Offshoring, labour migration and neo-liberalisation: nationalist responses and alternatives in Eastern Europe

Abstract

Trends in Eastern Europe, with particular emphasis on Poland, are used in this article to analyse offshoring as a form of social dumping. Neoliberalisation and globalisation generate and utilise the mobility of both capital and labour. Meanwhile, labour migration is presenting a challenge to the observance of labour rights. Present-day methods of capital accumulation rely on the search for cheap labour and the relocation of production to territories that do not protect workers’ rights. Effective defence of labour rights must take place at the transnational level, where most capital is generated. Trade unions need to cross national borders in order to move social activity into this area. The defence of workers’ rights must go hand in hand with the struggle against nationalism and racist prejudices. In this context, migrant workers become one of the main potential driving forces of the modern global proletariat.

Nearly 170 years ago, Marx’s social and political imagination allowed him to describe in the Communist Manifesto what is now universally known as globalisation:

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country … (Marx and Engels, 1998: 39)

It is necessary to add to this description that, as well as commodities, products and capital, the workforce is also moving around the world today. On the one hand, capital seeks new virgin spaces for colonisation, which are increasingly limited. On the other hand, residents and employees of periphery and semi-periphery areas move to other countries in search of better living and working conditions. Although some researchers perceive these trends as immanent features of the capitalist system (Dale, 1999), such phenomena have intensified over the past three decades. Their nature has changed due to the scale of labour migration and technical solutions allowing for the easy movement of capital, which can be transferred almost immediately from one continent to another. Although financial institutions officially promote it as a panacea for development, the increased temporary labour migration characteristic of neo-liberal globalisation instrumentalises and significantly strengthens the commodification of labour and limits workers’ rights (Rosewarne, 2010).

From the perspective of the ‘core’ countries doing the ‘offshoring’, Urry (2014) brings together an analysis of the relocation of manufacturing work to ‘free zones’ with weak unions and labour standards enforcement, the undermining of the welfare state through the shifting of investment income, the transfer of energy sources and waste management to countries with low environmental standards enforcement and the growth of a shadowy world of human rights abuses in leisure, security and seafaring operations. From the perspective of the ‘peripheral’ countries, offshoring is constituted as a state-supported grey zone, in which few official regulations apply, providing an oasis in which labour, social, environmental standards and strict fiscal policies are not observed. In this way, mobile investors and their capital become sovereign political entities (Gill, 1998). Offshoring is among the main present-day tools for capital accumulation and the means for strengthening the position of a new transnational elite. The greater the differences between the core and the periphery in the capitalist world are, the higher the scale of economic migration and the importance of offshoring is. Urry (2004) comments,

They [offshoring worlds] are dynamic, reorganizing economic, social, political and material relations between and within societies, as populations and states find that resources, practices, people and monies can be made or kept secret and that vast advantages thereby accrue. Interests develop seeking to strengthen the institutional machinery that makes possible offshored worlds. (p. 10)

Focusing on Eastern Europe, and particularly Poland, this article outlines patterns of labour mobility that have accompanied the offshoring of production in Eastern Europe since the 1990s, discussing their causes and analysing approaches to addressing their adverse impacts. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and the entire Eastern Bloc in 1989 provided Western European capital with access to huge new resources of cheap labour. Although in the early 1990s a number of workers and societies in Eastern Europe believed that they would ‘return to Europe’ and receive European salaries, the systemic transformation that ensued resulted in the inflow of capital, the weakening of the working class and the imposition of capitalist rules of the game (Bohle and Greskovits, 2006). Peck et al. (2010: 101–102) comment that the post-1989 collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe occurred at a time when Japanese and German models of capitalism were in decline and ‘a small army of policy advisers, macroeconomic engineers, management consultants, and shock therapists’ moved in, working in conjunction with new national entrepreneurs and elite cadres, to instal an ‘aggressively expansive’ project of neo-liberalisation (cf. Toporowski, 2005).

Eastern European countries have been caught up in the establishment of a system of labour mobility, often called ‘social dumping’ (EurWORK, 2016). An exodus to the West in the quest to remit earnings from better-paying albeit low-quality work, often in the unregulated shadow economy, has been accompanied by the posting-in of workers from other Eastern European countries, who are forced to accept still lower labour standards. Bernaciak (2014: 5) defines social dumping as ‘the practice, undertaken by self-interested market participants, of undermining or evading existing social regulations with the aim of gaining a competitive advantage’. The apparent deregulation of labour standards, however, requires enforcement through strong ‘top-down’ state policy initiatives. Similarly, marketisation requires the active creation of a climate of competitive individualism, and globalisation builds and is built on populist ideologies of nationalism and xenophobia. In post-communist states with weak civil societies and unions, the tendency for workers to be pitted against each other is very strong, and divisions based on ethnicity have been exacerbated by the creation of new informal mass migration networks in Europe since the 2010 Arab Spring.

