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The British State and London’s Migrant Division of LabourMarch 2006
Jon May, Jane Wills, Kavita Datta, Yara Evans, Joanna Herbert and Cathy McIlwaine
Department of GeographyQueen Mary, University of LondonMile End, London E1 4NS
ISBN: 0-902238-23-X
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ABSTRACT
This paper explores the emergence of a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London. In
contrast to a vision of ‘professionalisation’ it shows that London’s labour market too
has been characterised by processes of occupational polarisation and that a
disproportionate number of London’s low-paid jobs are now filled by foreign-born
migrants. Drawing on original survey data, the paper explores the pay and conditions
of London’s low-paid migrant workers and develops a framework for understanding
the emergence of a new migrant division of labour in London. In particular, the paper
stresses the role of the British State in shaping this divide. The paper concludes that
the emergence of a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London necessitates a re-
conceptualisation of the place of migrant workers in the ‘global city’ and of the
processes shaping global city labour markets, and outlines what this new division of
labour might mean for politics and policy in London.
KEYWORDS: global cities; urban labour markets; migrant work/ers; the state; new
urban politics
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Introduction
“A worker’s profile: Kobena is a 37 year old Ghanaian. In his home country he hadacquired a first degree and worked in state housing. He came to the UK in 2003, andhas since been a cleaner with the Underground. He has a long working week of 54hours, and although it includes overtime, he earns the flat rate of £4.85 per hour. Hehas only 12 days of paid holiday a year, does not receive any sick pay, nor anyadditional pay (e.g. London Weighting) or other benefits from his employer. Hesupports four children in the UK, and also sends money to family abroad … In his view,his employer does not care about [their] workers: ‘They just want us to work’”. (Evanset al, 2005: 17)
Within a burgeoning global cities literature, attention continues to focus on the extent
to which different cities are characterised by processes of occupational and income
polarisation, and the position of migrant workers in the global city labour market (for
reviews see Norgaard, 2003; Samers, 2002). In the case of London, the
conventional wisdom is that whilst recent decades have seen growing income
polarisation there is little evidence of the occupational polarisation that has driven
such change in the United States. Rather, London’s labour market is argued to have
under-gone processes of professionalisation (Buck, 1994; Buck et al, 2002; Hamnett,
1994a, 1996, 2003; Hamnett and Cross, 1998; Stark, 1992). For Hamnett, such
differences can best be explained by the very different levels of immigration and
different welfare regimes found in the two countries. Whilst high levels of immigration
and minimal welfare provision have fuelled a growth in low-paid work in cities like
New York and Los Angeles, the opposite is true in London: where a relatively
generous welfare system and a more limited supply of migrant labour has restricted
the growth of low-paid employment (Hamnett, 1994b, 1996).
Whilst this picture of the London labour market may have been accurate in the early
1990s it is no longer tenable. New analyses of the Labour Force Survey suggest that
alongside the growing number of professional and managerial jobs in London there
has also been a small but significant rise in the number of low-paid jobs (Goos and
Manning, 2005). Alongside this increase, rising levels of immigration have resulted in
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a dramatic increase in the size of London’s foreign-born population. As a result, a
disproportionate number of London’s low–paid jobs are now filled by foreign-born
migrants (Spence, 2005). Put simply, it appears that London too now has a marked
‘migrant division of labour’.
Whilst others continue to focus on changes to the top end of the London labour
market, here we examine instead changes at the bottom. In the first two parts of the
paper we outline the limitations of a thesis of ‘professionalisation’, present evidence
of growing occupational polarisation and of the emergence of a new migrant division
of labour in London, and highlight the role that the British state has played in shaping
this divide. Far from acting to protect workers from the worst excesses of low-paid
work, we show how policies of labour market de-regulation, welfare ‘reform’ and of
‘managed migration’ have helped create a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London
consisting mainly of low-paid migrant workers. In part three of the paper we draw
upon a new survey of low-paid workers to examine the characteristics of London’s
low-paid workforce and the pay and conditions endured by people like Kobena. In the
final part of the paper we consider the broader implications of our data. We suggest
that the creation of a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London necessitates a re-
conceptualisation of the place of migrant workers in the ‘global city’ and of the
processes shaping global city labour markets. In the conclusion we examine some of
the ethical and political issues that must be confronted if the true costs associated
with such a ‘reserve’ are to be addressed.
Polarisation revisited: low-paid migrant labour in London
In Sassen’s orginal formulation of the ‘Global City Hypothesis’ migrant labour played
a prominent role. The broad contours of this thesis are now well known. Briefly,
following a period of global economic restructuring, a small number of cities are
understood to have emerged as key sites of ‘command and control’ in the new global
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economy: the “cotter pins holding the capitalist world economy together” (Feagin and
Smith, 1987: 4, quoted in Baum, 1997: 1881). Within such cities, a shift from
manufacturing to financial and business services employment is held to have led to
marked occupational and income polarisation: with absolute growth at both the top
and bottom end of the labour market and a ‘falling out’ of the middle (Sassen, 1991).
Growth at the bottom end, it is argued, has been further fuelled by a growing demand
for low-paid workers to service the high-income lifestyles of an expanding
professional and managerial class, produce the goods and services used by low-
income households themselves, and by the continuing informalisation of
manufacturing employment (Sassen, 1996). Finally, the increased demand for low-
wage workers has in turn encouraged a dramatic increase in levels of migration from
the Global South to the Global North. As a result, a significant proportion of low-wage
jobs in the global city are filled by foreign-born migrant workers; with the worst jobs
falling to the most recent arrivals or those whose immigration status renders them
ineligible for state welfare and who, especially if working illegally, have little choice
but to accept the poorest quality jobs (Sassen, 1988).
Since its original formulation, the Global Cities Hypothesis has been subject to
sustained empirical scrutiny, with a number of studies exploring the extent to which
different cities exhibit the polarised social structure Sassen describes, and the place
of low-paid migrant workers in the global city labour market (for reviews see
Norgaard, 2003; Samers, 2002). In the case of London, Hamnett has offered
compelling evidence that whilst the city certainly witnessed income polarisation
through the 1980s there is no evidence that this was accompanied by growing
occupational polarisation. Instead, the past twenty years or so have seen a rapid
professionalisation of the London labour market, with an absolute increase in the
number of managers and professionals at the top end of the occupational hierarchy
and an absolute and relative decline in every other socio-economic group - including
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those employed in the kind of elementary occupations for which there is apparently
such high demand in global cities (Hamnett, 1994a, 1996, 2003; Hamnett and Cross,
1998; for similar conclusions, Buck, 1994; Buck et al, 2002; Stark, 1992).
