Books

NEW BOOK (December 2009): Global Cities at Work: New Migrant Divisions of Labour. For a 20% discount and the chance to buy this book at just £16, please download this form and return to Pluto Press.

Journal articles

Wills, J. May, J. Datta, K. Evans, Y. Herbert, J. and McIlwaine, C. (2009) London’s Migrant Division of Labour. European Urban and Regional Studies special issue on Regions and migration, 2009, 3: 257–271.

Wills, J. Datta, K. Evans, Y. Herbert, J. May, J. and McIlwaine, C. (2009) Religion at work: The role of faith-based organisations in living wage campaigns for immigrant workers in London. Special issue entitled Transforming Work, The Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2009, 1–19 doi:10.1093/cjres/rsp016.

Datta, K. McIlwaine, C. Herbert, J. Evans, Y. May, J. and Wills, J. (2009) Men on the move: narratives of migration and work among low-paid migrant men in London. Social & Cultural Geography, 10, Issue 8, 2009: 853 – 873.

Herbert, J., May, J., Wills, J., Datta, K., Evans, Y. and McIlwaine, C. (2008) 'Multicultural living? Experiences of everyday racism amongst Ghanaian migrants in London', European Urban and Regional Studies, 15: 2, 103-117

Evans, Y. Wills, J, Datta, K, Herbert, J, McIlwaine, C and May, J (2007) ‘‘‘Subcontracting by stealth” in London’s hotels: impacts and implications for labour organising‘. Just Labor: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, 10, 85–97. Published online: www.justlabour.yorku.ca/

Datta, K, McIlwaine, C, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, May, J and Wills, J (2007) ‘From coping strategies to tactics: London’s low paid economy and migrant labour’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 45 (2): 404-32.

May, J, Wills, J, Datta, K, Evans, Y, Herbert, J and McIlwaine, C (2007) ‘Keeping London working: global cities, the British state and London’s migrant division of labour’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32 (2):151-167.

Datta, K, McIlwaine, C, Wills, J, Evans, Y, Herbert, J and May, J (2007) ‘The new development finance or exploiting migrant labour? Remittance sending among low-paid migrant workers in London’, International Development Planning Review, 29 (1): 43-67

Chapters in books

May, J. Datta, K. Evans, E. Herbert, J. McIlwaine, C. and Wills J. Travelling neoliberalism: Polish and Ghanaian migrants workers in London, in Smith, A., Stenning, A. and Willis, K. (eds) Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global perspectives. London, Zed.

Wills, J. McIlwaine, C. Datta, K. May, J. Herbert, J. and Evans, Y. (2010) New Migrant Divisions of Labour in N. Coe and A. Jones (eds) The Economic Geography of the UK. London: Sage (2010).

Wills, J. Datta, K. May, J. McIlwaine, C. Evans, Y. and Herbert J. (2010) (Im)migration, local, regional and uneven development, in A. Pike, A. Rodriguez-Pose and J. Tomaney (Eds) Routledge Handbook of Local and Regional Development. London: Routledge.

Research reports (these are largely earlier versions of the articles that have been published and are listed above with the exception of the report about Brazilians in London

Evans, Y, Herbert, J, Datta, D, May, J, McIlwaine, C and Wills, J (2005) Making the City Work: Low Paid Employment in London pp 1-36.
The research surveyed four key areas of the London economy and provides important findings on the characteristics of the people engaged in this work, their conditions of employment and their household circumstances. The report highlights how London's economy is reliant on migrant labour that endures very low wages, few work related benefits, unsociable hours, high rates of deskilling and low benefit uptake. [PDF 744KB]

Evans, Y, Wills, J, Datta, K, Herbert, J, McIlwaine, C, May, J, Araújo, J O, França, A C, França, A P (2007) Brasileiros em Londres Relatório para a campanha De Estrangeiros a Cidadãos (Strangers into Citizens), pp 1-18. Este relatório contém os resultados de um levantamento de brasileiros em Londres que delineam um perfil sócio-econômico desta comunidade de novos imigrantes no Reino Unido. O relatório assinala os motivos de sua vinda ao Reino Unido, sua entrada e permanência no país, os empregos e trabalhos que obtêm assim como os niveís salariais, e revela também suas expectativas quanto à sua permanência aqui. [PDF 573 KB]

Evans, Y, Wills, J, Datta, K, Herbert, J, McIlwaine, C, May, J, Araújo, J O, França, A C, França, A P (2007) Brazilians in London. A report for the Strangers into Citizens Campaign, pp 1-18. The report contains the findings of a survey of Brazilians in London which provide a socio-economic profile of this new immigrant community in the UK. The report highlights their reasons for coming to the UK, their entry and permanence, the jobs they take up, their pay levels, as well their expectations about remaining in the UK. [PDF 563 KB]

Wills, J. May, J. Datta, K. Evans, Y. Herbert, J. and McIlwaine, C. (2008) London's changing migrant division of labour. Working Paper 10. This paper is located in the maelstrom of debate about immigration and employment in the contemporary economy. Drawing on original data collected in and on London, UK, the paper further develops the concept of the Migrant Division of Labour (May et al., 2007). The paper presents original analysis of data from the Labour Force Survey and a workplace case study in the cleaning sector to highlight growing employer dependence on a very diverse pool of foreign-born labour. The paper then goes on to explain such dependency by drawing on interview material collected from employers, employers’ associations, community organisations and policy makers. This material highlights the dynamism in London's migrant division of labour.