Theorising the relationship between the core and the ‘rest’ of a neo-liberalising world system

Our starting point is Urry’s conceptualisation of offshoring, as a rapidly expanding and shadowy system in which business tycoons try to outwit and exploit political geography, seeking greater profits by maximally reducing personnel costs in new production sites. This is usually easier in countries where social resistance is not strong, civic culture is weak and democracy is fragile, with governments reduced to the role of ‘police districts’, required to provide political calm and favourable conditions for investments (Bauman, 1998). In an apparent paradox, strong regulation enforces the deregulation of labour market and welfare standards, and xenophobia, by dividing workers, facilitates a globalised race to the bottom.

David Harvey (2005) seeks to identify the temporal basis of this spatial shift:

The contradictions of capital accumulation build into a crisis of overaccumulation of both capital and labour threatening massive devaluations of capital and devastating levels of unemployment. Faced with such difficulties capital seeks a ‘spatial fix’. (p. 82)

Both surplus capital and labour can be exported, but this requires an appropriate territory. New territories may open themselves up to the inflow of capital and the relocation of production sites (as in Eastern Europe) or be prised open by force. Labour and capital flows can help sustain aggregate rates of accumulation in a relatively crisis-free mode, only if capital and labour surpluses in one place are matched by capital and labour shortages elsewhere, and institutional barriers to movement are systematically reduced (Harvey, 2005: 83).

Harvey’s analysis is of an inter-related system, whose stability depends on maintaining boundaries between the core and the periphery. However, it is difficult to sustain this division in a world where it is not just capital but also labour that moves. Mobile capital, by over-exploiting workers in new territories, erodes ‘new resources’ (both human and natural). Natural resources face depletion and become more expensive, and workers demand better salaries or go to places where pay is higher. As a result, achievable profits decrease again. Similarly, Wallerstein’s (2004) world systems theory describes the temporal instability of global shifts:

In general, in any production area the syndical power of workers will tend to increase over time, by dint of organisation and education. Repressive measures may be used to limit the of such organisation, but then there are costs attached to this too – perhaps higher taxes, perhaps higher remuneration to cadres, perhaps the need to employ and pay for repressive personnel. … sooner or later these same production units come to face increased competition and therefore may need to restrain price increases, resulting in lower rates of profit. (p. 79)

Investors respond by seeking lower production costs at a new location, a move that places additional pressure on workers in the area from which production is partly relocated. But relocation of labour also involves transaction costs for employers: increased distance from eventual customers, poorer infrastructure and higher costs of ‘corruption’ – that is, unavowed remuneration to non-employees (Wallerstein, 2004: 80). The trade-off between remuneration costs and transaction costs plays itself out in a cyclical manner. In time, workers in the new location begin to engage in various syndicalist activities. Sooner or later, employers discover that the costs have again become too high. Another relocation is the solution (Wallerstein, 2013). Wallerstein calculates that each cycle of relocation and resistance takes about 30 years.

The term ‘offshoring’ suggests a dichotomy between ‘core’ and ‘periphery’, analysed from the perspective of the ‘onshore’ core. A more nuanced concept is that of a ‘variegated capitalism’ (Brenner et al., 2010; Peck and Theodore, 2007) that is the outcome of an intertwined project of neo-liberalisation and globalisation. Brenner et al. (2010: 184) describe the spread and deepening of neo-liberalisation through ‘geographies, modalities and cumulative pathways’ whereby sporadic rounds of regulatory experiments have built on their own failures to shape an ‘ever more deeply interconnected, mutually recursive, increasingly transnational field of market-oriented regulatory transfer’. Peck et al. (2010) argue that whether neo-liberalising agendas involve government support for export-oriented, financialised capital, for marketisation and privatisation, or for political opposition to bureaucratic regulation, wealth redistribution and unionism, they adopt local, context-specific forms, rather than being part of the imposition of a monolithic global structure.

