“Are Some Are More Equal Than Others?” Comparing Immigrant Insiders in Export and Sheltered Sectors of Coordinated Economies

The refugee crisis of 2015 delivered upwards of 1 million migrants to Europe’s shores. The vast majority of these sojourners named Germany as their desired destination. Although this contemporary crisis is only the latest manifestation of increased migration associated with globalization, few studies on the coordinated market economies of Western Europe have examined the experiences of immigrant insiders (Palier and Thelen 2010; Rueda and King 2006) as this paper proposes to do. What has been well established among scholars is that coordinated economies are no longer as egalitarian as they have been in the past, given that many workers can no longer turn to unions to deliver collective bargaining agreements with comprehensive gains for both exposed and sheltered sectors (Martin and Thelen 20007). Unionized workers contend instead with growing divides between a stable, well-paid core workforce (insiders) and those engaged in precarious, low-wage employment (outsiders). Research in industrial relations on immigrants largely contrasts the experiences of non-unionized immigrants and natives, documenting extensively the obstacles faced by immigrant outsiders at work that allow for greater employer exploitation (Hardy, Eldring and Schulten 2012; Tapia and Turner 2013). What remains unclear is the degree to which immigrant insiders share employment arrangements comparable to those of their non-immigrant colleagues. Also unknown is whether the relative working conditions of immigrant insiders vis-à-vis their non-immigrant colleagues varies across export and sheltered sectors of coordinated economies. Utilizing data from original interviews and secondary case studies of manufacturing and public hospital work sites in Germany, this paper argues that an ethnic dimension to dualization can be observed within the core workforce.