Migrant Workers and Labor Activism in the Margins: Worker Centers as an Organizational Field
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/mig.i49.y2020.002Keywords:
worker centers, community unionism, trade unions, organizational field, migrant workersAbstract
Worker centers are community-based organizations that provide services, undertake political advocacy and organize low-waged workers, mainly migrants, in the USA. This article attempts to analyze worker centers as an organizational field, paying attention to the factors that foster both isomorphism and heterogeneity. Drawing on an ethnographic study in NYC metropolitan area, it concludes that before a context of segmentation of the labor market and lack of trade union engagement in secondary labor markets, the response of migrant workers has focused on developing their own organizational forms, whose main asset are the networks that are (re) created for adapting. In addition, as an organizational field, the networks among these organizations imply both collaboration and competition. In this sense, the article identifies two main models: one that tends to institutionalization and another that put emphasis on direct action and the workplace.
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