Zinovijus Ciupijus

Mobile central eastern Europeans in Britain: successful European Union citizens and disadvantaged labour migrants?

Since European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004, over a million mobile central eastern Europeans (CEEs) have found employment in Britain. This unprecedented wave of labour mobility could be interpreted equally as labour migration and as an exercise of the right of freedom of movement extended by EU citizenship. While recognising that the newly acquired freedom of movement has improved the mobility rights of CEEs and showing how CEE workers take advantage of EU citizenship, the analysis reveals the diverging trajectories of spatial and labour market mobilities.

The European Migrant Workers Union and the barriers to transnational industrial citizenship

Despite the rapid increase in cross-national labour migration since EU enlargement in 2004, there has been little research on transnational union efforts to organize migrant workers. This article examines the European Migrant Workers Union, created by the German union IG BAU in a shift away from national protectionism towards transnational organizing. The initiative largely failed, primarily because of decisions by other unions to reject the transnational approach and instead to defend existing institutional arrangements. We argue that this inaction constitutes a setback for union reassertion of control over markets and for bringing industrial citizenship to Europe’s hyper-mobile workers.

Networks of Support for New Migrant Communities

This article examines the role of support mechanisms for new migrant communities provided by networks of statutory, third-sector and refugee community organisations. The article explores the dynamics of the relationships between support groups, with analysis located in the urban context of NorthTown. The findings point to the possibility of tension between migrant support groups where there is a perceived need to compete over resources or political influence. Moreover, it is argued that there is a risk that institutional goals of organisational sustainability may take precedence over substantive goals of support provision. The ability of support groups to assert agency in terms of strategic responses to structural constraints on sustainability is explored. It is argued that an organising logic based on the creation of a political community within the new migrant population can prove more sustainable than contingent communities based on commonalities of language or nationality.