The Role of Community Organisations in the Collective Mobilisation of Migrant Workers: The Importance of a ‘Community’-Oriented Perspective

Jiang, Joyce; Korczynski, Marek

Abstract

In examining the collective mobilisation of migrant workers, scholars have explored the emergence of community organisations as alternative forms of worker representation. However, community unionism scholars tend to adopt a union-centric perspective, which leaves unexplored the complex nature of community organisations. We argue that it is important to adopt a ‘community’-oriented perspective. Such a perspective allows us to explore varied capacity for collective actions and different forms of identity framing across community organisations. We argue that these can affect the union–community relationship and organising outcomes. By comparing ethnographic case studies of the role of two community organisations vis-a-vis the collective mobilisation of migrant workers, we conclude that community organisations which focus on participatory internal relations, and which frame collective identities (including class) in an intersectional way, are more likely to have reciprocal relationships with trade unions and contribute to collective mobilisation.

Citation

Jiang, J., & Korczynski, M. (2024). The Role of Community Organisations in the Collective Mobilisation of Migrant Workers: The Importance of a ‘Community’-Oriented Perspective. Work, Employment and Society, 38(2), 339-357. https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170221138008

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 29, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Feb 2, 2023
• Publication Date: 2024-04
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 2, 2023
• Journal: Work, Employment and Society
• Print ISSN: 0950-0170
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8722
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 38
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 339-357
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170221138008
• Keywords: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management; Economics and Econometrics; Sociology and Political Science; Accounting
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/15714710
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170221138008
• Additional Information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).; Request permissions for this article.