Migration, Ethnicity and Solidarity: ‘Multinational Workers’ in the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

AbstractWe investigate migrant construction workers’ experiences in the Former Soviet Union, examining their attitudes to other ethno‐national groups, unions and collective action. Industrial relations and migration studies view migrant workers’ hypermobility and diversity, under conditions of low union coverage and rising nationalism, as potentially obstructing consciousness‐raising and mobilizing. Workers in our study faced union indifference, ethno‐national segregation and discrimination. However, managerial abuses, informality and contestation from below led to spontaneous mobilization. Lack of institutional channels to solve these disputes drove workers’ further mobility. Complex mobility trajectories and collective action translated into increased awareness of collective interests and rejection of nationalist ideologies. The outcome is ‘multinational workers’ potentially resistant to nation‐state politics and capital's logics but also aware of the value and usefulness of collective solidarities. Thus, previous arguments solely associating exit with individualistic attitudes, and post‐socialist legacies with workers’ quiescence present only partial pictures.