From the perspective of workers within globalising production systems, this polysemy opens up the possibility of a space for action and contest:

Nevertheless, the image of Third World workers being on a hopeless treadmill without international protection elides the contradictions for capital that consistently recurred with each spatial fix. For with the geographical diffusion of the industry, strong workplace bargaining power also diffused. (Silver, 2008: 168–169)

Certainly, the potential for a solidaristic increase in working-class bargaining power has not emerged in actuality as a response to globalisation. The most active members of a newly liberalising country may instead take the individualist path of emigrating to wealthier countries. Such labour outflows have been tolerated and encouraged, as remittances from emigrants have come to play a significant role in their home countries’ economy and been factored into government policy:

These monies represent a substantial proportion of many developing and transition countries’ foreign exchange earnings, and in quite a number of instances the largest single source of export income. (Rosewarne, 2010: 101)

In the host countries, migrant workers’ temporary employment contracts often proscribe the exercise of industrial and civil rights, and undocumented migrant workers, whose continuing residence and employment status is ‘illegal’, are dependent on the whim of employers and the state in policing migration laws (Rosewarne, 2010: 105). Business owners gain a cheap labour force, which at the same time is deprived of expensive social protection and has no political demands for better and fairer working conditions. Although workers are mobile and contribute to transnational money flows, issues of labour rights and negotiations remain within national borders. Thus, a new commoditised global workforce arises as countries become incorporated more fully into the international circuit of capital.

In the face of this challenge, trade unions must quickly shed their national character in order to preserve their significance. When recourse to migrant workers is used opportunistically to reduce wages and other entitlements in host countries, unions must respond to the challenge of recruiting migrant workers. This is not an easy task, especially in the case of illegal or short-term employees. An additional problem is the lack of traditions of unionism in the home countries of migrants. In the case of Eastern European migrants,

[l]inkages between questions of labour migration and labour standards in the new Europe have been given sharp focus as workers from Eastern European NMSs, facing problems in labour conditions in their home countries, embark upon a large-scale ‘exit strategy’. (Woolfson, 2007: 200)

The enforcement of labour law at the international level in the EU remains ineffective. National institutions, weak trade unions and civil society in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc do not help to solve this problem (Woolfson, 2007: 213). Therefore, many Eastern Europeans believe that, despite the lack of legal protection, working conditions are much better in the West than in their home countries.

Context: Economic and political context for the emergence of labour migration in Poland

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lifting of systemic obstacles, Western business owners could move their production plants a few hundred kilometres to the east. The creation of so-called Special Economic Zones (SEZs), to which Western capital was transferred, has weakened the earlier position of industrial workers in Poland.

In these government-created SEZ areas, businesses are partially or wholly exempt from income and real estate taxes and are supported by ready-made technical infrastructure, funding (grants), local institutions, including unemployment bureaus, and a cheap and easily accessible workforce. The SEZs are managed by government agencies composed of the national treasury and local municipalities which provide land, oversee low wages and administer government subsidies of other operational costs. An unquestionable incentive for these nascent private sector enclaves was a growing labour surplus resulting from mass job cuts in state enterprises, which were privatised or closed down in the early 1990s (cf. Koalicja 1 Maja, 2013: 1–2).

Although they have been in operation since the mid-1990s, SEZs have grown in importance only in recent years. In 2006, there were 14 SEZs (and many sub-zones) in Poland providing 145,000 jobs. In 2012, SEZs employed 250,000 people. While this is still a small percentage of the Polish workforce, it is large enough to adversely affect work and pay conditions for those working outside the SEZ. SEZs are also a manifestation of labour precarisation – 20% of workers employed in factories established in SEZs are recruited by temporary employment agencies (Urbański, 2015: 209–210). The headcount number of workers in unstable employment relationships outstrips the number of such jobs, when account is taken of the high turnover of employees and the fact that producers located in SEZs outsource a number of services to subcontractors from outside the SEZs.

According to calculations by the Kalecki Foundation, tax exemptions for companies operating in the SEZ sector in Poland in 2012 amounted to 16% of the total amount of the corporate income tax levied. The existence of any SEZ is guaranteed until at least 2026, which means that international investors can continue to benefit from tax relief and other public aid (Fundacja Kaleckiego, 2017). This mechanism is well illustrated by the new investment of Mercedes in Jawor. The construction of the company’s new engine plant commenced in June 2017. The company received EUR 18.75 million in subsidies from the Polish government and premises from the State Agricultural Property Agency. The plant will be built in the Wałbrzych SEZ, meaning that it will receive very attractive tax relief from the central government for years to come. The plant will employ about 500 people, around 80% of whom are expected to work on low-paid, repetitive conveyor belt–type tasks. The cost to Polish taxpayers of creating a single job in the new Mercedes plant will be PLN 160,000 (about 38,000 euros) (this is the same as a medium-sized salary being paid to every employee of the new Mercedes plant by the Polish government over 3 years) (Grela, 2017).

