Rule Enactment in a Pan-European Labour Market: Transnational Posted Work in the German Construction Sector

This article analyses the micro-level rule enactment of the posting of workers framework in the German construction sector. I examine how actors draw on different power resources in order to influence policies without formal negotiation within transnational workspaces and thereby initiate institutional change. Drawing on interviews with posted workers, managers, unionists, works councillors and labour inspectors I show how transnational subcontracting allows the emergence of different regulatory spaces at national and workplace level. The article concludes that the informal renegotiation of employment relations in transnational workspaces is likely to destabilize the posting framework negot…

Posted Migration and Segregation in the European Construction Sector

Worker ‘posting’ or temporary migration of manual workers sent by their employers to work on projects abroad has become increasingly prominent in the European construction industry. It is now normal to find groups of workers from all around Europe on construction sites, living in nearby temporary accommodations, moving on to other projects or back home when the project is complete. This article highlights the interaction between the social and spatial segregation and transnational mobility of these workers in the European Union construction labour market. We argue that the work-focused and employer-dominated nature of the posted workers' social world abroad contributes to their segregation …

A Comparative Analysis of Union Responses to Posted Work in Four European Countries

Practicing European Industrial Citizenship : The Case of Labour Migration to Germany

Industrial citizenship developed as a way to socially regulate markets in democratic societies. However, EU regulation and one form of labour mobility unique to the European Union, namely posted work, undermines national industrial citizenship through constitutionalizing markets. This chapter examines the contradictions between industrial and market citizenship concepts, and traces their implications in practice. It focuses on how posted work introducies into the German industrial relations system a class of workers with tenuous relations to the system’s regulatory jurisdiction. This undermines industrial citizenship in Germany. Use of posting avoids contesting the validity of labour rights…

European Integration and the Disembedding of Labour Market Regulation: Transnational Labour Relations at theEuropeanCentralBank Construction Site

European integration through mutual recognition has facilitated the growth of a pan-European labour supply system in which transnational subcontractors ‘post’ workers from low-wage areas to higher wage areas. This allows employers to create spaces of exception in which the national industrial relations system of the country where work occurs does not fully apply. Drawing on interviews with managers, workers, unionists and works councillors at the European Central Bank construction site in Frankfurt, Germany, this article shows how transnational subcontracting allows employers to access, and create competition between, sovereign regulatory regimes. It concludes that high-cost, high-collectiv…

Posted work and deterritorialization in the European Union: a study of the German construction and meat industry

Mobiliteit en burgerschaprechten binnen de Europese Unie beïnvloeden de levens van miljoenen mensen in de EU op een positieve manier. In Posted Work and Deterritorialization in the European Union betoogt Ines Wagner echter dat de dynamiek van intra-Europese arbeidsmigratie ook een hypermobiele onderklasse van arbeiders in precaire, slecht betaald werk creëert. Dit komt voornamelijk doordat tewerkstellingsstructuren transnationaliseren, terwijl beleidsinstrumenten en kiesdistricten territoriaal geregeld blijven. Wagner’s conclusies zijn gebaseerd op kwalitatief onderzoek naar detachering in de Duitse politieke economie. Gedetacheerde werknemers zijn arbeidsmigranten die door hun werkgever ti…

Beware of the “poverty migrant”: media discourses on EU labour migration and the welfare state in Germany and the UK

Abstract This article examines the role of the media in the EU freedom of movement debate through the lens of high-circulation German and UK newspapers during the first half of 2014. It explores how the media problematised migration from Eastern European member states and its influence on national host country labour markets and welfare systems. It also analyses how different media outlets positioned themselves in relation to relevant policies or policy proposals. The findings show that most articles in our sample present low-skill, low-wage working European Union (EU) migrant class referred to as “poverty migrants” as a problem to be addressed at the policy level in contrast with the econo…