Migrant workers’ representation and the appeal of independent grassroots unionism: insights from Britain and Italy

ABSTRACT In the Global North, globalisation has been coinciding with the interconnected growth in precarious work and migrant workers. Often finding inadequate representation in mainstream unions, many of these workers have become involved in independent and grassroots unionism. Grounded in an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that draws on both social movements and labour studies, this article explores one understudied aspect of these emerging forms of labour mobilisations, namely, the appeal that the participatory organising typical of this unionism has to its participants. Methodologically, we follow an actor-centred approach and draw on ethnographic fieldwork carried out with migrant workers involved in the contentious initiatives of four independent unions in London (Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain and United Voices of the World) and northeastern Italy (Associazione Diritti dei/delle Lavoratori/trici Cobas and Sindacato Intercategoriale Cobas). Theoretically, the article contributes to integrating social movements and labour studies by rethinking the idea of appeal in the study of contentious practices. In particular, we suggest extending the idea of appeal from one which has mostly been about the framing efforts of social movements and labour organisations to one which—aware of the risks of methodological organisationalism—comprises the participants’ perspectives and subjectivities.