Methodology

The analysis that follows cross-references data drawn from primary and secondary sources. Chief among that latter is a study of migration by Eurofound, the Dublin-based European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Condition, a tripartite EU Agency, established in 1975 to provide data backing social and work-related policy formation. The primary data are drawn from research undertaken through the Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS) (the Centre for Public Opinion Research). CBOS surveys (CBOS, 2016a, 2016b) were carried out on 8–9 October with a representative sample of 937 Polish adults randomly selected by the computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) method. CBOS (2017) results come from a survey conducted between 30 March and 6 April 2017 on a representative sample of 1075 residents of Poland. Statements collected during the preliminary qualitative research carried out by the authors are also used (see Żuk, 2017b, for a fuller description of methodology).

Labour flows out of and into Poland – a composite picture

The collapse of the Eastern Bloc intensified labour migration from Eastern to Western Europe Mass migration from this region is less often attributed to austerity policy and financial crisis than to the integration of the Eastern and Western economies, the neo-liberal transformation in Eastern Europe and the integration of capitalism (Stan and Erne, 2016). Enlargement of the EU in 2004 through the accession of new Eastern European member states opened up new possibilities for intra-EU labour migration. The scale of migration has been so great since then that it has stifled the stability of Eastern European countries, as they face the bigger challenge of ongoing population loss through migration outflows. The most dramatic cases are those of Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania, where the total population fell by 7.1%, 13% and 13.6%, respectively, between 2002 and 2012 (Eurofound, 2014: 22). When writing about the negative consequences of the ‘exit strategy’ for Latvian society, Charles Woolfson (2007) states,

The negative consequences of this labour exodus for the social fabric of Latvian society have been eloquently recorded in investigative articles and at least one novel on the impact of rural depopulation and the rupturing of family ties, dramatized in ‘mushroom orphans’ brought up by grand-parents of departed migrants. (p. 213)

In the Eastern European region, only the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia have recorded a positive migration balance in recent years (Eurofound, 2014: 24). It must be noted that the official data do not fully reflect the facts. The report just cited states that in 2012 Poland saw an increase of officially registered permanent emigrants to over 21,000. The actual extent of emigration from Poland is likely to be much higher. The number of Polish citizens living abroad was estimated to be around 2.06 million in 2011 (5.2% of the total population) (Eurofound, 2014: 24).

Estimates that about 2–3 million workers left Poland over the past decade are supported by CBOS data indicating that on average, every 10th household has at least one family member working abroad (between 7% and 13% of respondents depending on the year) (Figure 1; CBOS, 2016b). With a population of 38 million (including about 30 million adults) in Poland, this amounts to approximately 3 million migrant workers.

Figure 1. Percentage of people who have left Poland to work abroad.

Source: CBOS (2016b). Response to question, ‘Does anyone from your household work abroad?’

After Poland’s accession to the EU, Polish migrant workers went primarily to Germany, Great Britain and the Netherlands (Table 1; CBOS, 2016b). Most respondents in the CBOS study claimed that they were interested in going abroad for work because salaries are low in Poland – this reason was mentioned by as many as 62% of potential migrant workers (Figure 2; CBOS, 2016b). This reasoning appears prevalent despite evidence of poor wages and conditions facing migrant labour from Eastern Europe in the United Kingdom (UK), for example. Analysis of labour market and workplace experiences of mobile CEEs (central eastern Europeans) points to fundamental limitations of post-national citizenship in capitalist societies. Furthermore, some patterns, notably migrants’ workplace isolation, mirror the elements of transnational labour mobility that Piore identified in guest worker migration (Ciupijus, 2011).

Table 1. The countries most often chosen by Polish migrant workers.

Source: CBOS (2016b).

Percentages do not add up to 100 because respondents were allowed to choose more than one country.

Figure 2. Reasons for leaving Poland to work abroad.

Source: CBOS (2016b). Response to question, ‘Why are you going to look for a job abroad?’

Although migration is driven primarily by economic factors, people also migrate for cultural and social reasons, such as to escape the greyness of life, cultural provincialism, local nationalism or moral censorship (cf. Żuk, 2007). Comparing Polish and European institutions in the ‘old’ EU countries, survey respondents believed that healthcare, schools and the systems of justice work better in the ‘old’ EU than in Poland, and the lifestyle showed a higher regard for the behaviour of Western European citizens (e.g. greater civic activity, willingness to engage in protests and demonstrations, shorter working time and more holiday opportunities) (Żuk, 2016).