In an effort to explain the rather different occupational and income structures found in
cities in the United States and Europe, Hamnett points to important variations in the
welfare state regimes and levels of immigration found in different countries (Hamnett,
1994b, 1996). Thus he suggests that one reason that London appears not to have
experienced the same levels of growth at the bottom end of the labour market as
have larger cities in the United States is because it lacks the large-scale supply of
cheap migrant labour found in cities like New York and Los Angeles. At the same
time, a more generous welfare safety net protects people from the worst excesses of
the low-paid labour market. Hence he concludes that “in many European countries
[recent processes of economic restructuring] …are more likely to create a large and
growing unemployed and economically inactive group excluded from the labour force
rather than … a large, low-skilled and low-paid labour force. While this may be true in
the US, with its large and growing immigrant labour force, willing to work for low
wages (possibly forced to because of the limited nature of welfare provision) it is not
necessarily true of all Western capitalist countries”, and he argues, certainly not true
of London (Hamnett, 1996: 1411; 2003).
Hamnett’s intervention in such debates has been enormously useful, sparking a
range of studies investigating processes of occupational and income change in the
global city (see, for example, Baum, 1997 on Sydney; Body-Grendot, 1996, and
Rhein, 1998, on Paris; Burgers, 1996, and Kloosterman, 1996, on Amsterdam,
Rotterdam and the Randstadtt). In contrast to the economic reductionism of earlier
accounts (Friedman, 1986; Friedman and Wolff, 1982; Sassen, 1988, 1991, 1996),
such studies point to the broad array of factors mediating the effects of economic
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restructuring. One result of such arguments has been to open up a space for political
agency. If, rather than flowing directly from processes of ‘global’ economic
restructuring, divisions in the global city are better understood as a result of the
complex interplay of processes of economic restructuring, demographics and state
policy, the outcome of such processes are not only ‘path dependent’, but open to
change.
Yet, following a number of important and ongoing changes in British labour market
regulation, welfare and immigration policy it is not at all clear whether the picture of
the London labour market Hamnett describes is still accurate. Most importantly, new
evidence suggests that London too has recently been subject to processes of
occupational polarisation - with a small but significant growth in the absolute number
of jobs at the bottom end of the occupational hierarchy, a disproportionate number of
which are filled by migrant workers (Goos and Manning, 2005;Spence, 2005).
Contra Hamnett, then, in this paper we propose that a distinctive ‘migrant division of
labour’ is also emerging in London. Such a divide has clear echoes of Sassen’s
original thesis, but cannot be properly explained by her account of the dynamics
shaping global city labour markets. Rather, we argue that the British State has had a
far more active role in shaping this divide than either Sassen or Hamnett
acknowledge. In the next section we briefly outline the main limitations of Hamnett’s
thesis of professionalisation, before providing our own account of the state’s role in
shaping growing divisions in the London labour market. Instead of restricting our
analysis to an analysis of the ways in which the British welfare system mediates the
effects of economic restructuring, we explore the ways in which the British welfare
system, labour market policies and immigration practices have come together to
heighten the effects of labour market change and facilitate the creation of a ‘reserve
army of labour’ consisting mainly of low-paid, migrant workers. Though by no means
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restricted to the capital, the emergence of this ’reserve army’ is most evident in
London and demands particular attention (for recent research examining the
contribution and conditions of work of migrant workers in and beyond London see,
Anderson and Rogaly, 2005; Evans et al, 2005; Holgate, 2004; Taylor and Rogaly,
2004; TUC, 2003; Winkelmann-Glebe et al, 2004).
The British State and labour market dynamics
We would argue that recent changes necessitate two important revisions to the
substance of Hamnett’s account. Firstly, in his desire to push forward a thesis of
professionalisation rather than polarisation, Hamnett pays relatively little attention to
the character and composition of London’s low-paid labour force (Hamnett, 1994a,
1996, 2003). In contrast, disaggregating LFS data according to median levels of pay
rather than by occupation, Goos and Manning (2003a and b) examine the rate of job
growth in different wage bands of the British labour market. Contra Hamnett, they
show that although there was indeed a significant increase in the number of top
paying jobs in the UK between 1979 and 1999 (with increases of 25% and 70%
respectively in deciles 9 and 10), the same period also saw a significant rise (40%) in
the absolute number of jobs in the lowest paying decile. Hence they conclude that
“whichever way we look at it, there [has indeed been] a growing polarisation of jobs
in the UK” over recent decades (2003a: 77). In support of such claims Nolan (2000)
shows how cleaners, domestics and retail workers have all recently taken their place
amongst management consultants, computer engineers, and lawyers as Britain’s
fastest growing occupations. More importantly, when Goos and Manning’s analysis is
repeated for London rather than for the UK as a whole, very similar trends emerge:
with a very large increase in the number of top paying jobs alongside a smaller but
still significant rise in the number of very low paying jobs, and a ‘falling out’ of the
middle (Goos and Manning, 2005; Figure 1).
8
Whether or not one finds evidence of professionalisation, polarisation or
proletarianisation depends to a degree at least upon the definitions and data
deployed (Norgaard, 2003). But there is more at stake here than a ‘numbers game’.
Implicit within Hamnett’s thesis - of professionalisation at one end of the London
labour market, and of (relatively) generous welfare provision for the growing numbers
of individuals and households excluded from work at the other - is a sense of growth
without costs. Yet, as research by the Greater London Authority (GLA) has shown, as
many as 1 in 5 of London’s workers earn less than £6.70 an hour (GLA, 2002). As
well as low wages, such workers often endure extremely poor conditions of
employment, working long or unsociable hours and without the benefits that those at
the top end of the labour market take for granted: such as access to a pension
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scheme, sick pay or maternity leave (Howarth and Kenway, 2004). Further, although
it is true that economically inactive households account for the single largest group of
households living in poverty in the British capital, as many as 37% of children living in
poverty in London reside in households where at least one person works (GLA, 2002:
23). Whilst the work of Hamnett and others (Beaverstock, 1991; Beaverstock and
Smith, 1996) has done much to illuminate recent changes at the top end of London’s
occupational hierarchy, it is clear that far more needs to be known about the pay and
conditions endured by the many thousands of Londoners working at the bottom end
of a ‘professionalising’ labour market and about the impact of low-paid work on these
households and families.
