London’s Migrant Division of Labour
Jane Wills
Research team:
Yara Evans, Kavita Datta, Joanna Herbert, Cathy
McIlwaine and Jon May
Data consultant: Yiannis Kaplanis (LSE)
Department of Geography and The City
Centre
Queen Mary, University of London
Aims of the paper
• Go back to key theory/concepts
• Immigration in the UK
• Introduce London’s migrant division of labour
(MDL)
• Big data sets
• Our survey and interviews
• A case study at Canary Wharf
• Conclusions
Go back to key theory/concepts
• Post-war Europe: employer demand; ‘bottom end’
jobs; ‘reserve armies of labour’ (Castles and Kosack,
1973; Miles, 1982)
• “The jobs tend to be unskilled, generally but not always
low paying, and to carry or connote inferior social status;
they often involve hard or unpleasant working conditions
and considerable insecurity; they seldom offer chances for
advancement toward better-paying, more attractive job
opportunities; they are usually performed in an
unstructured work environment and involve an informal,
highly personalistic relationship between a supervisor and
subordinate.” (Piore, 1979, 17)
• Fortress European states of the 1970s: focus on
‘race’ and ethnic divisions of labour (EDL);
multiculturalism (Daniel, 1968; Modood et al.,
1997)
• Different in the US: Waldinger and Lichter, 2003
• Highlight the importance of employer demand:
•
•
•
•
‘Dual frame of reference’
The Hiring queue
Moral economies of employment
The important role of the state
Dual frame of reference
• “The foreign-born comprise the preferred labor force, but not
because employers have suddenly developed a soft spot for
immigrants, immigration or the broader cultural or social
changes wrought by large-scale immigration. Rather employers
perceive the newcomers as workers who assess the situation
relative to the conditions and options encountered ‘back
home’ … the immigrants’ dual frame of reference puts
America’s low-wage sector in a remarkably favourable
perspective.” (Waldinger and Lichter, 2003, 179)
• Locals too entitled …
Moral economies of employment
• Difference: Employers will face “difficulty in
recruiting someone whose personal status – for
reasons of nativity, ethnicity, gender, age, or the
like – does not fit with the job’s, and who may
therefore feel entitled to something better.”
Waldinger and Lichter (2003, 40)
• And deserving: Easier to employ ‘deserving’
workers with origins in poorer parts of the world
(Anderson, 2007)
The hiring queue
• A “relatively stable cross-national hierarchy of
discrimination” Model (2002, 132) : foreign-born
whites; African Indians and Chinese fare as well as
native-born whites (especially men); Africans,
Pakistanis and Bangladeshis at the bottom … with
African-American men at the bottom in the US
And the important role of the state
• Labour supplies dependent upon immigration
policy
• And, education/welfare/employment regulation
shaping push-pull into work
• Need labour supply but ‘sticky’ commodity and
politically sensitive
• Liberal state has problems securing the migration
state (Hollifield, 2004)
Immigration in the UK
• Changing immigration regime in the UK
• EU accession and new labour supply from 2004
• ‘Managed migration’ and the new hierarchy – the
points based system 2005
• Control, surveillance and irregular migrants
• Ignoring the legacy of the last 20 years?
• Changing MDLs: from ‘black’ to ‘white’?
The migrant division of labour
• Labour segmentation: ethnicity, gender … and we
argue immigration status and circumstances
• Can ‘trump’ – and reconfigure existing
segmentation: skilled workers in low-skilled work;
men in women’s jobs; ‘white’ workers in ‘black’
employment sectors
• Evidence from London: large data sets; our
surveys; one case study workplace
Large data sets
• In 1986, 18% of Londoners were born overseas
(approximately 1.17 million people), and threequarters of them came from the former colonies.
• By 2006, as many as 31% of London’s population
(2.23 million people) were immigrants, with just
over half of them having their origins in the
Commonwealth (LSE, 2007).
• GLA (Spence 2005) 35% working age population but
46% elemental jobs foreign born (FB)
• 60% hospitality jobs FB
• 44% of migrants from poor countries are still in
the bottom 40% of the labour market after three
years within the UK (LSE, 2007)
• Growth in ‘bottom end’ jobs (Goos and Manning;
Kaplanis), alongside increasing proportion of FB
staff
• New analysis of LFS shows increase in FB over
time in low paid occupations
Our surveys
• July 2005: London Citizens survey
• 341 workers in cleaning (office and tube), dom.
care, hospitality and food processing
• Randomly approached: 90% FB (95% tube to 56%
care)
• Superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007): 56 countries of
origin
• 49% tertiary level quals; 20% studying
• Only 2% above LLW; min working conditions
Employers’ bodies
• Increasing dependence on migrants in care,
construction, cleaning and hospitality
• Work ethic valued but concerns about productivity
… and no-one mentions the pay!
• Evidence of a hiring queue
The MDL
• “I think the domiciliary care sector would deliver a lot less
service than it does if it were not for that proportion of
migrant workers … Particularly in London, I would say that
migrant workers are essential to even maintain the same
level of service.” Care sector respondent, 5.12.07
• “I’m certainly hearing that people are bringing candidates
or having candidates brought in by overseas recruitment
agencies and are thinking about going overseas specifically
to find people.” Care sector respondent, 5.12.07
• “I would say they are very hard workers. they are not lazy
at all … whatever you ask them to do, they will be really
happy to do it … We hardly have any problems where we
have to discipline staff for constantly coming in late or
reporting sick or things like that.” Food processing
respondent, 18.12.06
• “The major reason we use immigrant workers is because
they are better than the people who are available locally.”
Construction sector respondent, 11.7.07
Work ethic and ….
