Londons Migrant Division of Labour Jane Wills Research team:
Yara Evans, Kavita Datta, Joanna Herbert, Cathy McIlwaine and Jon
May Data consultant: Yiannis Kaplanis (LSE) Department of Geography
and The City Centre Queen Mary, University of London Slide 2 Aims
of the paper Go back to key theory/concepts Immigration in the UK
Introduce Londons migrant division of labour (MDL) Big data sets
Our survey and interviews A case study at Canary Wharf Conclusions
Slide 3 Go back to key theory/concepts Post-war Europe: employer
demand; bottom end jobs; reserve armies of labour (Castles and
Kosack, 1973; Miles, 1982) The jobs tend to be unskilled, generally
but not always low paying, and to carry or connote inferior social
status; they often involve hard or unpleasant working conditions
and considerable insecurity; they seldom offer chances for
advancement toward better-paying, more attractive job
opportunities; they are usually performed in an unstructured work
environment and involve an informal, highly personalistic
relationship between a supervisor and subordinate. (Piore, 1979,
17) Slide 4 Fortress European states of the 1970s: focus on race
and ethnic divisions of labour (EDL); multiculturalism (Daniel,
1968; Modood et al., 1997) Different in the US: Waldinger and
Lichter, 2003 Highlight the importance of employer demand: Dual
frame of reference The Hiring queue Moral economies of employment
The important role of the state Slide 5 Dual frame of reference The
foreign-born comprise the preferred labor force, but not because
employers have suddenly developed a soft spot for immigrants,
immigration or the broader cultural or social changes wrought by
large-scale immigration. Rather employers perceive the newcomers as
workers who assess the situation relative to the conditions and
options encountered back home the immigrants dual frame of
reference puts Americas low-wage sector in a remarkably favourable
perspective. (Waldinger and Lichter, 2003, 179) Locals too entitled
Slide 6 Moral economies of employment Difference: Employers will
face difficulty in recruiting someone whose personal status for
reasons of nativity, ethnicity, gender, age, or the like does not
fit with the jobs, and who may therefore feel entitled to something
better. Waldinger and Lichter (2003, 40) And deserving: Easier to
employ deserving workers with origins in poorer parts of the world
(Anderson, 2007) Slide 7 The hiring queue A relatively stable
cross-national hierarchy of discrimination Model (2002, 132) :
foreign-born whites; African Indians and Chinese fare as well as
native-born whites (especially men); Africans, Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis at the bottom with African-American men at the bottom
in the US Slide 8 And the important role of the state Labour
supplies dependent upon immigration policy And,
education/welfare/employment regulation shaping push-pull into work
Need labour supply but sticky commodity and politically sensitive
Liberal state has problems securing the migration state
(Hollifield, 2004) Slide 9 Immigration in the UK Changing
immigration regime in the UK EU accession and new labour supply
from 2004 Managed migration and the new hierarchy the points based
system 2005 Control, surveillance and irregular migrants Ignoring
the legacy of the last 20 years? Changing MDLs: from black to
white? Slide 10 The migrant division of labour Labour segmentation:
ethnicity, gender and we argue immigration status and circumstances
Can trump and reconfigure existing segmentation: skilled workers in
low-skilled work; men in womens jobs; white workers in black
employment sectors Evidence from London: large data sets; our
surveys; one case study workplace Slide 11 Large data sets In 1986,
18% of Londoners were born overseas (approximately 1.17 million
people), and three- quarters of them came from the former colonies.
By 2006, as many as 31% of Londons population (2.23 million people)
were immigrants, with just over half of them having their origins
in the Commonwealth (LSE, 2007). GLA (Spence 2005) 35% working age
population but 46% elemental jobs foreign born (FB) Slide 12 60%
hospitality jobs FB 44% of migrants from poor countries are still
in the bottom 40% of the labour market after three years within the
UK (LSE, 2007) Growth in bottom end jobs (Goos and Manning;
Kaplanis), alongside increasing proportion of FB staff New analysis
of LFS shows increase in FB over time in low paid occupations Slide
13 Our surveys July 2005: London Citizens survey 341 workers in
cleaning (office and tube), dom. care, hospitality and food
processing Randomly approached: 90% FB (95% tube to 56% care)
Superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007): 56 countries of origin 49%
tertiary level quals; 20% studying Only 2% above LLW; min working
conditions Slide 14 Employers bodies Increasing dependence on
migrants in care, construction, cleaning and hospitality Work ethic
valued but concerns about productivity and no-one mentions the pay!