Secondly, even if they were correct in the early 1990s, the distinctions Hamnett
identifies regarding the supply of low-skilled migrant labour in the US and UK no
longer hold. As Buck et al point out: “the 1990s [was a period of] … remarkable
change … with the emergence of comparably high rates of international migration
into London from a range of poor countries” (2002: 362). Indeed, so great has this
increase been that foreign-born migrants now account for fully 35% of London’s
population, and 29% of its working age population (Spence, 2005). Its foreign born
population is therefore considerably higher now than was New York’s at the time of
Hamnett’s analysis - when the total foreign-born population of New York stood at
28% (Hamnett, 2003; 1994b: 408).
More significantly, it is clear that foreign-born migrants do now make up a
disproportionate share of London’s low paid workforce. Using LFS and Census data
that is likely to under rather than over-report the extent of such a phenomenon,
Spence (2005) has shown that as many as 46% of all of London’s ‘elementary’ posts
(domestic workers, cleaners, caretakers, porters, refuge collectors and labourers) are
now filled by foreign-born migrants. There is also evidence that, just as in cities like
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New York and Los Angeles, foreign-born migrants now make up a disproportionate
share of particular segments of the city’s low-paid labour force (Lagnado, 2004). For
example, some 40.5% of working age people born in Slovakia now living in London
work in personal services - as nursery nurses, housekeepers and care assistants
(Spence, 2005). Countering Hamnett’s assertion that there is little evidence of “an
army of low-wage [migrant] workers entering the personal service sector in Britain”, it
therefore appears that the number of foreign-born migrants working in London has
increased significantly through the 1990s, with many moving in to precisely these
kinds of jobs (Hamnett, 2003: 107).
Conceptually, one of Hamnett’s most important contributions is the role he ascribes
to different welfare state regimes in mediating the effects of economic restructuring in
the global city. But whilst questions can also be asked of his account of British
welfare, we need to recognise that the state’s role in the global city can not be
restricted to a consideration of welfare provision (White, 1998). Rather, we need to
consider the ways in which changing welfare state regimes interact with other
aspects of state-craft - most notably, labour market (de)regulation and state
immigration policies - to shape labour market dynamics (Baum, 1997).
Most obviously, far from protecting London’s workers from worsening pay and
conditions via the provision of generous welfare payments, as Hamnett implies,
Conservative governments of the 1980s and early 1990s in fact worked remarkably
hard to secure a competitive advantage for Britain in a changing world economy
through the twin policies of labour market de-regulation and welfare restructuring.
Hence, the de-regulation of the London Stock Exchange in the early 1980s, for
example, signalled an attempt by central government to secure London’s position as
a major centre of the global financial industries and of managerial and professional
employment (Thrift and Leyshon, 1994). At the other end of the labour market, the
11
same period saw a sustained attack on trade unions, the abolition of the Wages
Councils, the privatisation of key public services, and the introduction of the market
through compulsory competitive tendering in Local Authorities and market testing in
the NHS (Wills, 2004). Coupled with significant reductions in both the real value of
benefits and in the numbers of people eligible for benefits, such policies sought to
foster increased ‘flexibility’ at the bottom end of the labour market. The central tenets
underpinning labour market and welfare ‘reform’ in the Conservative era – labour
market flexibility allied with a benefits system designed to boost rather than restrict
the supply of workers to the low-paid economy - have been maintained if not
strengthened under New Labour. Thus, the introduction of the New Deal, for
example, has introduced even greater compulsion in to the benefits system. At the
same time, the increased targeting of the young and long term unemployed, of lone
parents and, more recently, of those in receipt of incapacity benefit, have all sought
to move people off benefits and in to what is often low-paid work (see, for example,
Peck, 2001, 2004; Sunley, Martin and Nativel, 2001).
In fact, such initiatives had remarkably little effect on levels of unemployment and
economic inactivity in London, both of which remained significantly higher in London
than elsewhere in the UK through out the 1990s (GLA, 2002). None-the-less, at the
close of the decade employers continued to complain of a shortage of workers at
both the top and bottom ends of the labour market. Shortages were reported to be
particularly acute at the bottom end, with the Learning and Skills Council reporting
almost three times as many vacancies in elementary occupations as in professional
and managerial positions across the UK as a whole in 2004 (Learning and Skills
Council, 2005). Having already restricted benefits, the most obvious way of
addressing a continued shortfall of workers in a tight labour market without
significantly raising wages was therefore to turn to new sources of labour.
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During the 1970s and ‘80s a succession of British governments adopted immigration
policies aimed at restricting the number of people settling in Britain. But by the early
1990s, new flows of refugees and asylum seekers, the growing ease of international
travel and the opening up of an internal market in the European Union meant that
governments were less able to control immigration than had once been the case
(Favell and Hansen, 2002). Coupled with employer demands to improve the system
of work permit allocation, and to find new ways to fill vacancies, the New Labour
Government made a dramatic shift in immigration policy. Such a shift is most clearly
articulated in its 2002 White Paper Secure Borders, Safe Haven – which set out a
programme of ‘managed migration’ aimed at simultaneously restricting levels of
asylum and illegal immigration whilst encouraging the flow of temporary migration in
the interests of the UK economy (Flynn, 2005a; Morris, 2002).
Most importantly, under this new regime of ‘managed migration’ the New Labour
government has sought to attract growing numbers of both highly skilled and low-
skilled workers to Britain, with an expansion of existing temporary worker schemes
and the addition of new programmes. As a result, the number of people legally
entering Britain to work has risen very considerably over recent years, with the
number of work permits issued to foreign-born workers increasing from around
40,000 a year in the mid-1990s to over 200,000 a year in 2004 (Flynn, 2005a). But,
managed migration has also introduced a strict hierarchy of classes of entry and
associated privileges: ranging from the right to settle for the highly skilled, to only
temporary admission with no rights to benefits for the low-skilled (RSA Migration
Commission, 2005). Similar restrictions on benefit receipt have been imposed upon
the growing number of workers coming to Britain from the A8 Accession Countries
the supply of which, it is hoped by government, will eventually reduce Britain’s
reliance on low-skilled workers from beyond the EU (TUC, 2003).
