Labor Politics and Organizing Strategies in Immigrant‐Owned SMEs: The Case of the Confédération Générale du Travail and Chinese Migrant Workers in France

Abstract

This article focuses on the evolution of the interaction between Chinese migrant workers in France and the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), France's second largest labor union. My central question is: what can the case of Chinese migrants in France tell us about the relationship among trade unions, migrant workers, and their respective ethnic economies? Analyzing the CGT's changing strategies for mobilizing Chinese workers demonstrates the main tensions between the organization strategies and the employment relationship in family‐based small‐medium enterprises. This article will show the importance of intersectional analysis in the study of the structure of ethnic economies and how, in this case, the employer–employee relationship is a source of domination rather than a mechanism for mobilization. Moreover, while it is possible to include legislative change as a union movements' goal, it also demonstrates how a political goal, in this case the legalization of workers, can undermine the traditional goal of pursuing improvement to working conditions.