Mobilizing the Rights of Migrant Workers: Swedish Trade Unions’ Engagement with Law and the Courts

ABSTRACTMigrant workers, both regular and irregular, are at particular risk of having their rights violated. At the same time, there has been an absence of support for exploited immigrant workers from Swedish authorities and civil society. Lately, a number of trade unions and semi-union organisations in Sweden have developed methods to mobilize the rights of migrant workers experiencing exploitation on the Swedish labour market. This article investigates strategies utilized by trade unions to mobilize migrant workers’ rights by engaging with the law and the courts. It draws on qualitative interviews with trade union representatives and court judgements from the Labour Court and other civil courts. We identify legal practices that range from immediate legal assistance and everyday negotiations with employers to litigation in court. We show how the practical, aspirational, and creative engagement of a small group of trade union representatives with the law and courts has generated a new form for mobilizing the rights of migrant workers in the Swedish context. This form of legal mobilization is both instrumental and political, driven by the rhetoric of class struggle and a belief in the rights of migrant workers.KEY WORDS: migrant workerslabour exploitationtrade unionslegal mobilization Notes1 SVT ’Statsministerns städerska utvisad – arbetsgivaren utreds fortfarande’ https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/stadsministerns-staderska-utvisad-arbetsgivaren-utreds-fortfarande, accessed 25 May 20222 The criminal investigation into human exploitation was closed, which allowed for her expulsion.3 Mål A 17/22; Arbetaren ’ 100 000 kronor till stats­minis­terns städare’ https://www.arbetaren.se/2022/03/15/100-000-kronor-till-statsministerns-stadare/, accessed 25 May 20224 Hannah Lewis and others, 'Hyper-precarious lives: Migrants, work and forced labour in the Global North' (2014) 39 Progress in Human Geography 5805 See Michael McCann and George Lovell, Union by Law (University of Chicago Press 2020); Paula Mulinari and Anders Neergaard, 'Trade unions negotiating the Swedish model: racial capitalism, whiteness and the invisibility of race' (2023) 64 Race & Class 486 Amanda Latimer ‘Super-Exploitation, the Race to the Bottom, and the Missing International’ In: Ness, I., Cope, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, (2021) Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.7 See Janina Puder ‘Cheap Labour, (Un)Organised Workers. The Oppressive Exploitation of Labour Migrants in the Malaysian Palm Oil Industry’ (2022) In: Global Agricultural Workers from the 17th to the 21st Century. Series: Studies in Global Social History, Volume: 50. Publisher: Brill. Harsha Walia ‘Transient Servitude: Migrant Labour in Canada and the Apartheid of Citizenship’ (2010) 52 Race and Class 71.8 Anders Neergaard, '”Det fackliga löftet” : solidaritet, fackföreningsrörelse och arbetskraftsinvandring' in Petra Herzfeld Olsson Catharina Calleman (ed), Arbetskraft från hela världen : Hur blev det med 2008 års reform? (Delmi 2015); Niklas Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden' (2014) 35 Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal 2479 Heidi Moksnes, 'Papperslösa arbetare och möjligheterna för facklig organisering' in Maja Sager, Helena Holgersson and Klara Öberg (eds), Irreguljär migration i Sverige : Rättigheter, vardagserfarenheter, motstånd och statliga kategoriseringar (Daidalos 2016); Niklas Selberg and Markus Gunneflo, 'Discourse or merely noise? Regarding the disagreement on undocumented migrants' (2010) 12 International Journal of Comparative Labour Law & Industrial Relations 17310 Neergaard, '”Det fackliga löftet” : solidaritet, fackföreningsrörelse och arbetskraftsinvandring'; Nedžad Mešić, 'Framing solidarity in the unionisation of undocumented migrant workers' in Carl-Ulrik Schierup Anders Neergard Aleksandra Ålund (ed), Reimagineering the nation : essays on twenty-first-century Sweden (Peter Lang Publishing Group 2017); Erik Bengtsson, 'Swedish trade unions and European Union migrant workers' (2013) 55 Journal of Industrial Relations 17411 Neergaard, '”Det fackliga löftet” : solidaritet, fackföreningsrörelse och arbetskraftsinvandring'12 Denis Frank, 'State, union and unauthorized migrants' (2012) 2 Nordic journal of migration research 29813 Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden'14 The term ‘semi-union organizations’ denotes NGOs that act as substitutes for official unions, see Chloé Froissart, '“NGOs” Defending Migrant Workers’ Rights. Semi-union organisations contribute to the regime’s dynamic stability' (2011) 2 China Perspectives 18, and refers here to the Trade Union Centre for Undocumented Migrant Workers and Husby Arbetarcentrum.15 Virginia Mantouvalou, 'Are Labour Rights Human Rights?' (2012) 3 European Labour Law Journal 15116 Neergaard, '”Det fackliga löftet” : solidaritet, fackföreningsrörelse och