Ep 3: Trade unions and immigration

Labour Days: a labour movement podcast

Daniel, Ellie, and Edd discuss migrant workers' struggles past and present, and explore debates in the historic and contemporary labour movement around immigration controls, arguing that trade unions are strongest when they oppose border controls and seek to organise all workers, regardless of immigration status or national origin. The episode features interviews with Sujata Aurora from the Grunwick 40 Committee, who explains the history of the Grunwick strike and the Committee's work to commemorate it, and Henry Lopez, President of the Independent Workers' union of Great Britain (IWGB), who discuss his union's organising amongst migrant workers, including their ongoing dispute involving outsourced security workers at the University of London. Grunwick 40 Committee: https://grunwick40.wordpress.com IWGB website: https://iwgb.org.uk IWGB University of London branch, which is organising the dispute mentioned in the interview with Henry: https://iwgb-universityoflondon.org United Voices of the World (not mentioned in the episode, but another radical union organising amongst migrant workers, including the ongoing cleaners' strike at the London School of Economics): https://www.uvwunion.org.uk The articles referred to in this episode are: "A Voice from the Aliens" (1905): available online at http://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/WES/4/2/9 "Free movement has failed — Labour and the unions must recognise it", by Paul Embery (Huffington Post, 2016): http://huffpost.com/uk/entry/13112058 "Trade union movement must connect with the working class post-Brexit", by Paul Embery (Westmonster, 2017): http://www.westmonster.com/trade-union-movement-must-reconnect-with-working-class-post-brexit Gerard Coyne objecting to "the presence of a v large number of foreign nationals" (Twitter, 2017): https://twitter.com/gerard_coyne/status/815873144619728896 Intro music and audio motif taken from 'Labor' by Aesop Rock. We do not own this music, which is copyright Def Jux, 2001.