Whose interests? A comparative study on trade unions' responses to migration and migrants in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Portugal

Migration is an increasingly complex issue that is on the agenda of most societal actors, including trade unions. Trade unions are key non-state actors that influence labour market policies and immigration processes in Europe; it is therefore important to understand how they respond to migration. This project provides a qualitative and comparative in-depth study on trade unions’ responses to migration and migrants in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Portugal. The core question the project seeks to answer is whether the unions’ responses to migration and migrants promote ethnic/national equality in the labour markets – or vice versa. The selected unions represent the healthcare sector and restaurant, cleaning, and hotel work. The project innovatively combines many types of research material: interviews with union representatives, union programmes and websites, and data collected at union conferences.