Datta, K., McIlwaine, C.J., Herbert, H., Evans, Y., May, J., and Wills, J. (2008) Mobile masculinities: Men, migration and low paid work in London pp 44
ISBN: 0 902238 57 4 [pdf, 1.3mb]

Evans, Y, Wills, J, Datta, K, Herbert, J, McIlwaine, J and May, J (2007) The Living Wage: Challenging ‘Subcontracting by Stealth’ in London’s Hotels, Working Paper 8, pp 1-13, September. Drawing on survey data and in-depth interviews, this paper examine changes in employment relations in London’s hotels, highlighting the emergence of ‘subcontracting by stealth’, whereby hotels employ an increasing number of agency staff on lower wages and poorer working conditions than those of in-house staff. The report argues that the Living Wage Campaign help counter the negative impacts of subcontracting on hotel workers. [PDF 268KB]

Wills, J (2007) A global workforce in a global city: The skills, experiences and aspirations of a group of contract cleaners in London, UK, Working Paper 7, pp 1-27, April. This report explores the experiences of workers who were employed by one contract cleaning company to clean an office building at Canary Wharf in 2006. Managers at the contract cleaning company commissioned the research to better understand the existing skills-based, experiences and aspirations of their staff with a view to their future career development. [PDF 638KB]

Herbert, J, Datta, K, Evans, Y, May, J, McIlwaine, C and Wills, J (2006) Multiculturalism at work: The experiences of Ghanaians in London, Working Paper 6, pp 1-27, November. This paper explores the experiences of Ghanaians living and working London, and the implications of their experiences for current debates about multiculturalism. The paper highlights this group’s experiences of exclusion and racism in the labour market and their responses to these experiences. It is argued that there is a vital need for white people to change and go beyond a mere lip-service of tolerance and for racism to be tackled alongside more general improvements in their poor working conditions. [PDF 383KB]

Datta, K, McIlwaine, C, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, May, J and Wills, J (2006) Work, care and life among low-paid migrant workers in London: towards a migrant ethic of care, Working Paper 5, pp 1-36, November. This paper examines providers of care through paid employment and how migrants across the spectrum of low-paid employment manage their own care responsibilities for children in relation to the work-life balance. The paper reveals how caring work in the marketplace can potentially jeopardise the ability of migrants to develop their own viable unpaid work-care strategies and highlights the need for the development of a ‘migrant ethic of care’ that takes full account of the gendered and racialised nature of both paid and unpaid caring. [PDF 389KB]

Datta, K, McIlwaine, C, Wills, J, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, and May, J (2006) Challenging remittances as the new development mantra: perspectives from low-paid migrant workers in London, Working Paper 4, pp 1-37, September. This paper critically examines the extent to which remittances can be hailed as the 'new development finance' in light of the costs of remitting on low-paid migrant workers themselves. Drawing on empirical research, it highlights the nature of remittance sending, the working conditions under which remittances are produced as well as the personal sacrifices that migrants have to endure in order to generate remittances. [PDF 464KB]

McIlwaine, C, Datta, K, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, May, J and Wills, J (2006) Gender and Ethnic identities among Low-paid Migrant Workers in London, Working Paper 3, pp 1-29, June. Drawing on a mixed methods framework, this paper discusses findings from aproject examining the experiences of low-paid migrant workers in London. It illustrates, first, the fluid and contingent nature of migrant identities from a gender, and to a lesser extent, ethnicperspective. Second, it highlights the ways in which migrants often attempt to rationalise their labour market experiences in order to validate their position in low-paid and low status jobs. [PDF 668KB]

May, J, Wills, J, Datta, K, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, and McIlwaine, C (2006) The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, Working Paper 2, pp 1-38, March. The paper explores the emergence of a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London and stresses the role of the British State in shaping this divide. The paper argues that these changes necessitate a re-conceptualisation of the place of migrant workers in the ‘global city’ and outlines the implications for politics and policy in London. [PDF 460KB]

Datta, K, McIlwaine, C, Evans, Y, Herbert, J, May, J and Wills, J (2006) Work and Survival Strategies Among Low-Paid Migrants in London, Working Paper 1, pp 1-31, March. Drawing upon survey data and in-depth interviews this paper outlines coping strategies that workers create in order to survive and in some cases improve their lives in the future. These include both individual and collective income-maximising and expenditure-minimising mechanisms, as well the use of ethnic-based networks that operate at a community level. [PDF 736KB]

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