This chapter examines the relationship between migrant workers and trade unions in different host countries. Based on a series of biographic interviews with Estonian migrant workers in Finland and Albanian workers in Italy and Greece, it makes the case that when migrants join unions, it is usually a result of an individual movement out of precarious and sometimes informal work into secure, formal work relations. The availability of such secure jobs for migrants is a result of inclusive national institutions of labour market regulation, and a strong trade union workplace presence. Although in all three countries the migrants were quite passive and instrumentalist in their relations to unions, they nonetheless generally joined when working in unionized contexts, as a way of conforming to workplace norms.
European trade union policy and collective bargaining- mechanisms and levels of labour market regulation in comparison