Dirty Work, Identity and Emotions: The Polish Experience

Abstract

In the last chapter, it was shown how recent migrants often end up in ‘3D’ work that is dirty, dangerous and dull. In this respect, migrants often fill up jobs that the indigenous workers reject — so that they are likely to be in lower paid, monotonous work that is poorly unionized and that does not match their qualification levels (Holgate, 2005; MacKenzie and Forde, 2009; Massey et al., 1998). Here, the United Kingdom stands out in the development of a polarized workforce (McDowell et al., 2009) that is predicated on a highly deregulated ‘hire and fire’ labour market and the prevalence of casual, temporary and part-time contracts. In this context, employers often give preference to workers who, as MacKenzie and Forde (2009) argue, lack power, exploiting their vulnerability in what is often insecure work. Migrants are not only poorly unionized and performing ‘precarious work’, but are also often valued for their ‘worth ethic’ and reliability that position them favourably against local workers. This as well as lack of language skills can mean migrants become trapped in low-waged, low-skilled employment (McDowell et al., 2009) with few prospects of progression into more secure or better paid work.