Evidence of a hiring queue Slide 15 The MDL I think the domiciliary
care sector would deliver a lot less service than it does if it
were not for that proportion of migrant workers Particularly in
London, I would say that migrant workers are essential to even
maintain the same level of service. Care sector respondent, 5.12.07
Im certainly hearing that people are bringing candidates or having
candidates brought in by overseas recruitment agencies and are
thinking about going overseas specifically to find people. Care
sector respondent, 5.12.07 Slide 16 I would say they are very hard
workers. they are not lazy at all whatever you ask them to do, they
will be really happy to do it We hardly have any problems where we
have to discipline staff for constantly coming in late or reporting
sick or things like that. Food processing respondent, 18.12.06 The
major reason we use immigrant workers is because they are better
than the people who are available locally. Construction sector
respondent, 11.7.07 Slide 17 Work ethic and . Well I think the
advantages are that there is a skills and labour shortage in the
industry and that by and large, migrant labour has a reputation for
commitment, hard work and skill. The disadvantage clearly is a
language- understanding issue. What people probably dont put up in
lights is a question of whether they pay lower rates people do
their own deals. So I think if you take that cultural situation and
overlay it with the migrant worker then I think inevitably, in
doing their own deal, theyre going to be disadvantaged. Theyre
prepared to take the compromise, and I think in that sort of
context, although its not up in lights, I cant give you any
figures, the gut feeling is that yes, they are paid less.
Construction industry respondent, 17.11.06 Lower pay for cleaning
in central London than around the M25 (local labour markets) Slide
18 Evidence of the hiring queue Concerns about language, H&S,
record keeping, communication and some groups favoured over others.
Id die for a Portuguese. You hang on to them, you ask for their
sisters, their mothers, their brothers, marvellous! Filipinos
fantastic, Poles very good Cleaning sector respondent, 3.5.06 Slide
19 At the workplace too One cleaning contract in one building at
Canary Wharf Overview of workforce data Face-to-face interviews
with 54 of 105 staff 22 day and 32 night staff evenly balanced by
gender 4 managers Sept/November 2006 Slide 20 A workplace and the
world 6.20/hour and 30p/hour attendance bonus after 2 weeks (NMW
5.35; LLW 7.05) 20 days annual holiday plus 8 bank holidays no
company sick pay or pension building opened in 1990s 5 cleaning
contractors since opening Slide 21 Superdiversity at work: 105
anonymised company records (3 missing) Slide 22 Slide 23 80% staff
born outside the UK from 28 other countries Significant numbers
from Africa, western Europe and Latin America with growing
significance of eastern Europeans Foreign-born younger than the
British-born Complexity of nationality overlaid by complexity of
citizenship and immigration status Superdiversity at work Slide 24
Citizenship and immigration status 7 of 8 of those who arrived
before 1990 were British citizens None of those who arrived since
2000 were British citizens Majority of those interviewed (33 from
41 or 80%) arrived since 1991 with mixed routes to living and
working in the UK European by birth or citizenship; ILR (refugees);
others Slide 25 Low paid labour supply African and Latin American
workers arrived as students, tourists and asylum seekers during the
1980s and 1990s Arriving through the interstices of the immigration
system or via the rest of the EU And regularised through refugee
status, marriage and childbirth No longer needed in the context of
alternative labour supplies from the A8? Slide 26 The dual frame of
reference Most of these girls are just here to earn a living, go
home, feed their children and send money back home and feed the
other part of the family, you know, the uncles, the aunts, the
cousins. I mean widespread family, not like ours at all. (manager,
Canary Wharf contract, 4.12.06) Slide 27 Locals too entitled Lets
look at it this way. The English are used to a social security
system anyway, theyre used to having that whereas the immigrants
dont have that in their country. Weve always had something to fall
back on so those English that are not educated, that, you know,
didnt go out and get themselves great jobs could come out and do
cleaning but they wont do it for a lower wage because they might as
well sit indoors and get paid to look after the kids to motivate
them youd need ten pounds an hour, definitely. (manager, Canary
Wharf contract, 4.12.06) Slide 28 Changes in the hiring queue...
The good thing about the east Europeans theyre all very briefed on
what theyve got to bring with them, all the correct paperwork,
theyre on the ball. We still have problems with Africans,
Nigerians, Jamaicans coming over and they havent got their
paperwork. Were thankful for having the Eastern Europeans are the
up and coming, you know, theyre the people that everybody wants
because theyre hardworking. A lot of the black Africans are lazy
lets put it this way, theyre very difficult to motivate they come
to work tired, that makes them look lazy.. Compared to the east
Europeans that come in bussing. They come in buzzing. (manager,
Canary Wharf contract, interview, 28.9.06). Slide 29 Conclusions
Clear London has a MDL at bottom end of labour market Explained by
employer demand, dual frame, moral economy, hiring queue and state
policy Clear rotating membership (Castles and Kosack, 1973) of this
tier of the workforce as new immigrants replace older ones demand
constant/growing with different supply Changing MDL with changing
immigration regime: from black to white or not? Slide 30 If you
want more... Its available from:
http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities /
