The European Migrant Workers Union and the barriers to transnational industrial citizenship

Abstract

Despite the rapid increase in cross-national labour migration since EU enlargement in 2004, there has been little research on transnational union efforts to organize migrant workers. This article examines the European Migrant Workers Union, created by the German union IG BAU in a shift away from national protectionism towards transnational organizing. The initiative largely failed, primarily because of decisions by other unions to reject the transnational approach and instead to defend existing institutional arrangements. We argue that this inaction constitutes a setback for union reassertion of control over markets and for bringing industrial citizenship to Europe’s hyper-mobile workers.