Unions and the rights of migrants in the long run

Johannes Lindvall,Frida Boräng,Sara Kalm

doi:10.1177/0958928720954699

Johannes Lindvall, Frida Boräng + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928720954699

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Abstract

We use historical data on union density and new historical data on policies toward migrants to study the long-run relationship between the strength of trade unions and the social and economic rights of migrants in the Global North. In countries with strong trade unions, there was, for a long time, a widening distance between the rights of migrants and the rights of citizens, probably because the rights of citizens expanded sooner and more quickly than the rights of migrants. Over time, however, the differences between countries with strong and weak unions have diminished, and in more recent years, the ‘rights gap’ between citizens and migrants has in fact been smaller in countries with strong unions than in countries with weak unions.

Highlights

Migration has been on the labour movement’s agenda ever since the 19th century
We develop a new argument about the dynamic, long-run relationship between the strength of trade unions and the social and economic rights of migrants
We test our argument using historical data on the social and economic rights of migrants that have been compiled by Peters (2015, 2017), Kalm and Lindvall (2019), Shin (2019), and ourselves, along with historical data on trade unions compiled by Rasmussen and Pontusson (2018)

Summary

Introduction

Migration has been on the labour movement’s agenda ever since the 19th century. one of the motives behind the formation of the International Workingmen’s Association, commonly known as the First International, in 1864 was to advocate restrictions on international labour mobility, as the labour movement underwent a transition from its ‘prenational’ into its ‘national’ phase (van der Linden, 2003: 14). By contrast, that trade unions often insist on equality in wages, employment conditions and social rights between native and migrant workers (e.g. Knocke, 2000).

Results

Conclusion