Workers without Borders
Posted Work and Precarity in the EU
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2244563 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven Peter Valla (0000-0003-4101-3353, Northeastern University, corresponding author), Steven Valla (0000-0002-3836-6230), Steven Vallas (Northeastern University) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 98 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1-2 |
| Publication date | 2019-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Forces (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7732 • E-ISSN: 1534-7605 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/sf/soz069 |
| OpenAlex | W2948003254 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
Secure and stable forms of employment are besieged across much of the developed world. Because this development adversely affects millions of workers, while also fueling ethno-nationalist and anti-immigrant movements in many quarters, systematic research is badly needed on the structural dynamics that generate such shifts in labor market institutions. Ines Wagner’s Workers without Borders provides a good example of the kind of scholarship which the precarization trend requires, focusing in particular on the dark underside of labor market integration among European Union economies. The book focuses on a glaring policy failure at the heart of the EU project: its emphasis on the interests of capital and its general neglect of labor’s vulnerability as once-distinct national economies grow ever more intertwined. At issue in Wagner’s book is the growing deployment of “posted” workers, in which employers in high wage regions of Europe outsource work to subcontractors who can supply migrant workers from in low wage EU member nations. Through this practice, firms can easily to evade the wage standards, labor regulations and social insurance obligations which the host country would otherwise require. Because the use of posted workers is by its very nature a shadowy practice, data on the frequency of its use is hard to come by. What seems beyond dispute is that the phenomenon is sufficiently pervasive as to transform host economies in significant ways, undermining labor standards and protections that have long been taken for granted.
Business · Economic growth · Economics · European union · International trade · Labour economics · Market economy · Outsourcing · Political science · Precarity · Scholarship · Wage · Work (physics) · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics
| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2024 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |