TRANSCLASS · Transnational meanings and makings of class: Polish labour, capital and the state

Transnational meanings and makings of class: Polish labour, capital and the state

Class is an important category that explains unequal relations between workers and employers, traditionally examining these relations within a single nation-state. This research has examined how class is made and imagined in instances in which transnational capitalist processes release both capital and labour from the national confines, and anchor them in multiple countries simultaneously, and what remains of the nation state’s role as the guardian of a particular class’s interests. The answer is provided by way of an ethnographic analysis of posted work, a European Union mobility regime that involves the transnational subcontracting of foreign labour for short-term projects under the provision of service. The analysis is conducted from the perspective of Polish construction workers posted to Belgium, Polish employers who post Polish workers abroad, and the Polish state as the sending country. This research has grown out of the conviction that transnationally and culturally sensitive investigations of class transformations can help us to better understand economic situation and power struggles that emerge under global capitalism, and to further political possibilities for a more just and equal European society, one which is open to transnational mobility, rather than one which normalizes national boundaries and stasis. Posted work is a rapidly growing type of European mobility (which saw a 44% increase between 2012 and 2014), amounting to 1.93 million workers. Poland posts between 220,000 and 605,000 workers annually, with figures varying depending on the mode of calculation of the Portable Document A1, which legitimizes workers’ posted status. I view posted work as an emblematic context through which transnational complexities of class transformations, and the conflicting interests which mark the project of European integration, might be studied and theorized. Posting is regulated by the national implementation of two transnational European policies: the Posted Workers Directive (96/71/EC and 2014/67/EU) and the Regulation on the Coordination of the Social Security Systems (883/2004 and 987/2009). They create posting as a legal exception: posted workers do not move as individual migrants, but under the transnational umbrella of their employers. Their mobility generates an institutional split, whereby workers are subjected to the destination country’s superior labour standards, but remain insured and pay taxes (up to 183 days) in the country of origin in which their employer is also located. Because Polish posted workers are institutionally anchored in Poland, their insurance premiums and taxes are lower than in the Western countries of destination. This makes posting an appealing business model for the employers, but is seen as problematic from the destination country’s perspective.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз