Abstract
Internationalization of value chains and of for-profit as well as non-profit organizations, and as a result of cheaper and safer mass migration, transnational labor mobility is of increasing importance. The article presents the development of the different types of cross-border labor mobility (from long-term labor migration over expatriats/inpatriats up to business traveling); it analyses crucial aspects of labor conditions and how the collective regulation of working, employment and participation conditions in general is affected: could local or national forms of labor regulation cope with these new conditions? What are the main challenges when it comes to collective bargaining and the monitoring of labor conditions? The article is based on a three year international and comparative research in Germany and Mexico. First, different ideal types of transnational labor mobility are distinguished that have emerged as a result of increasing cross-border labor mobility. Then potential sources of labor related social inequality and challenges in the regulation of the working, employment and participation conditions for transnational workers are discussed. Finally, some conclusions are drawn for further research.
Highlights
Cross-border labor mobility is as old as mankind
It begins with proposing different ideal types of transnational labor mobility that have emerged as a result of increasing cross-border labor mobility (Section 1), and to discuss potential sources of inequality and challenges in the regulation of the working, employment and participation conditions for transnational workers (Section 2)
Organized labor mobility is influenced even more by a transnationalization of the working conditions and of the structures of social inequality that affect the lives of migrants than individual labor migration, which is taken as a long-term strategy
Summary
Cross-border labor mobility is as old as mankind. But from the early development of the industrial mode of production until the end of the 20th century gainful employment was to a large extent structured by mobility spaces that were defined by regional or, at most, national boundaries. Given the growing number of individuals from a wide variety of different cultures and countries who are living in many places around the world, international organizations find it increasingly easy to recruit employees with intercultural experience and skills in the language of the headquarters and hire them on the local terms and conditions of employment This leads to social inequality between the mobile workers, such as between individuals who are posted by their organization and those who migrate on their own initiative, and between workers who are posted to a peripheral subsidiary by their organization’s headquarters and those who are ordered to leave their workplace in the “periphery” and work at a central subsidiary of a transnational organization. In the final section (Section 3), some conclusions will be drawn for further research
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