Conference Agenda

'Promised Land' is a short documentary that captures testimonies collected from foreign workers who were brought to Quebec, Canada, to work in the industrial slaughterhouses of the food processing industry. Created within a film-based sociological approach, the documentary emanates from an explorative project that aims to contextualize a recruitment process that has become a Quebec social phenomenon over the past decades. The project also included the input of students who helped raise the interview questions used for the exploration.

We suggest the showing of the documentary in addition to an oral presentation by the researcher, that will contextualize the social phenomenon, highlight the main implications that characterize the recruitment phenomenon and address some of the epistemological, political and methodological challenges that the research project has raised.

Please see the documentary here:

https://vimeo.com/781191079/62508031e9?fbclid=IwAR2d1exiR0esM9KBAKX7O1M-b9JhfUy8BnydpEhpQp1bzGcidQ2FCpRkCm0

The need to consider migrant status in union outreach has been a key issue in academic and policy debates (Alberti et al. 2013; ILO 2006, 2014, 2021a, 2021b; Marino et al. 2017). While migrant workers can share similar experiences to other workers, they can also face distinct challenges. This paper contributes to and builds on a body of research which analyses the interactions between migration and national union dynamics. Despite many advances in union outreach, organizing and advocacy, we find that legal barriers continue to be pervasive challenges to realizing migrant workers’ access to the right of freedom of association.

The data is drawn from the ILO Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining for Migrant Workers Trade Union Survey (TUS) conducted in 2021. It included closed and open-ended questions and received 72 responses covering 66 national union federations from around the world. The questionnaire was offered in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic) and responses were translated into English. Quantitative responses were reviewed and analyzed using SPSS software and qualitative responses were reviewed and analyzed with the assistance of Nvivo software.

The results identify key barriers related to trade unions’ behaviors. The results also consider strategies that trade unions have developed to reach migrant workers and indicate that the most common strategy is ‘awareness raising’. The data is also used to identify patterns in behaviors of unions in relation to geographic regions and countries’ income levels.

References:

Alberti, G., Holgate, J., & Tapia, M. (2013). Organising migrants as workers or as migrant workers? Intersectionality, trade unions and precarious work. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(22), 4132-4148.

ILO. (2006). LO Multilateral Framework on Labour Migration: Non-Binding Principles and Guidelines for a Rights-Based Approach to Labour Migration. Geneva: International Labour Office.

ILO. (2014). El Rol de Los Sindicatos en el Ámbito de la Migración Laboral. San José: ILO.

ILO. (2021a). Temporary labour migration: Two Studies on Workers’ Perspectives and Actions. Geneva:

ILO. (2021b). Analisis de situaciones laborales de migrantes venezolanos en la ciudad de Bogota. Bogota: ILO and Pontifical Javierian University.

Marino, S., Roosblad, J., & Penninx, R. (2017a). Trade unions and migrant workers: New contexts and challenges in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.