Despite low salaries received in Western European countries, remittances to CEEs’ families radically increased after 2004. For example, according to estimates by the National Bank of Poland, funds sent by migrant workers to Poland amounted to about PLN 10 billion in 2004 and went up to PLN 20 billion in 2007 (Grabowska-Lusińska and Okólski, 2009: 199). Although the money sent by migrants did not contribute significantly to Poland’s gross domestic product (GDP) overall, about 1.5% (in 2010, when Poland’s GDP was about PLN 1415 trillion) (Forbes, 2011), remittances from abroad played an important role in the lives of migrants, their families and local communities. Research conducted in four rural areas and towns in Poland showed families predominantly spending remittances on ‘housekeeping’ (46%), ‘home or apartment renovation’ (22%) and ‘other durable goods’ (19.9%) (respondents could indicate more than one category) (Wieruszewska, 2007).

In the first period after the systemic transformation in Poland (the 1990s), the migration of Poles was circular (migrant workers repeatedly moved between their home and host countries) according to the slogan ‘I make money there; I live here’ (Grabowska-Lusińska, 2012: 46). After the accession of Poland to the EU, the diversity of labour migrants increased, with more interested in permanent relocation in a host country. There were also transnational migrants and global nomads, who constituted a mobile labour force capable of moving from one country to another (Grabowska-Lusińska, 2012: 49–50).

As youth is also the main factor in opportunities for employment abroad, it increases the chances for temporary or – possibly – permanent migration. The CBOS survey indicated that young people were primarily affected by a conflict between individual salary aspirations and structural constraints in Poland. The willingness to work abroad differed slightly depending on gender, place of residence and even the level of education. As many as 43% of young Poles in the age category of 18–24 years were interested in labour migration to varying degrees (either already actively searching for jobs abroad or considering the possibility). This attitude was represented by 22% of the respondents in the age category of 25–35 years (Table 2; CBOS (2016b).

Table 2. Interest in working abroad.

Source: CBOS (2016b).

The reply ‘Undecided’ has been excluded.

Similar trends are observed in other Eastern European countries, where labour migration is also most popular among young people. Over half of the population of EU12 countries (the countries that accessed the EU between 2004 and 2007: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) are under 35 years old and nearly 60% of them are more or less skilled workers (Table 3; Eurofound, 2014). This represents a powerful flow of the working class from the east to the west of Europe. It is worth pointing out, however, that elderly people are also more and more often forced to migrate for work. Their pensions are so low that they do not provide them with social security (Żuk and Żuk, 2017).

Table 3. Sociodemographic characteristics of native-born and migrant workers by country group (%).

Source: European Union (2011).

A migrant worker is defined by country of birth; data for Germany are excluded as no distinction of country of origin is available for non-native-born workers.

While an estimated 3 million Poles have gone to Western European countries in search of better earnings over the past decade, there has been an inflow into Poland of legal and illegal migrant labour from elsewhere in Eastern Europe. The simplification of procedures for employing migrant labour since 2015 has resulted in employers¹ declaring the following numbers: Ukraine – 762,700 (97.5% of all declarations), Moldova – 9575, Belarus – 5599, Georgia – 1366, Russia – 1939 and Armenia – 1043 (Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy Department of Labour Market, 2016). About 1 million Ukrainians have arrived in Poland since the outbreak of armed conflict in 2014. Many have filled jobs vacated by Polish employees in small and medium private companies most likely to operate outside union protection, allowing breaches of workers’ rights (Żuk, 2017b). While official statistics indicate similar average earnings of Ukrainian migrants and Polish workers, they also indicate that Ukrainian migrants worked 54 hours a week to achieve this pay, compared with the Polish standard of 40 hours, of PLN 2105 per month were similar to the median of earnings in the Polish economy, which, according to the Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS), amounted to PLN 3292 gross (which gives about PLN 2300 net) in 2014 (Sedlak and Sedlak, 2015); the Ukrainians had to work a lot more than the standard 40 hours a week to achieve this income. An average Ukrainian migrant worker worked 54 hours a week on average (Chmielewska et al., 2016).

Declared Ukrainian workers are employed in the household services sector (37.6%), construction services sector (23.6%) and agricultural sector (19.3%). Many people from Ukraine also work in the hotel and catering sector (12.4%) and in commerce (7.2%). Only 4.8% of the migrant population is employed in industry (Chmielewska et al., 2016). As many Ukrainian migrant employees work illegally in Poland, they are used as cheap labour in small and medium businesses; they also work for the lowest pay in supermarkets and retail chains.

Discussion: Social dumping or the birth of a global working class?

