Projects with keyword: Labour standards/rights

The project deals with the relations between social movements, trade unions and disadvantaged groups of migrant workers on the labour market. These groups could also be denominated as the precariat. More specifically the focus is set on irregular immigrants, discriminated workers and seasonal guest workers. The primary target for the project is to explore the ways actors in the civil society manage to build supportive relations to these groups of workers and other organisations in the field. The project is guided by the overarching research question: What are the possibilities and constraints for civil society organisations to establish and maintain transversal relations with disadvantaged groups of migrant workers and their organisations? The task is thus, on the one hand, to investigate how trade unions take on these new challenges within their field and to explore: the new strategies developed by the trade unions; and their collaborations with new social movements organisations. On the other hand, the project centres on new social movements' collaborations with neighbouring actors, their articulations of the problems; and their strategies to provide solutions to the problems.

The collaborative PostER project funded by European Commission DG Employment examines the working and living conditions of posted workers in several key sectors to which workers are frequently posted between countries. Little is known of the actual experience of posted workers. Using academic researchers in five EU member states, PostER will gather and disseminate information on national practices related to posted workers? knowledge of employment rights and their enforcement, on the extent of the provision of information to stakeholders and on the potential application of sanctions. PostER focuses on posted workers in Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK. It uses varied methodologies including desk research and interviews with 60 posted workers and 25 stakeholders (including social partners and enforcement agencies). Photographic evidence on workplaces using posted workers will be collected for display on the project website and in the report. PostER will conclude with the launch of a final report at a conference for stakeholders from the five countries and from European agencies.

The right for European Union (EU) citizens to move freely across national borders within the EU is considered one of the EUs fundamental four freedoms and is itself a form of response to the need for regional competitiveness in the global economy. However, a possible downside of free movement is a purported downward gravitational effect on established labour standards in terms of wage levels, employment relationships and working environment conditions created by the growing availability of migrant labour originating from lower wage domains with inferior conditions and, at the same time, subject to exploitation in the labour process as vulnerable transnational workers. This project seeks an integrated theoretical and empirical approach in exploring the impact of East-West migration on the patterns of industrial relations, working environment, and welfare regimes from the point of view of both the sending and receiving countries within a regional migration complex, namely Sweden and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

This project continues a key theme of Charles Woolfson's European Commission Marie Curie Chair Excellence Award (2004-2007) in the Baltic states - social dialogue and trade union renewal in the post-communist states. The Baltic states are among the most open new market economies and their transformation from Soviet republics to new European Union member states reveals many of the problems of European integration, not least the development of employee representational rights in the workplaces. This project comparatively examines the reasons for the very low levels of union membership and the rather weak structures of social dialogue which exist both nationally, and at workplaces in the Baltic countries. Its key findings so far are that the difficulties facing trade union renewal have as much to do with the pathway of "illusory corporatism" pursued since independence from the Soviet Union, as with the actual negative legacy of pro-regime trade unions in the previous era.

This project continues a key theme of Charles Woolfson:s European Commission Marie Curie Chair Excellence Award (2004-2007) in the Baltic states i.e., labour standards, decent work in the form of regularised employment relations, access to training, and the character of the working environment in terms of occupational health and safety in the post-communist states. It explores the difficulties in securing regulated labour standards, as against ongoing counter-tendencies towards the informalisation of employment relations. It also asks how these labour standards are changing in the context of European Union enlargement and what empirical evidence there is of the integrative impacts of European directives and regulations on working life and work environment in the new member states ie., convergence or divergence.

The research in this project critically analyses the on-going configuration of global and regional migration regimes within the framework of multilevel global governance. The main objective is to survey international institutional arrangements for core labor standards and migrant workers? rights and to explore their significance for migration management within the 'asymmetric' global governance, as well as their impact on the current trajectory of global and regional political economies. Various studies within the project trace the development of a 'social dimension' of globalization and the articulation of an inclusive, human rights-based policy approach to migration management. The focus is on the ILO?s reformulation of social justice goals in terms of 'decent work' for all workers, including especially those working in the informal economy. The identification of the main multinational, state and non-state actors, their discourses and strategies for the promotion of global social justice, in particular the role of the EU is examined. Since 2010 participants in this project have followed and analysed the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration, related Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the role of global civil society actors in this process, leading to MIGLINK, a collaborative research project with Ankara University (Turkey) and University of Zacatecas Mexico).

