Moving beyond the dichotomy of workplace and community unionism: The challenges of organising migrant workers in London’s hotels

Abstract

This article examines a joint effort by the union Unite and the community organisation London Citizens to unionise two migrant-rich hotels in London. The author explores the effectiveness of union and community strategies in the field of migrant organising drawing from the literature on union strategy and workers’ activism and focusing on workers’ own experiences of mobilisation. Gender, contractual and migration-related barriers to workers’ engagement in the campaign appeared determinant of the failure of the unionisation effort while the leaders eventually favoured a politics of incentive towards employers, ‘contracting out’ the protest to institutional actors in the community. The central argument is that neither workplace-based nor community unionism alone appears effective in terms of sustaining union activism among highly fragmented, migrant and precarious workforces. The renewal of industrial unionism in the UK rather requires unions to tackle the intersecting discriminations experienced by migrants across their communities and workplaces.