What are the actual and potential effects of Eastern European labour migration? On the one hand, the influx of cheap labour to Western European countries may weaken the bargaining power of the local working class. On the other hand, the social integration and labour activism of migrant workers could be mobilised to have a fresh and powerful impact on local workers’ organisations. Similarly, in the home countries of migrant workers, the outflow of young workers weakens the potential for conflict and the workers’ struggle with employers; however, business owners who experience the outflow of cheap labour have to raise wages to find suitable workers. The opening of the borders and mass emigration of Polish workers after 2004 have led to the outflow of workers from some industries and an increase in wages (Hardy, 2009, chapter 10). As Stan and Erne (2016) argue, workforce outflows from Eastern European markets do not necessarily mean that wages will automatically grow in Eastern Europe. Migration may also displace collective and egalitarian wage policies in favour of individual and marketised ones that put workers in competition with one another. Much depends also on the tactics of trade unions – whether trade unions’ wage demands in response to outward migration consolidate collective solidarity and coordination in wage policymaking or support its individualisation and commodification (Stan and Erne, 2016).

In general, illegal migrant workers and legal seasonal workers, whether in Poland, the UK or Australia (cf. Brickenstein, 2015), illustrate in extreme form the insecurity of most migrant workers. Employers may use ‘illegality’ and the spectre of deportation, in threats to notify the authorities, and false accusations of crime (e.g. theft). More broadly, even in the case of documented migrants, lack of legal and trade union protection may be encouraging a ‘race to the bottom’ for employment standards (Clibborn, 2015). Migrants, especially those who do not know the local language well, do not want to risk confrontation with state structures. Employers use the game of ‘fear’ and migrants’ lack of knowledge of their rights to maximise their profits (cf. Małek, 2011). They are a reserve army of labour to fill job vacancies and are more often exploited than local workers through inadequate working conditions, poorer housing standards, heavier workloads or wage theft (Hardy, 2015: 193). Thus, the situation of migrant workers is similar regardless of their ethnic origin and geographical location. Can this form a basis for social resistance and the emergence of trade unions?

Of course, these theoretical models depend on workers’ ability to cooperate beyond ethnic divisions. Above all, however, workers must be willing to engage in social self-defence to oppose local national states and transnational capital. More than a decade ago, Pierre Bourdieu called for the creation of a transnational social movement and trade union organation:

We should look to, or hope for, the formation of a veritable International of ‘immigrants’ from all countries – Turks, Kabyles, Moroccans, Surinamese, and others – to engage in transnational action, in association with the native workers of the different European countries, against the dominant economic forces that, through various mediations, are also responsible for their emigration. (Bourdieu, 2003: 59)

While Bourdieu believed that the logic of rule and exploitation could be overcome by incorporating migrant workers into a trade union movement, Beverly J Silver suggests that the movement of workers should be organised at the international level. This is because globalisation not only affects capital but it also deepens wealth and racial divides and leads to environmental degradation. Hence, as the American sociologist concludes, the ultimate challenge faced by the workers of the world in the early 21st century is the struggle, not just against one’s own exploitation and exclusion, but for an international regime that truly subordinates profits to the livelihood of all (Silver, 2008: 179).

The mobility of labour certainly represents a challenge for trade unions due to language barriers, the social isolation of migrant workers and the segmentation of the workforce (Andrijasevic and Sacchetto, 2016: 228). By cooperating with migrants, local communities can better integrate with them. Rhys Andrews (2015) uses the example of labour migration from Eastern Europe to England to show that although the arrival of this large new immigrant group had a negative impact on perceptions of social cohesion, areas with strong community capacity appeared to offer the prospect of better social incorporation of migrant workers.

There are significant challenges. Polish social psychologists (Ereciński, Stefanicka and Schöll-Mazurek, 2014) have shown that most Polish emigrants remain in their ethnic enclaves and do not participate actively in the public sphere – as many as 76% of them admit that they belong to no social organisation. However, half (51.2%) of those who belong to some organisations choose professional organisations. Similar trends can be observed among Ukrainian migrants in Poland. Alona, a Ukrainian who has been living in Poland for 4 years and working in a developer company, claims that

Most Ukrainians focus on their work and are not much interested in what is happening in Poland. Compared to the situation in Ukraine, their life is much better in Poland. It is only after some time, when practical problems arise, for example with health care, that they begin to be more aware of local problems.²

Valentyn, who works in a transport company, reflects the same attitude:

My family lives in Donbass where shots are constantly heard but here it is peaceful. I do not have time to watch Polish TV because I work from morning till late afternoon. I do not often meet with Poles in my spare time and I do not know much about their problems. Language barriers also hinder these contacts.³

While migrants can be encouraged to join trade unions, the situation looks different in individual countries (attempts to involve Eastern European workers in trade unions were the most effective in Norway and less effective in the UK and Denmark). The barriers may not lie with migrants: when asked why they would choose to join a union, workers mentioned collectivist values and the need for a ‘sword of justice’, rather than more individually oriented ‘service’ and self-interest needs. Much depends on the activity of unions themselves. However, the involvement of migrant workers in unions always strongly influences their integration in the new place of work and residence (Eldring et al., 2011: 32).

