Abstract
By studying the collective organization of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in London, the research points to a possibility of nurturing immigrant workers’ labour consciousness and further organizing them based on worker identity in dispersed and informal sectors. The study shows that ‘communities of coping’ can play a significant role in developing collective agency among MDWs by creating a safe space where they can socialize, developing mutual trust and share work grievances, and providing leaders from immigrant worker community who attempt to develop a group-centred leadership that embraces the participation of the many. It argues that the further development of collective mobilizations in informal and individualized sectors may require creative leaps of sociological imagination in locating and nurturing communities of coping, wherever they may be occurring—in ethnic social clubs, women’s groups, churches or at school gates. The research also calls for a need to shift the assessment of outcomes of community organizing from a focus on organizational development and policy changes to a focus on the empowerment of migrant workers at the grassroots level.
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Notes
- 1.
Domestic workers were initially given permission to stay in the UK for a maximum of 12 months. They then needed a letter from their employer for visa extensions. However, the coalition government announced the change of domestic worker visa policy in February 2012, which only allowed MDWs to stay in the UK for 6 months without extension rights.
- 2.
J4DW is not running any commercial activities. If an organization’s income does not exceed £5000, it is not able to register as a charity with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. J4DW cannot afford £5000 to start with charity. They also choose not to receive state funding or regular funding from NGOs because of the potential constraints imposed on their organizing activities.
- 3.
It is the accumulative number of J4DW members since its establishment. In classes and meetings every Sunday, there are usually 30–50 active members.
- 4.
The chair of J4DW wrote an essay about her personal story as a migrant worker, ‘cry of a migrant’, and won the first prize at a union festival organized by Unite the Union.
- 5.
500 members are not all from J4DW. Unite recruited 500 MDWs through the connections with different community organizations. Some of them are East and Middle European Migrants who do not have visa problems.
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Jiang, J. (2018). Organizing Immigrant Workers Through ‘Communities of Coping’: An Analysis of Migrant Domestic Workers’ Journey from an Individual Labour of Love to a Collective Labour with Rights. In: Atzeni, M., Ness, I. (eds) Global Perspectives on Workers' and Labour Organizations. Work, Organization, and Employment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7883-5_2
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