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

In the Global North globalization 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 mobilizations, namely the appeal that the participatory labour organizing typical of this unionism has to its participants. Methodologically, the article follows an actor-centred approach and draws on ethnographic fieldwork carried out with migrant workers involved in the contentious initiatives of four independent unions in London (IWGB and UVW) and north-eastern Italy (ADL Cobas and SI Cobas). Theoretically, the article contributes to further the integration of social movements and labour studies by rethinking the idea of appeal in the study of contentious practices. In particular, the article suggests to extend 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 organizationalism – comprises the participants’ perspectives and subjectivities.