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Even whilst he contrasts the more generous welfare provision of the British welfare
state with its US counterpart, the distinctions Hamnett (1996) draws between a
system designed to promote the supply of workers to the low-paid economy (as in
the US) with one that acts to restrict that supply, are therefore not nearly as clear cut
as he would suggest. In fact, under New Labour work and welfare in Britain have
moved significantly closer to a North American model (Deacon, 2000; Peck, 2001;
Theodore and Peck, 1998). As importantly, far from being equally available to all,
benefits are now tied in to a complex hierarchy of eligibility depending upon a
person’s immigration and residency status1. As a result, rather than high levels of
unemployment signalling a lack of growth at the bottom end of the labour market - as
Hamnett argues - the combination of still relatively high levels of unemployment
together with steadily increasing demand for low-paid workers in service jobs seems
to have been crucial in producing a high demand for foreign-born migrant workers in
the UK: at least in part because such workers are not necessarily eligible for the
same welfare benefits as their British born counterparts (RSA Migration Commission,
2005)
This analysis therefore suggests that far from acting to protect workers from the
worst excesses of the low-paid economy, the British state has in fact actively sought
to facilitate the recruitment of migrant labour whilst restricting people’s access to
welfare. The result, as Morris has argued, is “an expanding army of actively recruited
migrant labour … [alongside] an underground population of both rejected asylum
1 Eligibility for state benefits in Britain is determined by a complex set of factors the most important ofwhich, in the current context at least, is whether a person is considered ‘ordinarily resident’ in Britain.The conditions of ‘ordinary residency’ are not set by statute and tend to be established on a case bycase basis according to case law. Importantly, however, key groups are excluded from residency andthus claiming benefits: most notably, low-skilled workers entering Britain on a short-term work permitor through one of a range of sector based quota schemes. Workers moving to Britain from the A8Accession Countries can only claim benefits once registered on the Workers Registration Scheme (andresident in Britain on a continual basis) for at least 12 months. For further information see Allamby(2005).
14
seekers and undocumented migrants existing with minimal rights in the interstices of
the … economy” (Morris, 2004: 25). Some indication of the extent to which London’s
economy depends on such workers, and the nature of their pay and conditions, is
presented in the following sections.
Opening a window on to low-paid work in London
Building an accurate picture of London’s low-paid work force, and of the role of
foreign-born migrant workers in that section of the labour market, is extremely
difficult. Whilst large data sets such as the Labour Force Survey and the Census of
Population shed some light on the characteristics of this population, their origins and
income, there are major limitations to the data. Not least, whilst the LFS offers an
extensive picture of the distribution of earnings in London, it tells us very little about a
person’s country of origin (Spence, 2005). Likewise, the Census is thought to cover
only 85% of London’s true population, with migrant groups amongst those most likely
to be missing (Simpson, 1996). Neither the LFS or Census include information on
those living or working illegally in Britain (Cox and Watt, 2002) and no published data
set provides detailed information about the pay and conditions associated with
particular jobs alongside information about the kinds of people doing those jobs.
Whilst recognising the value of the extensive coverage that data sets like the LFS
and Census provide, it is therefore imperative that we build a more detailed picture of
London’s low-paid workforce. To do so the authors worked in partnership with
London Citizens’ Living Wage Campaign and Summer Academy. Through July 2005
a team of 11 researchers completed a structured questionnaire with 341 workers in
four sectors of the London economy known to employ high numbers of low paid
workers: contract cleaning; hospitality and catering; home care; and the food
processing industry. The questionnaire focused on people’s pay and conditions, the
means by which they had found work, their household circumstances and receipt of
15
benefits and (where appropriate) reasons for migrating to London. Some open-ended
questions were also included to capture a sense of people’s experiences of and
attitudes towards low-paid work.
Access to workers was facilitated by trade union representatives or by snowballing:
using existing contacts with known workers to make contact with other respondents.
Otherwise, a random sample of respondents was contacted directly outside of their
workplace. Respondents working to clean the London Underground, for example,
were approached at work in over 40 stations as well as at one line depot in North
London. For the other sectors, some respondents were approached at or near their
workplaces or employment agencies, with others completing the questionnaire
outside of working hours in agreed locations such as cafes. Within the home care
sector, some questionnaires were conducted by telephone and, in one instance,
through self -completion in a focus group. Most interviewers were fluent in languages
other than English, including Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and French and this
proved vital in both making contact and communicating with respondents.
The relatively small number of people interviewed, and mixed sampling frame,
means that we cannot claim the data is truly representative of all low paid
employment in London. However, it offers a much more detailed picture of London’s
low-paid workforce than can be traced through other sources. Importantly, results
from each sector and different interviewers corroborate - suggesting common trends
across London’s low-paid labour market. In what follows we highlight the most salient
aspects of our findings with regards to the position and experiences of foreign-born
migrant workers in London. In the final parts of the paper we explore the wider
significance of the data for understanding and responding to changing employment
patterns – and an emergent migrant division of labour in particular - in global cities
like London.
16
Low paid work and London’s migrant division of labour
Several aspects of the survey results are pertinent to the current discussion. Most
obviously, perhaps, despite being targeted at low-paid workers in general rather than
only foreign-born migrants, the survey highlighted the extraordinary preponderance
of migrants in London’s low-paid economy. Indeed, in contrast to studies drawing on
LFS and Census data, which suggest a little under half of London’s elementary
occupations are now filled by foreign-born migrants, fully 90% of those interviewed
were born outside of the UK with as many has half arriving in Britain in the last five
years (c.f. Spence, 2005). Though people reported entering the UK under a range of
circumstances (as asylum seekers, au pairs, working holiday makers, EU citizens
and partners of British citizens) the vast majority (92%) had come directly to London,
with a quarter (25%) reporting they had come in search of work.
Contrary to popular images of the lone sojourner, however, the majority of
interviewees were not in living in London alone. Nor were they especially young.
More than half were in their thirties or older, 40% lived with a partner, and just over a
third (34%) with other family members or friends. Significantly, as many as 25% (81
people) lived with their dependent children at home, and a further 8% had
responsibility for other children under 16 living outside their home but in the UK. As
might be expected, many of the respondents who lived in households with other
adults and/or children depended on the income of other adults in work. In the majority
of cases, the second earner was the respondent's spouse or partner. Most partners
were also employed in low-paying jobs, such as cleaners (25%), customer service
assistants at supermarkets, security guards or bus drivers.
Secondly, the data illustrates the marked changes that have taken place in patterns
of migration to the UK in recent decades (Dobson et al, 2001). In the post-war period
17
migration to Britain was dominated by people from the New Commonwealth
countries, and in particular from the Caribbean and South Asia. In contrast, the last
fifteen years has seen a much greater diversity in the origin of migrant groups, giving
rise to what has been referred to as ‘super-diversity’ amongst London’s foreign-born
population (Vertovec, 2005). Mirroring these trends, our data showed that although
as many of half of those interviewed were born in Sub-Saharan Africa (notably,
Ghana and Nigeria) very significant numbers had come from other regions (with
13.6% from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 9.5% from Eastern and Central
Europe) with as many as 56 countries of origin recorded across the sample
population as a whole.
Thirdly, this diversity was reflected in the employment histories and skill sets of the
workers encountered. Most importantly, although these workers were found doing
jobs that are generally characterised as ‘unskilled’, many had been employed in more
highly skilled work before moving to the UK. Almost half of those interviewed (49%)
had tertiary level qualifications (including either academic or vocational training) and
about 20% were studying at the time of the research. Thus, even whilst academics
and policy makes continue to draw distinctions between ‘skilled’ and ‘unskilled’
migrant labour in Britain, it is important to recognise that a significant proportion of
the latter may be made up of those who have experienced considerable de-skilling
on entry to the British labour market (Raghuram and Kofman, 2004).
Fourthly, in common with other studies, the relative concentration of foreign-born
migrants differed across sectors: ranging from 95% of those cleaning the
Underground, to 93% in hospitality, 89% in office cleaning and a low of 56% of
workers in the care sector (where, significantly, both pay and conditions of
employment were notably better) (for the hospitality industry, see Church and Frost,
2004; for care, see Wills, 2003). Likewise, perhaps because the majority of
18
respondents (63%) had found their current position through personal contacts, the
data revealed a marked tendency towards ethnic segregation at the bottom end of
the London labour market (see also Hagan, 1998). For example, Black Africans
(particularly those from Nigeria and Ghana) made up over three-quarters of the
surveyed workforce cleaning London’s Underground. They also represented the
largest single share of all workers in cleaning and other services (37%). At the same
time, whilst 25.6% of those working in office cleaning were from Latin America, fully
71.7% of people from Latin America interviewed worked in office cleaning (c.f.
Lagnado, 2004). Divisions of labour in the hotel and hospitality sector were more
diverse and seemed to reflect changing patterns of immigration. Hence, whilst fully
two-fifths of workers were Non-British Whites (many, as traditionally in this sector,
coming from Southern Europe and Portugal in particular) a growing proportion
(27.5%) of these were from Central and Eastern Europe – mainly Poland and
Lithuania.
Unexpectedly, the sample of respondents was almost equally divided between men
(53%) and women (47%). But just as we encountered distinctive groupings of people
from particular countries or regions by workplace and sector, this was overlain by
differences in the way in which occupations were gendered. Men and women were
often found to be doing quite different jobs. Women typically worked in ‘semi-private’
spaces such as in hotels (with 58.5% of hotel workers being women), and in the case
of care work, the houses of clients (81.5% of workers in this sector). In contrast, men
were more likely to work in ‘semi-public’ spaces - such as cleaning in offices (with
70% of workers being men) or on the Underground (64% of workers).
Fifthly, and least surprisingly, though pay and conditions varied across sectors -
mainly as a result of different experiences of de-regulation and sub-contraction in
different parts of London’s low-paid economy - the survey revealed the very low rates
19
of pay these workers receive. The lowest rates of pay and worst conditions of
employment were found in the hotel and hospitality sector and on the London
Underground, where processes of sub-contraction and the use of agency staff are
most developed. Amongst those cleaning London’s Underground, for example, only
2% earned more than the London Living Wage (LLW), just 19% paid in to a company
pension and only 17% received an annual pay rise2. Amongst hotel and hospitality
workers only 12% of workers earned more than the LLW, 78% had no annual pay
rise, and two-thirds no company pension. Most underground and office cleaners alike
had only the statutory minimum holiday entitlement (20 days including bank
holidays), no sick pay and no extra overtime pay. In contrast, almost half of the care
workers interviewed earned between £5.51 and £6.69 an hour and a further 40%
more than the LLW. Nearly two-fifths (38.6%) of workers had access to a company
pension scheme, and 47% reported receiving an annual pay rise. Significantly, care
work was the only sector where (some) workers had their conditions of employment
protected by TUPE having transferred to agencies from the public sector.
Importantly, such differences will inevitably erode with time as new staff are
employed on inferior terms and conditions (Wills, 2001). At one hotel in London’s
West End, for example, new housekeeping staff recruited via an agency are now
being paid by the room. Expected to clean 15 rooms in a day, at £1.70 a room, these
mainly Polish workers represented a clear threat to the already meagre pay and
conditions enjoyed by in-house staff. Indeed, a considerable number of respondents
in every sector reported that they felt threatened by the arrival of new groups of
workers from the accession countries (the A8) of Eastern Europe who were often
being recruited on inferior terms and conditions of work.
2 The Living Wage Campaign was launched by the East London Communities Organisation (now partof London Citizens) in 2001. Following pressure from London Citizens the Mayor of London hasrecently set up a Living Wage Unit at the Greater London Authority. Recognising the very high cost of
20
More generally, average rates of pay were extremely low. The vast majority (90%) of
workers interviewed were earning below the London Living Wage and one in every
five earned only the National Minimum Wage. Average earnings for the sample as a
whole were just £5.45 an hour (Table 1). The majority reported that they worked only
the one job, with no other sources of earnings. Working on average 36 hours a week,
this translated in to an average annual salary of just £10,200 a year before tax and
National Insurance deductions: less than half national average earnings (£22,411)
and less than a third of the London average annual salary (£30,984) (Guardian
Unlimited, 2005).
Table 1: Respondents’ Hourly Rates of Pay
Hourly Rate No %
< £4.853 12 3.7
£4.85 65 19.9
Between £4.86 and £5.50 137 41.9
Between £5.51 and £6.69 84 25.7
£6.704 and over 29 8.9
No response = 14 Total 327 100
Finally, the survey challenges accounts that position such workers as mainly working
on the fringes of the ‘formal’ economy and highlights the ways in which the British
benefits system disadvantages migrant workers. Rather than working ‘off the books’,
living in London, the Unit has called for the introduction of a ‘Living Wage’ of £6.70 an hour: someway above the National Minimum which was set at £5.05 an hour at the time of the research.3 Ten of those workers who earned below the National Minimum Wage worked in hospitality. Themajority of these comprised chambermaids who were paid piece-rates of around £2 per cleaned room.According to them, the pay rate was based on the management’s assumption that two rooms can becleaned in one hour, on average. The remaining two workers who earned below the NMW were foundin the ‘cleaning and other services’ category.
