European grant of 913.000 for FEB research on migrant work

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of blue collar workers sent abroad by their employers. These employers are usually subcontractors or work agencies set up for the purpose of sending employees abroad. Under European Union law, these “posted” workers can be treated under conditions determined in their home country rather than the destination country where they work. What is the impact of this on working conditions and the right to trade union representation? The European Research Council (ERC) granted dr. Nathan Lillie  of the Faculty of Economics and Business a starting grant of 913.110 euro's to conduct research on this subject.

With the Starting Grants, the ERC (established by the European Commission), aims to support up-and-coming research leaders. The grants are issued through an open competition, based on the academic record of the researcher, and the innovativeness of the proposed research. Lillie's proposal was honoured, because the ERC says it's "of critical relevance both scientifically and politically. Migrant workers and posted workers in particular have come to occupy a strategic point in the agenda of governments, trade unions and international organizations."

Ethnographic Study of Posted Work
The FEB research team, consisting of Lillie and one post doc and two PhD's, will study the growth of “posted” migrant work in the European Union, and the impact of this on industrial relations. Employers can now, to a large extent, apply home country conditions to workers posted abroad.  Host country unions and governments are legally constrained in their representation of these workers. Sovereignty has been reconfigured, through EU law and firm practice, so that nations are no longer free to regulate working conditions in their territories. The FEB researchers hypothesize that this “variegation” of  national industrial relations sovereignty is leading to segmented labour markets, with posted migrants making up a lower tier of workers, no longer entitled to the rights and protections workers have enjoyed in Europe since the Second World War.

The research will involve fieldwork in Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Brussels.  In a series of interviews, the experiences of posted migrants and 'native' workers who work with them will be recorded. Furthermore there will be interviews of managers, union officials, and policy makers, to trace the linkage between labour mobility, changes in firm subcontracting strategy, and legal/political changes in the sovereignty norm as applied to industrial relations.

Nathan Lillie
Dr. Nathan Lillie is an expert in Industrial Relations & Labour, and International Relations. Since 2007, he has been an Assistant Professor in International Business and Management, at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen.  He obtained his PhD from the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 2003, and from 2004-2007 worked as a Research Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies.  His publications include a book “A Global Union for Global Workers: Collective Bargaining and Regulatory Politics in Maritime Shipping”, and journal articles on transnational union cooperation, corporate social responsibility, union representation of migrant workers, and transnational class formation.  His current research is on industrial relations and the reconfiguration of the sovereignty norm.

For more information : Dr. Nathan Lillie, email: N.A.Lillie rug.nl