Building Austin, building justice: Immigrant construction workers, precarious labor regimes and social citizenship

Torres, Rebecca María; Heyman, Rich; Muñoz, Solange; Apgar, Lauren; Timm, Emily; Tzintzun, Cristina; Hale, Charles A.; Mckiernan-González, John; Speed, Shannon; Tang, Eric

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.10.012

Cited by 38 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…By way of contrast, in smaller‐scale commercial and residential construction, where budgets are smaller but there is often less government oversight, it is typical—at least in the US (Torres et al. [] provide a case study of Austin, Texas)—to see jobs dominated by non‐union workers and/or immigrants, a significant proportion of whom may be undocumented. At the same time, whereas carpenters or bricklayers working on sizeable projects may be directly employed by large construction firms, those working for small‐scale developers are often required to classify themselves as independent contractors, which makes them more vulnerable and often leaves them without pension contributions.…”

Section: A Mechanism For Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Resmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Precarity in the Contemporary City: A Framework for Analysis

2019

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The interplay between intensifying labour market precarity and gentrification constitutes a hitherto under-researched topic in the fields of labour and urban geography. To rectify this lacuna, we argue that gentrification and labour flexibilisation are both socio-spatial manifestations of capital's efforts to confront crises of accumulation. Distinguishing between what we call "weak" and "strong" links between them, and drawing upon the concepts of "gentrification-supporting" and "gentrification-fostered" labour flexibility, we outline a framework for connecting gentrification and precarity. This allows us to make links between the restructuring of the built environment and the reorganisation of work in the post-industrial city; it also allows us to show how workers, through their agency, can shape rent gaps in the contemporary city.R esum e: L'interaction entre l'intensification de la pr ecarit e du march e du travail et la gentrification constitue un sujet encore peu etudi e dans les domaines de la g eographie du travail et de la g eographie urbaine. Pour rem edier a cette lacune, nous soutenons que la gentrification et la flexibilisation du travail sont deux manifestations socio-spatiales des efforts du capital pour faire face aux crises d'accumulation. En distinguant ce que nous appelons des liens «faibles» et «forts» entre les deux, et en s'appuyant sur les concepts de flexibilit e du travail «soutenant la gentrification» et «favoris e par la gentrification», nous d efinissons un cadre pour relier la gentrification a la pr ecarit e. Cela nous permet de faire des liens entre la restructuration de l'environnement bâti et la r eorganisation du travail dans la ville post-industrielle; cela nous permet egalement de montrer comment les travailleurs, par leur agentivit e, peuvent combler les ecarts de loyers dans la ville contemporaine.

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Section: A Mechanism For Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Resmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Precarity in the Contemporary City: A Framework for Analysis

2019

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“…However, construction workers are vulnerable and in shortage of adequate education and training (Torres et al 2013). Salary payment to construction workers might be misleading, and it can develop into some kinds of social problems.…”

Section: Construction Plan (Ef10) Proposed Schedule (Ef22) Timely Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competition Rule of the Multi-Criteria Approach: What Contractors in China Really Want?

Zeng

Wong

2018

Journal of Civil Engineering and Management

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Abstract. Recent years have witnessed the diversifying means of competitive bidding, where the client plays a critical role in the determination of competition rule. It is widely recognized that the competition rule should be placed on a win-win basis to ensure that both the client and contractors are well considered with respect to their interests. Nevertheless, a vast majority of biddings fail to take account of what contractors really want. Using the methods of literature review and content analysis, 34 tender evaluation factors are proposed to compose the competition rule in China. Contractors' opinions on these factors are collected by virtue of questionnaire survey. Based on the Pareto law, it is found that the competition rule encompasses eleven key factors, and the composition varies slightly between public and private sectors. The Hotelling's T test is conducted on those key factors in common. The implication is that contractors can use indifferent factors (e.g., credit rating, construction plan, completeness of bid components, timely payment to workers) to improve competitiveness, while the client may utilize different factors to diversify the competition rule. This paper probably presents an earliest effort put to examine the acceptability of competition rule in the construction context.

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“…The spatial production of migrant subjectivities is dynamic and multidimensional—migrants are subject to the state, the market, and civil society. Thus, for migrant workers engaged in the informal economy, exploitation and marginalisation are not only compounded by political and market forces but also mitigated or exacerbated by social processes and relationships that occur at the micro and meso level through that boundaries of citizenship and extant economic rights are often constructed and enforced (Solé & Parella, ; Repič, ; Torres et al , ; Visser et al , ).…”

Section: The Informal Economy and International Migration In Post‐indmentioning

confidence: 99%

Room for Manoeuvre: Rethinking the Intersections Between Migration and the Informal Economy in Post‐Industrial Economies

Visser

Guarnizo

2017

Population Space and Place

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Dominant scholarly and policy discourse implicitly connect growth in immigration to growth in the informal economy and negative socio-economic outcomes in post-industrial societies. In this introduction, we highlight some of the broader questions and implications raised by the multidisciplinary work of our contributors that challenge this immigrationinformality hypothesis. We argue that existing studies of the informal economy in postindustrial societies underscore the multiscalar economic, social, and political facets and dimensions that shape the intersection between migration and the spread of informal economic practices in the global north. However, this body of work does not adequately connect the ways in which these processes influence immigrants' economic and labour market integration. The contributions to this special issue focus on these dimensions seeking to identify how they are constructed and the opportunities, challenges, and possibilities they present for migrant workers and migrantreceiving societies. Collectively, the contributions challenge dominant narratives surrounding the relationship between migration and the informal economy and contribute to theorise them as co-constituted at multiscalar relational processes.

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Building Austin, building justice: Immigrant construction workers, precarious labor regimes and social citizenship

Cited by 38 publications

References 28 publications

Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Precarity in the Contemporary City: A Framework for Analysis

Linking Gentrification and Labour Market Precarity in the Contemporary City: A Framework for Analysis

Competition Rule of the Multi-Criteria Approach: What Contractors in China Really Want?

Room for Manoeuvre: Rethinking the Intersections Between Migration and the Informal Economy in Post‐Industrial Economies

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