and duration of labour market control differed considerably, however.