Transnational Contract Work and the Remaking of Class among Polish Workers in Construction and Shipyards: Between Collective Subjugation and Stratified Empowerment

Abstract

In late capitalism, class is increasingly made on the move, not in static locations, as different forms of mobility resonate with the making of class in different ways. Poles are the leading European nation who move abroad. However, what the transnationalization of class means for the Polish workforce in the context of diversified employment and mobility regimes has remained underexplored to date. In this article transnational mobility is seen as enacted under the employment umbrella of transnational subcontractors and staffing agencies for short-term contracts abroad. The author focuses on Poles who work in the construction industry and shipyards and explores how transnational contract work conditions workers’class relations and experiences, with the aim of grasping the collective and individual experience of working and living “on a contract” and how this affects their situation in Poland. The article shows that what in most research appears as a working-class mobility populated by low-skilled and vulnerable Polish migrants emerges on the ground as far more heterogeneous and dynamic, marked by a common transnational subjugation as well as inner class hierarchies and antagonism. The argumentation draws on a multi-sited fieldwork conducted in Finland, Denmark, Norway and Poland in 2014–2017.

Conceptualizing transnational disappearances: Polish missing abroad and the governance of the search

“…22Alcohol consumption as a common pastime among Polish temporary migrant workers is well documented in my own (Matyska, 2018) and other research (Caro et al. 2015).…”

“…1 https://www.pewresearch.org/global/interactives/origins-destinations-of-european-union-migrants-within-the-eu/ 2 Alcohol consumption as a common pastime among Polish temporary migrant workers is well documented in my own (Matyska, 2018) and other research (Caro et al 2015). My interlocutors, those searching for the missing, also often mentioned alcohol as a factor contributing to migrant workers' disappearances.…”

“…In light of the literature on Eastern European labour mobility, the state coding of such mobilities as low in the ‘kinetic hierarchy’ (Cresswell, 2006: 219–258) of valued mobile bodies is unsurprising. Various studies show that temporary Polish workers living on the economic and political margins of society are devalued and considered second‐class citizens (Caro et al., 2015; Engbersen et al., 2017; Matyska, 2018). Arguably, given that their mobility undermines their ‘integration’ and their lives may seem unruly (Engbersen, 2013), their absence can hardly be considered politically or socially problematic for the receiving countries.…”

Is it Antislavic racism, or how to speak about liminality, stigma, and racism in Europe

“…All these legal forms meet the demand for a workforce that is flexible but cheap, allowing the companies to reduce labour costs. These forms of employment are popular in labour‐intensive sectors such as construction (Kahmann, 2006; Matyska, 2021; Wagner & Hassel, 2015) and food processing (Bogoeski, 2020), but also in agriculture (Bogoeski, 2022) and elder care sector (Leiber et al., 2019; Lutz & Palenga‐Möllenbeck, 2010). For these individuals, contractual employment entails a series of assignments abroad rather than a single assignment (Matyska, 2021).…”

Gendered encounters in mobility: Women researching migrant construction workers

“…The male-dominated character of both workspace and living place is structured according to the nature of (transnational) subcontracting in construction, which predominantly channels the movement of a group of workers with the aim of providing a temporary and flexible workforce in the destination place (Caro et al, 2015). This is more easily achieved when workers move without their families and when they are committed to the temporariness of their migratory living (Gama Gato and Salazar, 2018; Matyska, 2018). Consequently, it is a social environment that may appear particularly unwelcoming to and challenging for women, both as researchers and regular workers.…”