Intra-European labour migration and deteriorating employment relations in Danish cleaning and agriculture: Industrial relations under pressure from EU8/2 labour inflows?

Abstract

Eastern and Central European labour migration following the EU enlargement has significant impact on the Nordic labour markets. This article demonstrates, through sector-based case studies in Denmark, how labour migration influences working condition and wages in two sectors that have so far only been sparsely studied: the agriculture and cleaning industries. The high inflow of labour migrants is used by some employers to bypass and undermine the institutionalized class compromise, by employing EU8/2-workers at lower wages and often without collective agreements coverage frequently combined with below average working conditions. This put strains on the Danish agreement-based model of industrial relations, potentially leading to a more segmented labour market as well as replacement of native, mainly low-skilled workers with EU8/2-workers.

International Labour Migration and Food Production in Rural Europe: A Review of the Evidence

“…; Potter and Hamilton ) and, at times, even in the heavily regulated social democratic labour markets of Scandinavia (Woolfson et al . ; Mešić and Woolfson ; Refslund ) the safety‐nets appear to be loosening or lowering. However, important variations exist, both across space and between sectors of food productions, with examples of improving conditions for migrant labour evident in some areas (see: Rye and Andrzejewska ; Rye ).…”

Layered vulnerability: Temporary migrants in Australian horticulture

“…A substantial literature exists showing the vulnerability of migrant workers in Australia and other countries (Anderson, 2010;Mares, 2012;Preibisch, 2010;Refslund, 2014;Rogaly, 2008). Studies also show temporary migrants to be especially vulnerable in horticultural jobs where they may be disadvantaged by undocumented status (Martin, 2003;Pena, 2010), being bonded to a single employer (Preibisch, 2010), social exclusion (Preibisch, 2004), poor English skills (Sargeant and Tucker, 2009) and precarious employment (Kroon and Paauwe, 2013;Potter and Hamilton, 2014) -factors which generally combine to render unenforceable local (and international) labour rights (Campbell and Tham, 2013;Fudge, 2011).…”

Intra‐European labour migration and low‐wage competition—comparing the Danish and Swedish experiences across three sectors

“…While construction is highly affected (several Danish and Swedish large‐scale construction projects like the Copenhagen Metro Ring, the City Tunnel in Malmö and the North Link in Stockholm confirm this), we argue that other sectors might be even more influenced by the low‐wage competition. In Denmark and Sweden, cleaning, agriculture and transport, more specifically road haulage, are strongly affected, albeit to various extent and partly in various ways (Refslund, ; ; Sternberg et al ., ; Thörnquist, ; ).…”

“…In Denmark, the registration is however more advanced because of the merging of several registers including the wage register. As in Sweden, it is also compulsory for firms posting workers to register with the authorities (Refslund, ). There were at least 90,000 EU11 citizens working in Denmark in 2014.…”