If the labour rights of migrant workers are considered as human rights, these issues require a broader strategy. It is difficult then to separate ethnic prejudices and racism from employee discrimination. In this approach, diversity, multiculturalism, anti-racism, anti-discrimination and integration policies, together with initiatives to counter exclusion and violence, are important tools in fighting negative public discourses and policies on migration and changing public perceptions of migrants. Good governance at the national level is a basis for more effective cooperation at the regional and global levels (Crépeau and Atak, 2016).

While the labour movement in the Western world may be aware that ‘the problem with migration is not migrant workers, but greedy and exploitative employers, unfair migration laws, and a lack of support for migrant workers and their families’ (cf. Prentis, 2008), the issue of an internationalised workforce is not the subject of consideration in Eastern Europe. In Ireland, ‘successful trade union campaigns to involve migrant workers in trade unions have been anchored on the position of low paid workers generally i.e. integrated approaches to securing the rights of migrant workers’ (Philips, 2011: 44). By contrast, Solidarity, the biggest trade union in Poland, supports the nationalist ruling PiS party. When describing Solidarity’s attitude in the 1990s as a protective umbrella for neo-liberal leaders, David Ost wrote about the ‘defeat of Solidarity’ (Ost, 2006). Today, it can be said that nothing but the name has been left of the class-based trade union that was born in 1980 and fought for workers’ self-management. The grass-roots social movement has become a tool used by the nationalist government to suppress social protests. If social forces do not start to think in terms of class rather than nation in Poland and in Eastern Europe, the importance of employee organisations will decline in the atmosphere of nationalism.

Under such conditions, migrant workers (but also traditional trade unions, permeated by national constraints) will be used by capital owners as an effective tool for social dumping and a form of threat against local workers. In this context, the following manifestations of dumping linked to the liberalisation of labour flows are usually mentioned: the lowering of wages and employment standards in Western Europe, the weakening of trade unions and the strengthening of employers’ power (Andrijasevic and Sacchetto, 2016: 221). By spreading a fear of migrants, the populist right may (under such conditions) not only lead to processes, such as Brexit, but it may also strengthen its political power, as is the case in Poland and Hungary.

The example of Poland shows that under conditions of globalisation, trade unions will either enter the transnational level or they will be degraded, closed in their national cages. Solidarity led by Piotr Duda has been supporting the nationalist PiS government since 2015 and it is difficult to expect that this union will take care of migrant workers’ rights and understand the need to conduct trade union activity at the transnational level.

The ugly alternative: Nationalism as the other side of the coin of neo-liberalism?

In the age of austerity measures, a permanent crisis of the socio-economic system and the pressure of neo-liberal ideology, migrants are becoming one of the groups (in addition to pensioners, young precariat, residents of ‘poorer’ districts and women in the labour market; cf. Yücel, 2015) whose social and working rights are particularly restricted. As Guy Standing (2014: 210) points out, ‘[a] progressive strategy must … make the principled case for equal treatment’. If one group is deprived of some social benefits or the right to receive these social benefits, then another group will soon be deprived of them too. Hence, Standing devotes Articles 11–15 in his Precariat Charter to migration policy. These articles proclaim that migrants must have the same rights as the rest of society and cannot be further demonised, and that migration policy should not be based on class prejudices (Standing, 2014: 197–213).

Standing’s demands are a response to emerging ‘political ghosts’. Created by the populist right, the fear of the inflow of migrants has led to Brexit in the UK and the victory of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, a right-wing nationalist party, in the 2015 parliamentary elections in Poland. Frustration caused by neo-liberal policies has facilitated the creation of policies based on fear of refugees. The nationalist rhetoric used by the PiS party has ensured its victory and become one of the pillars of its power. Victory has only encouraged the PiS to take more authoritarian steps. A nationalist veil has helped in the implementation of neo-liberal politics. While the PiS ruling party turns the public against internal and external enemies (including migrants and all ‘strangers’) of the ‘real nation’, it consistently enforces tough market rules: layoff of teachers (weakening teachers’ trade unions), privatisation of healthcare and increased energy bills. In the absence of well-organised progressive forces, those who are most affected by these changes are easily influenced by nationalist and racist propaganda. The ruling PiS party openly expresses dislike for refugees and migrants. In mid-2017, the message on the official PiS’ profile reads, ‘Do not let yourself be told that dislike for refugees is a bad thing’ (Woźnicki, 2017).

