Mobilizing for Recognition: Indie Unions, Migrant Workers, and Strategic Equality Act Litigation

Abstract

Drawing on a broad repertoire of action, including strategic litigation, several new activist unions have appeared that seek to represent the multiracial working class of contemporary Britain. Although the court cases that have drawn the most attention are those that challenge the misclassification of employees or ‘workers’ as ‘self-employed’, another dimension of these unions’ strategic litigation has been the utilization of the Equality Act 2010 (Equality Act) to allege racial discrimination. The contention advanced in this article is that it might be possible to read unions’ increasing use of the Equality Act as instances of them pursuing a politics of recognition. For those of us interested in analysing and assessing the strategies of unions in respect of their multiracial membership, the critical question is why and how race discrimination claims may act to boost indie unions’ efforts to organize diverse workplaces. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s work that asserts a politics of recognition can contribute to a politics of redistribution, this article proposes that recognition claims may be advancing the broader goals of labour organizing by building a worker subjectivity poised for action, and a collective identity undergirded by respect, mutual understanding, and solidarity. Discrimination, Migrant Workers, Legal Mobilization, Recognition, Organizing