There is currently a large knowledge gap about intra-European labour migration. Existing scholarship focuses overwhelmingly on the movement of workers from East to West Europe. Commentators are caught up in a debate over whether such movement is best understood in terms of social dumping and hence a race to the bottom, or in terms of business opportunities and benefits for firms, states and migrants. The argument put forward in this article is that both approaches are inadequate in that they focus attention on a linear East-to-West movement and discuss this movement from the vantage point of the state, businesses and trade unions in the country of destination. It is our suggestion that such readings of intra-European labour migration fail to grasp the changes in labour force behaviour engendered by freedom of movement and European Union citizenship. In order to gain a clearer understanding of emerging migration patterns in the enlarged Europe, this article adopts mobility as the analytical lens though which to examine the integration of labour markets as well as the tensions between capital, trade unions and labour to which mobility gives rise. Building on fieldwork and interviews with migrant workers conducted at Foxconn electronics assembly plants in the Czech Republic, the article illustrates processes of both segregation and mobilisation produced by intra-European labour mobility, and suggests that the term 'multinational' worker is best suited to convey the experiences and practices of this emergent workforce.

This article investigates the role of temporary work agencies (TWAs) at Foxconn’s assembly plants in the Czech Republic. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it shows TWAs’ comprehensive management of migrant labour: recruitment and selection in the countries of origin; cross-border transportation, work and living arrangements in the country of destination; and return to the countries of origin during periods of low production. The article asks whether the distinctiveness of this specific mode of labour management can be understood adequately within the framework of existing theories on the temporary staffing industry. In approaching the staffing industry through the lens of migration labour analysis, the article reveals two key findings. Firstly, TWAs are creating new labour markets but do so by eroding workers’ rights and enabling new modalities of exploitation. Secondly, the diversification of TWAs’ roles and operations has transformed TWAs from intermediaries between capital and labour to enterprises in their own right

The current economic crisis is worsening migrants' living conditions and thus their social and economic integration into EU countries. However, recent literature has not sufficiently considered the strategies that unemployed migrants adopt to cope with this transformation. This article explores the economic and social impact of the recession on migrant workers. In particular, it analyses the coping strategies of unemployed Moroccan and Romanian migrants in Italy, who are the biggest national groups of foreigners. Drawing on 170 in-depth interviews carried out in one of the most dynamic areas of northeast Italy, we find that Moroccan and Romanian migrants adopt different strategies in order to cope with unemployment: the first suffer more from discrimination than the latter in the labour market but can enjoy the economic and social support of extended family and religious community, while for Romanians, it is easier to find a new job, because they can rely on a more diversified social network. Furthermore, migrants of both national groups rarely return to their country of origin, but Moroccans (non-EU nationals) seem to be geographically more mobile than Romanians (EU nationals), who show a resolve to remain in Italy. Finally, unemployed migrants are minimizing their living costs in a very similar way. This paper also studies other differences among interviewees that arise from their gender, age and family model.

This chapter compares union responses and the emergence of workers’ struggles in two segments of the European logistics sector: warehousing in Italy and parcel delivery in Austria. The two case studies show striking similarities both in the management of the supply chain, resulting in highly segmented labour markets, and in the two sub-industries’ exposure to workers’ positional power. Unions’ success and failure to organize workers in logistics supply chains and in the effective adoption of strategies to contest casualization and fragmentation are related to differences in the dominant or competing union structures to incorporate precarious workforce groups, and in building upon inclusive worker solidarity and direct action. In Italy, rank-and-file unions approach workers directly, providing labour law knowledge and militant experiences. In Austria, unions stick to their old recipes of corporatist inclusion, act defensively, and leave precarious workers to their own devices in their struggles.

Based on qualitative data collected for broader research on the transformation of hotel labour in Venice, Italy, this study explores how workers and unions have experienced outsourcing carried out through cooperatives of convenience (COC). The authors examine the impact of outsourcing on work processes, highlighting its link with growing standardisation and increased managerial control. In contrast to studies that underscore the critical effects of outsourcing on solidarity and the employment system, this article stresses that, even in a sector characterised by union weakness, workers, especially unorganised migrants, develop resistance strategies within the workplace as well as paths of mobilisation.