Immigrants workers and collective action: a view about relationships between international immigration and syndicalism in Europe

Abstract

Along de time, Trade Unions maintained a double position related to migratory phenomenon. By one side, they claimed equality in social and economic rights between immigrants and autochthonous workers as a strategy of opposition to the management purposes and the concurrence among workers. By the other side, from a defensive position, they have tended to demand a restrictive state control of immigration, showing pragmatism and a strong tendency towards national protectionism ideology about labour market, specially in periods of recession of the national economies. This paper wants to analyze this relationships between immigrant labour and syndicalism, particularly having as an example some European countries, in which, as a «labour force importers», the question of immigration have had bigger impact through the XXth century. The end of this article insist on the roll and relations of syndicalism whit immigrant labour can not be analyzed separately from the process of reformulation of work representation.