Hyper-mobile migrant workers and the lack of social protection within the European Union: a case study from the Netherlands
Within the European Union a labour recruitment system exists within which firms use various channels of migration and recruitment to differentiate between terms and conditions of migrant workers, exploiting the blurred boundaries of regulatory frameworks on intra-EU mobility. Though these EU migrant workers are formally not excluded from labour rights, regulations are enacted such that de facto they often are. In particular, migrants who move between EU-member states on a regular basis for work, such as those working in engineering construction, face many irregularities in their employment relations, while hardly experiencing protection from established representation and enforcement authorities.

This presentation discusses a case study of hyper-mobile migrants employed on large-scale construction sites in the Netherlands, and highlights the ways these workers express their agency in dealing with a cross-border employment context in which social protection mechanisms are absent or difficult to access. It is argued that the employment context limits the opportunities for collective organisation (via trade unions for example), and that the workers therefore employ various strategies that rework existing conditions to their advantage. On a broader scale, however, this contributes to the continuation of current labour relations.
Date: 25 November 2015, 13:00 (Wednesday, 7th week, Michaelmas 2015)
Venue: Venue to be announced
Speaker: Lisa Berntsen (Tilburg University)
Organising department: Oxford Department of International Development
Organisers: Robtel Neajai Pailey, Yasser Moullan, Jenny Peebles (University of Oxford, Oxford Dept of International Development)
Organiser contact email address: jenny.peebles@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Part of: International Migration Institute Seminar Series
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Jenny Peebles