February 25, 2015
This case follows GMB's (Britain's General Union) attempt to create a migrant workers branch of the union in Southampton, UK. Comprised of workers from Poland, Pakistan, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries, the union was able to organize the migrant workers mainly through skills and language educational programs. The case discusses the challenges faced by the migrant branch including controversy within the unions about creating a separate branch in lieu of developing a more integrated approach to migrant workers.
The GMB case study draws from research for this project as well as secondary sources such as Fraser (2006), Heyes (2009), and Karmowska and James (2012).