• Well I think the advantages are that there is a skills and
labour shortage in the industry and that by and large,
migrant labour has a reputation for commitment, hard work
and skill. The disadvantage clearly is a languageunderstanding issue. What people probably don’t put up in
lights is a question of whether they pay lower rates …
people do their own deals. So I think if you take that
cultural situation and overlay it with the migrant worker
then I think inevitably, in doing their own deal, they’re
going to be disadvantaged. They’re prepared to take the
compromise, and I think in that sort of context, although
it’s not up in lights, I can’t give you any figures, the gut
feeling is that yes, they are paid less.” Construction
industry respondent, 17.11.06
• Lower pay for cleaning in central London than around the
M25 (local labour markets)
Evidence of the hiring queue
• Concerns about language, H&S, record keeping,
communication and some groups favoured over
others.
• “I’d die for a Portuguese. You hang on to them,
you ask for their sisters, their mothers, their
brothers, marvellous! Filipinos fantastic, Poles
very good …” Cleaning sector respondent, 3.5.06
At the workplace too …
• One cleaning contract in
one building at Canary
Wharf
• Overview of workforce
data
• Face-to-face interviews
with 54 of 105 staff
• 22 day and 32 night staff
• evenly balanced by gender
• 4 managers
• Sept/November 2006
A workplace and the world
• £6.20/hour and 30p/hour
attendance bonus after 2
weeks (NMW £5.35; LLW
£7.05)
• 20 days annual holiday plus
8 bank holidays
• no company sick pay or
pension
• building opened in 1990s
• 5 cleaning contractors
since opening
Superdiversity at work: 105 anonymised
company records (3 missing)
Superdiversity at work: 105 anonymised
company records (3 missing)
Country
Algeria
Angola
Bangladesh
Brazil
Cameroon
Colombia
Congo
Ecuador
Equatorial guinea
Estonia
France
Gambia
Ghana
Ivory coast
Numbers
1
5
5
2
2
4
3
1
1
1
1
1
14
1
Jamaica
Latvia
Lithuania
Nigeria
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Sierra Leone
Spain
Tanzania
Tunisia
Uganda
UK
Zaire
2
1
7
10
1
1
3
1
4
5
1
1
1
20
2
Superdiversity at work
• 80% staff born outside the UK from 28 other
countries
• Significant numbers from Africa, western Europe
and Latin America with growing significance of
eastern Europeans
• Foreign-born younger than the British-born
• Complexity of nationality overlaid by complexity
of citizenship and immigration status
Citizenship and immigration status
Place of birth
Britain
Born in the EU
Outside the EU
Outside the EU
Total
Visa/citizenship
N/A
Estonia (1), France (1),
Latvia (1), Lithuania
(7), Poland (1), Portugal
(3), Spain (5)
Obtained EU passport
Angola – Portugal (3),
Brazil – Portugal (1),
Equatorial-GuineaSpain (1), NigeriaNetherlands (1), Sierra
Leone – Netherlands
(1), Gambia – Sweden
(1), Tunisia-Sweden (1)
British
Family visa to join
spouse
Indefinite Leave to
Remain
Limited Leave to
Remain
Residence permit
Right of residence
Settlement visa
Students’ Dependent
visa
Working holiday visa
Number of staff
20
19
9
23
2
19
1
4
4
1
2
1
105
• 7 of 8 of those who arrived
before 1990 were British
citizens
• None of those who arrived
since 2000 were British
citizens
• Majority of those
interviewed (33 from 41 or
80%) arrived since 1991 with
mixed routes to living and
working in the UK
• European by birth or
citizenship; ILR (refugees);
others
Low paid labour supply
• African and Latin American workers arrived as
students, tourists and asylum seekers during the
1980s and 1990s
• Arriving through the interstices of the immigration
system or via the rest of the EU
• And regularised through refugee status, marriage
and childbirth
• No longer needed in the context of alternative
labour supplies from the A8?
The dual frame of reference
• “Most of these girls are just here to earn a living, go home,
feed their children and send money back home and feed the
other part of the family, you know, the uncles, the aunts, the
cousins. I mean widespread family, not like ours at all.”
(manager, Canary Wharf contract, 4.12.06)
Locals too entitled
• “Let’s look at it this way. The English are used to a social
security system anyway, they’re used to having that whereas
the immigrants don’t have that in their country. We’ve always
had something to fall back on so those English that are not
educated, that, you know, didn’t go out and get themselves
great jobs could come out and do cleaning but they won’t do it
for a lower wage because they might as well sit indoors and
get paid to look after the kids … to motivate them you’d need
ten pounds an hour, definitely.” (manager, Canary Wharf
contract, 4.12.06)
Changes in the hiring queue ...
• “The good thing about the east Europeans they’re all very
briefed on what they’ve got to bring with them, all the correct
paperwork, they’re on the ball. We still have problems with
Africans, Nigerians, Jamaicans coming over and they haven’t
got their paperwork.”
• “We’re thankful for having … the Eastern Europeans are the up
and coming, you know, they’re the people that everybody
wants because they’re hardworking.”
• “A lot of the black Africans are lazy … let’s put it this way,
they’re very difficult to motivate … they come to work tired,
that makes them look lazy .. Compared to the east Europeans
that come in bussing. They come in buzzing.” (manager,
Canary Wharf contract, interview, 28.9.06).
Conclusions
• Clear London has a MDL at ‘bottom end’ of labour
market
• Explained by employer demand, dual frame, moral
economy, hiring queue and state policy
• Clear ‘rotating membership’ (Castles and Kosack,
1973) of this tier of the workforce as new
immigrants replace older ones – demand
constant/growing – with different supply
• Changing MDL with changing immigration regime:
from ‘black’ to ‘white’ or not?
If you want more ...
It’s available from:
http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/