Rossana Cillo

Immigrant labour in Europe in times of crisis and austerity: An international political economy analysis

This article develops an international political economy analysis of immigrant labour in Western Europe, with a focus on Italy and the UK in the period following the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 2008. Seeking to overcome the problem of methodological nationalism, the article places cross-national comparison against the backdrop of the broader process of international accumulation of capital. In this light, it examines the causes of the differential effects of the economic crisis upon EU member states and various sections of the workforce. In both the UK and Italy, labour conditions and trade unions are under attack; immigrant workers have been particularly affected by the rise in levels of unemployment, the worsening of working conditions, and the heightening of anti-immigration practices, legislations and discourses. The article concludes with a discussion of how the main trade unions in the UK and Italy are responding to these economic, social and political challenges.

Labour, Exploitation and Migration in Western Europe: An International Political Economy Perspective

In Western Europe (the EU15), the economic crisis erupted in 2007/08 and consequent austerity programmes are leading to a general, but uneven, worsening of labour conditions (Hermann, 2014). Unemployment levels have reached record high inter-country differences: in the second half of 2014, they ranged from 5 per cent in Germany to 6 per cent in the UK, 12 per cent in Italy and around 25 per cent in Spain and Greece (Eurostat). Between 2010 and 2012, real wages declined by more than 3 per cent in Italy and the UK, by almost 7 per cent in Portugal and Spain, and by 23 per cent in Greece (Schulten, 2013). According to the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), between 2007 and 2012, the number of the poor increased by 8.5 millions, reaching nearly 92 millions (almost one-fourth of the population). In 2012, poverty affected 9 per cent of workers (+1 percentage point greater than in 2007), increasing also both in Italy (10 per cent) and the UK (9 per cent). Trends in severe material deprivation are even more dramatic, with an increase by 125 per cent in the first five years of the crisis (from 1.9 per cent in 2007 to 4.3 per cent in 2012).

Outsourced racism in Italy: discrimination at work and trade union responses in three sectors

Research findings suggest that in some Italian industrial sectors a structural relationship may exist between new forms of work organization deriving from subcontracting and the embedding of racial discrimination in the workplace. This article first analyses the transformations of work that have led to the increasing recourse to the use of outsourcing. The second part examines the structural transformations due to subcontracting in the construction, metalworking and shipbuilding sectors in Italy from a comparative perspective. The third part presents the main empirical evidence on the effects of the crisis that have made union intervention against both contractual stratification and racial discrimination particularly difficult.