21
the vast majority of people interviewed (86%) had formalised written work contracts,
received pay slips from their employers (95%) and paid both tax and National
Insurance contributions (94%). Even so, just 16% of workers or their partners
claimed any kind of state benefits. Of those that did, over one quarter claimed
Working Tax Credits, which are specifically designed to top up the earnings of
working people on low earnings. Even amongst those with dependent children under
16 at home, only one third claimed Child Benefit and/or Child Tax Credits. Such low
uptake may be because people were ineligible for state benefits, or eligible but not
claiming. But it certainly casts doubt on those who would present the British benefits
system as protecting workers from the worst excesses of low-paid employment.
Re-conceptualising global city labour markets
In light of such data we would argue that conventional accounts of the London labour
market are out of date. Though recent years have certainly seen a dramatic growth in
the number of highly paid professional and managerial workers in London, the same
period has also seen a rise in the number of poorly paid, low-skilled workers (Goos
and Manning, 2005). The divide in London’s labour market is therefore no longer
simply one between those in work and those excluded from the labour market, as
scholars like Hamnett have argued. There is also a growing divide between those in
the best paying jobs and the tens of thousands of low-paid workers toiling to keep
London working. Though such workers seem largely invisible to the wider public and
academic commentators alike, their plight deserves far more attention. Not least, a
very significant proportion – if not the vast majority - of these workers are foreign-
born migrants, working long and unsociable hours for extremely low rates of pay and
without the protection afforded native workers by Britain’s benefits system.
22
Such a picture raises a number of critical questions about how best to make sense of
the place of migrant workers in the ‘global city’, about the processes driving change
in global city labour markets, and about the most appropriate ethical and political
responses to such changes. Four issues are of particular importance. First, existing
accounts of the ‘global city’ and of the position of low-paid migrant workers in the
global city labour market are too restricted. Within the global cities literature the
demand for migrant workers tends to be attributed to either a growing demand for
low-wage workers to service the high-income lifestyles of an expanding cohort of
professional and managerial workers (Sassen, 1991) or to an expansion of informal
economic activities and of the ‘grey economy’ (Cox and Watt, 2002; Samers, 2002).
Both may be important. But in London at least the demand for such workers goes
much deeper.
Most obviously, though we found some evidence of illegal practices by both
employers and employees (the withholding of wages from those lacking permission
to work, for example, or the purchase of National Insurance numbers in order to
secure a job) the vast majority of workers interviewed held formal contracts of
employment with bona-fide companies and paid both tax and National Insurance
(see also McIlwaine, 2005). Nor is there much evidence that they supplemented
their wages with work in the ‘grey economy’. Rather, for most, the job about which
they were interviewed was their only source of employment.
Further, whilst many had been specifically attracted to London rather than to cities
elsewhere, they came to London for a variety of reasons. Certainly, though many
came in search of work, they did not come to take up positions in personal services
or to work in the City’s booming financial and producer services industries. And once
in London they took up a range of positions: cleaning London’s officers, but also
caring for London’s elderly, cleaning its universities, and keeping its transport system
23
working. Rather than restrict our accounts of migrant workers to their role in servicing
those functions usually attributed to a city’s ‘global city’ status then, we need to
recognise the role such workers play in keeping the city as a whole ‘working’. In
doing so, definitions of the global city are broadened. Instead of hinging upon the
presence of business and producer services, a city’s ‘global’ status might be
analysed through very different kinds of flows and connections (Robinson, 2002).
Amongst the workers interviewed here, a third had dependants living overseas, and
two-thirds regularly sent financial remittances to people in other countries. These
trans-national connections provide a quite different lens through which to view a city’s
‘global’ status and suggest that a growing number of citys in the UK are ‘global cities’
in some sense at least (King, 1990). Indeed, although the divisions explored here are
especially marked in London, the number of low-paid migrant workers is increasing in
other British cities too (see, for example, Stenning et al, 2006 on similar such
divisions in Newcastle and the north-east of England).
Second, conventional analyses of the global city work with a very limited notion of the
processes shaping change in global city labour markets and with only a poor
understanding of the scale at which such processes unfold (White, 1998). In
Sassen’s original thesis, for example, the political factors shaping recent changes in
global city labour markets, and the role of the state in particular in shaping such
change, are almost entirely dismissed. Instead, these changes are understood as the
result of ‘global’ ‘economic’ processes impacting upon and shaping local conditions in
an era when the nation state can do little to effect, or resist, such processes. Whilst
Hamnett moves to re-insert the role of the nation-state, his account of the state is
restricted to an assessment of its ability to ‘mediate’ the effects of such processes.
In fact, the recent restructuring of the world economy is itself the result of complex
political processes unfolding at a range of scales: most notably perhaps the liberal
24
economic experiments championed by the Thatcher-Reagan governments of the
1980s, and the extension of neo-liberal policy pronouncements from the World Bank
and the IMF in the 1990s. These developments helped to create and proselytise a
model of the ‘economy’ within which low-paid employment has flourished in the
advanced western economies. Thus, enforced fiscal austerity, labour market de-
regulation, a rolling back of state welfare and significant state investment in the
financial and business services sector have all helped hasten processes of de-
industrialisation, foster growth in financial and business services, laid the groundwork
for the consumer boom that has underpinned a more general shift to service
employment and helped create a more ‘flexible’ labour market in north America,
Western Europe and Australasia. In the Global South and Central and Eastern
Europe, the imposition of structural adjustment programmes have fostered the
development of a ‘free market’ economy and hastened a decline in public sector
expenditure. Both have had profound impacts on London; the first fuelling an
expansion in jobs at the top and bottom of the London labour market, the second
contributing to the increased flow of migrant workers to fill vacancies at the bottom
end.
Rather than separate out the ‘economic’ from the ‘political’, then, we need to
recognise that the ‘economy’ is itself a political construction (Mitchell, 2002).
Likewise, instead of holding apart the ‘global’ and the ‘local’, we need to embrace a
relational view of scale: examining the variety of scales at which processes shaping
global city labour markets unfold, and the manner in which processes operating at
one scale help constitute processes operating at another (Brenner, 1998; McCann,
2004). In the case of London, it is clear that many of the ideas shaping the
development of the new ‘global’ economy emerged in London itself - from
government and quasi-governmental organisations, think tanks and analysts in the
1980s and 1990s (Massey, 2004a).
