Immigration control pathways: organisational culture and work values of Greek welfare officers

Abstract

Against the background of globalisation and labour-market restructuring, a new mode of implementing immigration control in Greece is emerging. Based upon a changing economy and society, welfare organisations and staff members rearrange, negotiate and construct new controls for welfare services and for the distribution of social rights to immigrants. These new ways define anew the economic and cultural boundaries for the immigrant population in Greece, as well as establish new values concerning the work and values of civil servants. Within this general context, the article confronts the issue of welfare management of labour migration into Greece. It investigates the role organisational culture and work values play for the management of immigrants' status, and in particular how both act as mediators between the state and the market. In the light of global economic restructuring and the Greek government's policies on flexibility, the study asks the important questions of how and in what direction current changes affect welfare employees' immigration control practices, ideas and professional alignments. In turn, the Greek case study asks how they affect the implementation of state immigration policies and benefits given to the immigrant population in the country. Through the presentation of the cases of the Social Insurance Institution (IKA) and the Manpower Organisation (OAED), the paper offers a reflexive cultural account of how officials construct an organisational culture and work values in order to regulate immigrants and the Greek labour market.