arbetskraftsinvandring'; Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden'. Initiatives to organize undocumented workers in Sweden have however been criticized for not doing anything to protect migrants’ right to stay and solely focusing on labour rights. Mešić, 'Framing solidarity in the unionisation of undocumented migrant workers'.17 see Leila Kawar, 'Contesting migration governance through legal mobilization' in Katharina Lenner Emma Carmel, Regine Paul (ed), Handbook on the Governance and Politics of Migration (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021)18 Ibid19 Michael McCann, 'Law and Social Movements: Contemporary Perspectives' (2006) 2 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 1720 McCann and Lovell, Union by Law21 Michael McCann, Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization (University of Chicago Press 1994); Lisa Vanhala, 'Legal Opportunity Structures and the Paradox of Legal Mobilization by the Environmental Movement in the UK' (2012) 46 Law & Society Review 523 ; Kawar, 'Contesting migration governance through legal mobilization'22 Emilio Lehoucq and Whitney K. Taylor, 'Conceptualizing Legal Mobilization: How Should We Understand the Deployment of Legal Strategies?' (2020) 45 Law & Social Inquiry 16623 Ibid, 17924 McCann and Lovell, Union by Law25 Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey, The common place of law : stories from everyday life (University of Chicago Press 1998) 132ff26 Ibid, 4827 Ibid, 13128 Ibid29 see ibid30 Whitney K. Taylor, 'Ambivalent Legal Mobilization: Perceptions of Justice and the Use of the Tutela in Colombia' (2018) 52 Law & Society Review 33731 Ibid32 McCann, Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization, 733 McCann, 'Law and Social Movements: Contemporary Perspective34 McCann, Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization, 258ff35 Michael McCann, 'On legal rights consciousness: A challenging analytical tradition' in Benjamin & Nielsen Fleury-Steiner, Laura Beth (ed), The new civil rights research: A constitutive approach (Ashgate 2006)36 McCann and Lovell, Union by Law; Gerald N. Rosenberg, 'Positivism, Interpretivism, and the Study of Law' (1996) 21 Law & Social Inquiry 435 ; Michael McCann, 'Introduction' in Michael McCann (ed), Law and social movements (Ashgate 2006); Scott Barclay, Lynn C. Jones and Anna-Maria Marshall, 'Two spinning wheels: Studying law and social movements' in Austin Sarat (ed), Special Issue Social Movements/Legal Possibilities, vol 54 (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2011)37 Maja Sager and Klara Öberg, 'Articulations of deportability : Changing migration policies in Sweden 2015/2016' (2017) 3 Refugee Review 2; Nicholas De Genova, 'The legal production of Mexican/migrant “illegality”' (2004) 2 Latino studies 160; Niklas Selberg, 'Exkluderade ur nationen, inkluderade i arbetsrätten?Irreguljära migrantarbetare ur rättslig synvinkel', Irreguljär migration i Sverige: rättigheter, vardagserfarenheter, motstånd och statliga kategoriseringar (Daidalos 2016)38 Austin Sarat, '' … The Law Is All Over': Power, Resistance, and the Legal Consciousness of the Welfare Poor' (1990) 2 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 34339 Lisa Vanhala, 'Legal Mobilization obo in Political Science.' (2011)40 The study was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority, Dnr 2021-01203, with an amendment for inclusion of obvservations with union representatives, Dnr 2022-03368-02.41 Lönegarantilagen, 1992:49742 Lag 2018:1472 om entreprenörsansvar för lönefordringar43 see William L. F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel and Austin Sarat, 'The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming' (1980) 15 Law & Society Review 63144 Barclay, Jones and Marshall, 'Two spinning wheels: Studying law and social movements'45 cf. Michael McCann, 'Legal Mobilization and Social Reform Movements: Notes on Theory and Its Application Part IV: Contesting Rights' (1991) 11 Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 237 on equal pay activists46 Mešić, 'Framing solidarity in the unionisation of undocumented migrant workers'47 The initiatives have included organized open days (öppet hus) every Wednesday (until the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit Stockholm), providing written information and publishing videos in 15 languages on social media, and the organization of sector-specific migrant workers’ branches in the building sector and more recently in the cleaning sector.48 Phil James and Joanna Karmowska ‘Unions and migrant workers: strategic challenges in Britain’ (2012) 18 Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 20149 Ibid.50 Representative from the Swedish Transport Workers' Union51 Representative from the Building Workers Union52 Representative from the Building Workers Union53 James and Karmowska, ‘Unions and migrant workers: strategic challenges in Britain', Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research 18 (2).54 see McCann and Lovell, Union by Law, 36055 McCann, 'Legal Mobilization and Social Reform Movements: Notes on Theory and Its Application Part IV: Contesting Rights'56 Ewick and Silbey, The common place of law : stories from everyday life57 Ibid58 Representative from SAC59 The name of the Swedish act is Lag 2013:644 om rätt till lön och annan ersättning för arbete utfört av en utlänning som inte har rätt att vistas i Sverige.60 Representative from SAC61 Labour court AD 28/2162 Representative from the union for forest, wood, and graphic industries.63 Berntsen, 'Stepping up to strike: a union mobilization case study of Polish migrant workers in the Netherlands'¸ Louisa Vogiazides and Charlotta Hedberg, 'Trafficking for forced labour and labour exploitation in Sweden: examples from the restaurant and the berry industries' in Natalia Ollus, Anniina Jokinen and Matti Joutsen (eds), Exploitation of migrant workers in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Lithuania : uncovering the links between recruitment, irregular employment practices and labour trafficking (European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations 2013)64 https://www.arbetarcentrum.nu/produkt/stamningsansokan/ accessed 25 May 202265 Representative from the Union Centre for the Undocumented66 Labour Court AD 27/2167 Ewick and Silbey, The common place of law : stories from everyday life68 Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden'69 Erik Bengtsson, 'Social dumping cases in the Swedish Labour Court in the wake of Laval, 2004–2010' (2016) 37 Economic and Industrial Democracy 2370 Ibid71 see Erik Sjödin, 'Criminalisation as a response to low wages and labour market exploitation in Sweden' (2021) 12 European Labour Law Journal 52972 There are however several examples from the last 20 years of other unions litigating in the Labour Court to claim the rights of individual migrant workers, which have resulted in damages being paid to the union members (see AD 1/07, AD 54/09, AD 76/10, AD 54/19, AD 45/22). Presumably there are more cases than these, since settlements prior to a main hearing are not published by the court and will thus not have been identified in our digital searches.73 Labour Court AD 17/2274 Labour Court AD 28/2175 Labour Court AD 45/2276 McCann, 'Legal Mobilization and Social Reform Movements: Notes on Theory and Its Application Part IV: Contesting Rights'77 see McCann, Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization78 SAC ’Fackligt program för SAC-syndikalisterna’ https://www.sac.se/Om-SAC/Styrdokument/Fackligt-program-f%C3%B6r-SAC-Syndikalisterna, accessed 22 January 202379 William J. Chambliss, 'Towards a political economy of crime' (1975) 2 Theory and Society 149; Austin T. Turk, 'Law as a Weapon in Social Conflict' (1976) 23 Social Problems 27680 This stand in contrast to the positive perceptions of the traditional trade unions Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden'81 cf. Taylor, 'Ambivalent Legal Mobilization: Perceptions of Justice and the Use of the Tutela in Colombia'82 Chambliss, 'Towards a political economy of crime'; Turk, 'Law as a Weapon in Social Conflict'.83 William J. Chambliss, 'On Lawmaking' (1979) 6 British Journal of Law and Society 14984 Maja Sager and Marta Kolankiewicz, ' Critical legal practices. Approaches to law in contemporary anti-racist social justice struggles in Sweden' (2022) 16 Studies in Social Justice85 Simon Halliday and Bronwen Morgan, 'I Fought the Law and the Law Won? Legal Consciousness and the Critical Imagination' (2013) 66 Current Legal Problems 1; ibid86 Selberg, 'The Laws of "Illegal" Work and Dilemmas in Interest Representation on Segmented Labor Markets: A Propos Irregular Migrants in Sweden'87 See Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (University of Chicago Press 1966); Martti Koskenniemi, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300-1870 (Cambridge University Press 2021).88 Michael Molavi 'Collective Legal Mobilisation: Exploring Class Actions in Sweden and Canada' this issue89 Johan Karlsson Schaffer, Mikael Rask Madsen, Malcolm Langford ‘An unlikely rights revolution: Legal mobilization in Scandinavia since the 1970s’, this issue90 Riksrevisionen ’Statens insatser mot exploatering av arbetskraft– regelverk, kontroller samt information och stöd till de drabbade’ (2020), RiR 2020:27; Herzfeld Olsson, Petra. "Konsten att inkludera arbetskraftsmigranter i den svenska arbetsrättsliga modellen." Juridisk Tidskrift 2019, no. 3 (2019/20) Juridisk Tidsskrift 638; Woolfson, Thörnqvist & Herzfeld Olsson ‘Forced Labour in Sweden? The Case of Migrant Berry Pickers’, (2011) A Report to the Council of Baltic Sea States Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings: Forced Labour Exploitation and Counter Trafficking in the Baltic Sea Region.91 Sjödin, Erik. "Arbetsmarknadens skuggsida–rättsföljder vid för låga löner." Juridisk tidskrift 20, no. 3 (2019/20) Juridisk tidskrift 671.92 Isabel Schoultz and Heraclitos Muhire, ‘Is there any criminal law protection for exploited migrant workers in Sweden? Logics of criminal law and the labour migration regime’ (2023) 24 Nordic Journal of Criminology