25
Within London too the state has done far more than simply mediate the effects of
‘global’ economic restructuring, playing a vital and active role in shaping recent
developments in the London labour market: ranging from the provision of generous
grants to help develop London’s Docklands (designed to facilitate an expansion of
London’s business and financial industries) (Smith, 1989) to more direct attempts to
shape the city’s labour market through both supply and demand side management.
On the demand side, labour market de-regulation has provided the conditions in
which the demand for low-paid employment has grown. On the supply side, a
restructuring of state welfare has provided an impetus for workers to move off
benefits and in to (low-paid) employment, whilst changes to state immigration policies
have facilitated an increased flow of foreign-born migrants in to those jobs that still
remain unattractive to native workers. Rather than simply dismiss the nation-state, or
restrict a consideration of its role to attempts to mediate ‘global’ economic change,
then, we want to advocate a genuine political-economy of the global city, one in
which the state is once again placed centre-stage (see also Samers, 2003; Favell
and Hansen, 2002).
Third, if such an approach is to be taken forward it may be time to dust-off some
familiar but increasingly neglected concepts. Most obviously, given the recent
direction of British immigration policy - in which migrant workers are treated less as
potential citizens than units of labour, the supply of which can (in theory at least) be
turned on and off as the needs of the British economy dictate - it is difficult to escape
the conclusion that what we are witnessing is the most explicit attempt yet by the
British state to create a new ‘reserve army of labour’ (Flynn, 2005b). Activists are in
little doubt about such a move. As Don Flynn has argued: “The common denominator
across the range of different procedures [introduced under managed migration] is
that employers … call the shots in determining the shape of a labour market that
26
[makes] more effective use of migrant workers … [this includes] deciding the rights
available to … workers … [for] family reunification, long-term settlement, access to
welfare and other state benefits, etc …Under the terms of managed migration, the
migrant’s duty is to be useful, first and foremost, to established business, and only
after that to him/herself” (Flynn, 2005a: pp477 and 481).
If we are to deploy such a concept, however, it is important to avoid the limitations of
earlier work in this vein. This tended both to overemphasise the ability of the state to
manage such a reserve, and reduce the role of the state to always and only acting in
the (short term) interests of capital (see, for example, Castells, 1975; Castles and
Kosack, 1973; Castles, 1984). In contrast, given the continued rise in the number of
people entering the European Union illegally, Favell and Hansen (2002) point to the
obvious difficulties that states face in restricting the movement of foreign workers in
to and across the EU. In a similar vein Duvell and Jordan (2003) outline a series of
systemic weaknesses in the British immigration service that make it unlikely that
immigration officials will ever be able to detect or expel a significant proportion of
those living or working in the UK illegally.
Although it is difficult to deny that the recent shift to managed migration reflects New
Labour’s pro-business agenda, it is also clear other actors too have been important in
shaping British immigration policy in recent years. Not least, sustained public
pressure to clamp down on the number of people entering Britain illegally has led
New Labour to adopt a much tougher stance on asylum and applications for
residency, even as they have sought to open up Britain’s boarders to ‘legitimate’
economic migrants. Managed migration may therefore best be understood as an
attempt by the British state to respond to apparently contradictory pressures:
enabling it to appear both tough on immigration, and as acting in the interests of
British business - at a time when, to the British public at least, the two might seem to
27
be in conflict. Far from a simple reflection of the needs of capital, then, managed
migration articulates a new attempt by the state to safeguard its own legitimacy by
better attempting to manage an increasingly unmanageable political problem.
Fourth, analysts must finally begin to confront the true costs associated with the
emergence of such a reserve. Whereas in the past employers may have had to
improve wages in order to attract workers in periods of labour shortage, a steady flow
of new migrant workers now enables employers to fill vacancies without improving
the pay and conditions of work. The most obvious effect of such developments, as
the Governor of the Bank of England has recently argued, is to relieve ‘bottle necks’
in an otherwise tight labour market and hold down wage inflation (King, 2004). At the
same time, high levels of labour turnover and the downward pressure on wages
make it difficult for workers to organise collectively to improve their conditions of
employment. Although the effect of such processes is most heavily born by migrant
workers themselves (as the ready supply of new workers threatens to further
undercut already poor pay and conditions) they also damage the interests of native
workers, and foster divisions between the settled population and more recent
arrivals. Significantly, such divisions can no longer be read along simple racial lines.
Amongst those suffering most from increased competition and depressed wages at
the bottom end of the labour market, are those members of Britain’s ethnic minority
communities who came (or whose parents came) to Britain in an earlier round of
labour migration: amongst whom levels of unemployment remain disproportionately
high and household income disproportionately low (Berthoud, 2000).
Nor should our calculation of the costs of such developments be restricted to an
analysis of labour market dynamics. Whether deployed by Marxist scholars
dissecting the situation on behalf of the left, or by employers and the state, the notion
of a reserve army of labour carries with it a strangely disembodied view of the
28
worker. Yet even those living and working in London temporarily need
accommodation and health care. As our data shows, many have children at school
and, however shallow such roots, all are part of a local community. Any calculation of
the costs incurred in keeping London working must therefore extend far beyond a
discussion of wages or conditions of employment to consider the effects of such work
on people’s lives more broadly, and on the lives of their children and dependants –
both in London and elsewhere. They must, in short, take seriously issues of social
reproduction (Mitchell, Marston and Katz, 2004). Low pay is associated with poor
quality housing, reduced educational performance, ill health and an increased risk of
exposure to crime (Ambrose, 2003; Wilkinson, 2005). Although primarily borne by
low paid workers and their families themselves, such costs are to some extent borne
by all: in the wider impacts of a more unequal society.
Conclusions
Finding ways of resolving some of the problems associated with London’s new
‘migrant division of labour’ will by no means be easy. Any solutions will necessitate
that policy makers, activists and citizens alike engage with a series of difficult ethical
issues. For example, unless we are to simply turn our backs on those whose labour
enables not only London’s professional and managerial classes but ordinary
Londoners to sustain themselves, the answer can not be as some on the Left are
now advocating simply to pull up the drawbridge: cutting off the supply of migrant
labour in the hope that it will force employers to raise wages and improve the
conditions of work for native workers (for exactly such an argument, see Toynbee,
2005). Not least, any attempts to seal Britain’s borders are liable to fuel further illegal
immigration – undermining the pay and conditions of both migrant and native workers
alike, and significantly reducing the flow of remittances that are now a vital part of the
household incomes of millions of people in other parts of the world (King et al, 2003).