The research project addresses the EU's regional approach to support countries in the Western Balkans in their progress towards EU membership. It focuses on the social reconstruction in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia and the regional dialogue on social and employment policies within the Bucharest process. The study investigates local and national trade unions strategies to challenge downward pressure on labour rights and standards brought about by the implementation of a neoliberal model of reconstruction. It analyses the counter-influence of European social dimension as well as practices of the international organizations such as the UNDP, ILO and International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC) and civil society organizations on the development of 'transethnic' regional solidarities. It also examines the forms of labour collaboration necessary to counterbalance hostile employers and governments. The main question concerns the efficacy of EU support for social dialogue and the implementation of the ILO 'decent work agenda' in empowering trade unions in their struggle for labour rights and standards in post-conflict former Yugoslavia. The issue is especially pertinent considering the wider study of post-conflict societies, marked by social fragmentation, ethnic divisions, political clientelism, poverty, informal economy and migration pressures.

Rationale
The overall purpose of thi conference wasto reflect on knowledge and promote social dialogue on the role of labour unions and other organisations of civil society in the global governance of migration. These issues were discussed against the background of labour market restructuring and emerging international norms pertaining to labour rights as human rights. The conference was organised so as to systematipromote exchange of perspectives between leading scholars and representatives of international organisations, labour unions and activists in other civil society organisations on questions of migration, 'decent work' and global governance. Conference participants investigated jointly and elaborated on policy alternatives for promoting migrants', citizens', and labour rights, as well as conditions for equitable international coordination and a more inclusive role for civil society.
The conference was organised by the Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), Linköping University and the International Network for Migration and Development (INMD) in collaboration with the Swedish UNESCO-MOST Committee, Norrköping May 30-June 1st, 2012

This research project addresses migration management, recruitment strategies and employment of international IT-professionals from India in the ICT-industry in Sweden and Denmark. IT-professionals have mainly been recruited from EU-countries through the network of EURES, but recently both Scandinavian countries have introduced recruitment measures to attract and facilitate migration of highly skilled employees, such as IT-professionals, from outside the EU. The Swedish migration management, introduced in 2008, is strictly demand driven whereas the Danish system, introduced in 2002, is both demand- and supply driven. By comparing the Swedish liberal migration management system and simple recruitment measures used by the Swedish employers with the ?tough? Danish migration management system and relatively complicated recruitment measures required for Danish employers, differences and similarities between the two systems can generate a better understanding of how the processes of migration management systems and recruitment strategies interact in the two labor markets.
This project employs a multidisciplinary theoretical approach with a broad perspective on globalization, organizational management and the micro social processes involved in the recruitment practices and selection. The methodology applied is based on mixed methods such as quantitative data from national statistics and qualitative interviews with HR managers and leader from four companies in Sweden and Denmark.

Seasonal Migrant Workers in Sweden: Contingents of the new austeriat

In the current era of austerity free movement of labour has produced an ongoing but also contingent flow of migrant labour, an austeriat, moving from poorer crisis-hit regions of Europe to those countries such as Sweden where the crisis has been less severe. This project describes the working and living experiences of Bulgarian Roma berry pickers in Sweden. It argues that, in the context of a previously well-regulated labour market, an erosion of labour standards based on the exploitation of seasonal unskilled labour migrants from Bulgaria is occurring in the Swedish berry industry, in turn posing challenges for labour market actors and regulatory authorities. The examines what might be appropriate European and national trade union responses and those of civil society to the issues of labour precariousness which have emerged.

Studies of migrant labour in the Swedish labour market have generally focused on those having received permanent residence permission as refugees or through family re-unification legislation. This mirrors a situation in which labour migration has been quite restrictive in Sweden. Starting with a new labour migration reform in 2008, this is dramatically changing.

The aim is to study the situation of labour migrants and irregular migrants in the labour market and their understanding of collective action, as (migrant) workers. In addition the project aims at studying the employers, especially the reason for employing these two categories of migrant workers.

The collaborative project focused on changing strategies of trade unions and other civil society organisations in Turkey, South Africa and Sweden, facing irregular (or “undocumented”) migration and increasing precarity of labour connected with restructuring and informalisation of economies and labour markets in the context of emerging multilateral frameworks for the global governance of migration.

The aim is to investigate the narratives of employment relations between expatriate Scandinavian women
employers and Tanzanian women domestic workers, and how this influences their social identity models and
communication around work. An important part of the aim is also to investigate the changes and continuities
between contemporary employment relations articulated by the women involved and the employment relations
that were practiced during the system of indentured labor in East Africa during the period 1820s - 1940s. The
system was introduced by colonial settlers after slavery was