There are many reasons for the popularity and power of nationalism in Eastern Europe. One is the weak position of the left in this region of Europe (cf. Żuk, 2017d) and the second is that identity issues rather than class issues have been discussed in public debates since the beginning of the systemic transformation. In the 1990s, the new power elites in Poland sought to break from the communist past. At the level of symbolic culture, all concepts and names (names of streets, language, monuments) associated with the past system were removed from the public space. The notion of ‘social class’ was also removed from political debates and media discussions. In the 1990s, this concept was unpopular in Poland even in the social sciences (Ost, 2014; Żuk, 2008). It was replaced by the term ‘nation’ and the language of debates shifted to culture and identity politics.

The new discourse allowed successive governments to conceal the growing social inequality resulting from implementation of the neo-liberal model and led to the creation of a nationalistic climate. Currently, this is manifested by opposition to accepting refugees from North Africa and the Middle East and the negative attitude of Poles towards migrant workers from other Eastern European countries. Since 2010, the vast majority of members of Polish society have been of the opinion that the government should reduce the number of workers from these countries (Figure 3; CBOS, 2016a). In April 2017, 74% of CBOS (2017) survey respondents were against receiving refugees. It is paradoxical that while there is a growing dislike for refugees and migrants in Poland, about 3 million Poles work in Western European countries. As the number of refugees in Poland today is negligible, this aversion is to the imagined refugees demonised by the populist right rather than to real people, similar to the phenomenon of ‘anti-Semitism without Jews’ encountered in certain circles in Poland (cf. Żuk, 2017a). Official state instruments in Poland, such as the public media and the educational system, promote dislike for foreigners and support for the nationalist atmosphere (Żuk, 2017c). The state television TVP controlled by the PiS party broadcasts emotional propaganda showing refugees as ‘wild beasts’ drawn to Europe by ‘the treacherous policies of the liberals’ and the German government of Angela Merkel (Osęka, 2017).

Figure 3. Attitudes to Eastern European migrant workers in Poland.

Source: CBOS (2016a).

Jefferys argues that in a globalised world where, in many industrial sectors, the experiences of status, skill, wages and working conditions are becoming increasingly segmented, racism makes it more difficult to create the collective solidarities needed to impose and enforce socially just regulation. Racism provides a direct and real challenge that the European trade union movement cannot leave to others to confront (Jefferys, 2015: 20). Similarly, Fekete (2017) writes,

Nationalism, nativism, the setting of boundaries between the citizen-worker and the abject migrant, the promise of national security in the face of the Muslim enemy within, are all means to an end, ensuring the public colludes in policing itself within the technological security apparatus that has grown up alongside the market state. In this sense, nationalism, far from representing a break with neoliberalism, provides the climate that allows for its break from democracy. (p. 18)

In this context, the old slogan of the Communist Manifesto that calls for the union of proletarians of all countries seems to be more relevant today than in the days of Marx. In order to oppose both the populist right and the logic of neo-liberalising capitalism, various social groups excluded from full participation in public life must develop broad social consensus. Nowadays, migrant workers are among the most important groups. As they escape from the economic forces in one place and clash with the same forces elsewhere, they are among the main forces of the present-day global proletariat.

Conclusion

Trade unions cannot remain indifferent to the issue of migrant workers’ rights in an era in which mass labour migration has been experiencing 30 years of rapid growth. They must address the fact that the exploitation of migrants and mechanisms such as offshoring are becoming the main means of capital accumulation on a global scale. Moreover, such exploitative practices are supported by a number of semi-periphery states in Eastern European countries, where both local and central authorities create special privileges for foreign investors. For example, in Poland, since the 1990s, ‘SEZs’ have been created, and the companies within which have been exempted from a range of taxes. Such exemptions result from the development model implemented in the 1990s, a model that is typical of semi-periphery countries seeking to attract foreign investors at all costs (Żuk, 2010).

Transferring capital accumulation to supranational levels and hiding political decisions about workers, natural resources and entire countries into the ‘no-man’s land’ described by Urry (2014) forces social movements to build stronger strategies and civic activity at a transnational level. This principle also applies to trade unions whose activity is still largely limited to the area of national states. Workers’ and citizens’ rights, however, are increasingly violated in areas where the government power is weakening and the state itself can no longer be a negotiating partner. Finally, it is necessary to reiterate the conclusion that under today’s conditions, it is difficult to separate emancipatory activities in the cultural sphere from those conducted in the economy. The exploitation of migrants and the creation of a racist atmosphere show that the power of capital and nationalist prejudices can go hand in hand.