29
In contrast to such a move, Massey (2004a) has recently urged that we think instead
about the distant places and people who make London what it is, the influence that
London exerts on those places, and the ethical responsibilities that all Londoners
have for those people. As she would recognise, London’s labour market is now more
obviously than ever shaped by the opportunities that do or do not exist for making a
living and a life in Lesotho or Lithuania. And the actions of Londoners - whether
buying groceries, employing ‘domestic help’ or working as a labour activist – shapes
those opportunities. In trying to chart a course of action in such a world Massey
(2004a and b) therefore advocates what she refers to as a relational politics of place
and connectivity, within which Londoners must recognise the effects of their actions
on, and responsibility towards, those elsewhere.
Though such a call is hardly new, it is certainly attractive: speaking to a longstanding
concern amongst geographers to think through an ethics of care for socially
proximate but spatially distant others (see for example Smith, 1994, 1998; and more
recently, Corbridge, 2005). But it is less useful in helping think through the rather
more difficult question of how to address the needs of those previously distant others
who are already ‘here’, without undermining the equally pressing needs of other
Londoners: many of whom were once migrants. Put simply, how can we champion
the cause of Britain’s new migrant workers, and of their dependants elsewhere,
without undermining the interests of British workers? Precisely because such a
question is also not new it is perhaps now time to look for some rather different
answers.
Certainly, and as Hamnett (1996) has suggested, any attempt to tackle poverty and
disadvantage in London must begin with a defence of welfare. One danger of rising
levels of immigration is that the state will seek to reduce its reliance on foreign-born
workers by further reducing benefits: in an attempt to move more people off benefits
30
and in to work. Past experience has shown that such measures are unlikely to be an
effective way of filling the high level of vacancies at the bottom end of the London
labour market. But such reductions would certainly be disastrous for those depending
on benefits for their basic income.
Defending the existing benefits system is therefore crucial. But it is not enough: not
least because many of London’s poor are in work, and many of the city’s poorest
workers are ineligible for work-related benefits. Instead of simply protecting the
existing system we would therefore advocate a radical extension of British benefits. It
is morally indefensible that two workers doing the same job in the same place and
both contributing to the national tax base should have markedly different incomes
because of where one was born (Smith, 2000). One way to immediately raise the
income of London’s migrant workers is therefore to give them access to the same tax
credits and other work-related benefits as their British counterparts. Such a move
would do little to advantage British workers, and may make low skilled work no more
attractive to such workers than currently. But it is difficult to see how it would directly
disadvantage them, since the additional monies would come from the benefits
system rather than directly from employers in the form of increased wages. Such a
move may or may not be tied to an extension of rights to residency. But we would
suggest that is equally difficult to find any moral justification for withholding the right
to British residency from low-skilled migrant workers – as the advocates of both
temporary and managed migration propose - when it has already been extended to
the highly skilled (c.f. RSA, 2005; Ruhs, 2005).
The most obvious way to encourage the unemployed to re-engage with the labour
market and to benefit both British and foreign-born workers alike, however, is to
make common cause between British and migrant workers and lobby to raise wages
and improve conditions at the bottom end of the London labour market. Such a
31
strategy is by no means easy and certainly cannot rely on traditional approaches. As
others have shown, high labour turnover, language and cultural differences, and
pressure on workers all make it difficult to organise migrant workers in the traditional
way (Wills, 2005). In accordance with such arguments, and even though working
through trade union contacts, our research revealed very low levels of union
membership amongst London’s migrant workers. Indeed, less than one quarter of
respondents were members of a trade union (22%). Instead, the survey showed two-
fifths of those interviewed to be active in faith-based organisations. Such involvement
reflects wider trends that have seen faith communities become increasingly important
in providing the social and emotional support needed by poor communities in many
parts of the world (Davis, 2004).
We would argue that it is to these kinds of connections that we need to look: finding
ways of building upon new and emergent forms of broad-based organising that seek
to build alliances between those in work and those outside of the labour market,
between migrant workers and their native counterparts, between labour and faith
organisations, and between the politics of employment and a wider politics of social
reproduction. It is exactly such a programme that is being carried forward by London
Citizens: a broad based alliance of trade unions, faith groups, schools and
community organisations working to secure social justice for Londoners. For
example, their Living Wage campaign has sought to organise low-paid workers in
contract cleaning, demanding that major public and private organisations take
responsibility for the wages and conditions of those employed by contractors, and
that such contractors pay a ‘Living Wage’ (see Wills, 2004; Holgate and Wills, 2006).
Rather than highlight divisions between different workers, the campaign stresses the
common interests of British and migrant workers. Related campaigns to improve
community facilities such as housing, youth services and the wider built environment
in London also highlight the common concerns of different residents. Another
32
campaign to improve the service provided by the Immigration and Nationality
Directorate (IND) highlights the particular needs of London’s migrant groups, whilst
alliances with faith based organisations involved in fair trade campaigns stresses the
organisation’s commitment to those both in London and to the communities from
which many Londoners have come (Back et al, 2005).
In forging these alliances it is also important not to overlook potential allies. Though
here we have stressed the role that the British State has played in the creation of
London’s new reserve army, we need be careful not to present too singular a picture
of the state. As the GLA’s support for the Living Wage Campaign has shown other
arms of the state are not averse to championing the cause of migrant workers. It this
broad-based alliance of civil society groups and the local state that demonstrates one
way in which Massey’s relational politics of place might be developed and leave its
mark on the city. It also illustrates why our theories of the city matter. Whilst
conventional accounts suggest that there is little cause for concern about polarisation
in London, it is clear that there are in fact major political challenges involved in
responding to the situation facing workers in low paid employment in the capital –
many, if not the majority of whom, are new migrants to the UK.
Acknowledgements
The research on which this paper draws was funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council (Award RES00230694: Global Cities at Work), the Greater London
Authority, Oxfam, Queen Mary, University of London and UNISON. It was conducted
in collaboration with London Citizens. We are especially grateful to Maarten Goos
and Alan Manning for the generous provision of new data on employment change in
London and for Figure 1, the London Citizens Summer Academy team who
conducted the survey with us, and to the many workers who were willing to take part
in the survey and tell us their stories.
33
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