Power Through Problem Solving: Latino Immigrants and The

POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE Popul. Space Place (2016) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/psp.2023 Power Through Problem Solving: Latino Immigrants and the Inconsistencies of Economic Restructuring Nichola Lowe1,* and Natasha Iskander2 1Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC USA 2Wagner School of Public Service, New York University, New York, NY USA

ABSTRACT that challenge standard narratives of native dominance and immigrant exploitation. The Employment restructuring is a transformative result is intensified interdependency and process that brings about significant changes in ultimately the creation of an enduring relational how work is organised and experienced. resource for promoting worker rights and also Scholars who study restructuring in industries for guiding further immigrant advocacy. that employ large numbers of immigrant Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. workers, including construction, food processing, or janitorial services, often point to Accepted 23 February 2016 the undermining effects of this transformation on industry wage standards, working Keywords: immigration; restructuring; skill conditions, and training supports. But often missing from these accounts is a recognition that restructuring is uneven and incomplete at RESTRUCTURING REVISITED best and often produces shortcomings and limitations that continue to frustrate and mployment restructuring is a form of perplex immigrant and native-born workers economic transformation that brings alike. Drawing on a multi-year study of E about significant changes in how work is construction workers in Raleigh-Durham, organised and experienced. Restructuring affects North Carolina, we find Latino immigrants are workers of all types and across diverse industry far from passive inheritors of the problems of and labour market boundaries. Immigrant restructuring that they and others encounter workers, particularly recent immigrants, during their daily work. Rather, they respond to however, tend to be especially vulnerable to its these challenges with innovative and lasting negative effects. As new labour market entrants, solutions, developing new work structures and immigrants are not often in a position to pick routines that support industry skill and choose among jobs opportunities. In development, knowledge sharing, and quality economic parlance, they are job ‘takers’, rarely standards. Equally important, their native-born able to challenge the jobs made available to them supervisors and co-workers have learned to in their adopted labour markets. Immigrants who value these solutions and ultimately have are undocumented may experience additional stepped in as influential allies, helping vulnerabilities because their legal status may immigrant workers leverage these limit their access to support institutions, which contributions to secure improved working are often essential for circumnavigating or legally conditions and higher compensation levels. challenging poor working conditions. These exchanges have tethered immigrant and As a result, scholars who study industries that non-immigrant workers together and in ways rely on immigrant labour emphasise how employment restructuring guts industry wage *Correspondence to: Nichola Lowe, Department of City and standards, working conditions, and training Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. supports (Zlolniski, 1993; Theodore, 2003; E-mail: [email protected] Doussard, 2008; Bernhardt et al., 2013). Once

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2 N. Lowe and N. Iskander restructured, jobs in these industries provide has experienced tremendous influx of Latino limited scope for advancement for immigrants immigrants since the late 1990s, a large share of and more often than not involve work which are undocumented. With this demographic environments that are demeaning, unsafe, and change, employment practices have also evolved physically demanding (Theodore et al., 2008). to include greater labour subcontracting and task Studies of this stripe help document the ways in specialisation among firms along the contracting which employment restructuring augments chain. In some cases, second and third tier worker vulnerability and powerlessness and puts subcontractors, specialise in labour procurement, immigrant workers in an especially vulnerable are acting as labour brokers that recruit, place, position via-a-vis their employers and also non- and at times, obscure the legal status of immigrant co-workers and supervisors (Weil, undocumented immigrants. 2014). As labour subcontracting has taken hold as Missing from these accounts, however, is established practice, it has enabled recognition that restructuring is uneven and undocumented immigrants to gain access to jobs inconsistent at best. For starters, restructuring – in some cases through long term subcontracting does not automatically result in complete arrangements – at prominent commercial and replacement by immigrants of a previously institutional construction sites. In this regard, employed native-born workforce. Equally likely our case provides an opportunity to study semi- are blended forms of labour market integration formal work arrangements that involve that result in immigrants working side by side mainstream, visible, and prominent organisations with native-born workers, with the latter acting and institutions, but with fluid employment as supervisors or as higher ranked and more structures in place that also support high levels influential co-workers (Bailey & Waldinger, of incorporation of undocumented immigrants. 1991; Griffith, 2005; Doussard, 2008). Nor is But within this restructured labour market, restructuring universally valued by those in immigrant workers also find opportunities to positions of power or authority. Certainly, there make valuable contributions that improve are cases where native-born co-workers and ‘mainstream’ industry performance. These supervisors use restructuring as a means to exert opportunities come at a time when traditional control over the immigrant workforce in ways practices and institutions for replenishing that worsen inequities and working conditions workforce skill and promoting quality (Griffith, 2005). But restructuring can also create construction have been undermined – new and unexpected industry challenges and unanticipated changes that ultimately reveal frictions that instead bring the interests and needs inconsistencies within the labour subcontracting of native-born incumbents and immigrants into system. Faced with the practical challenges this closer alignment (Bosch & Philips, 2003; Connelly has created, immigrant construction workers & Gallagher, 2004). have developed strategies that support skill Presented in this light, employment development, knowledge sharing, and quality restructuring is less a wholesale replacement of standards. These strategies are informal in that one set of practices (and people) with another. they depart from the institutionally prescribed Rather, it unfolds unevenly as a work in progress and sanctioned pathways for learning and for – one that is shaped and even contested by the making skill visible. As important, their native- various industry actors, immigrant and non- born workers supervisors and co-workers are immigrant alike, that encounter and enact learning to value these solutions and, with some restructuring in their daily work life. In this acting as influential allies, helping immigrant regard, restructuring, as with most labour market workers leverage these contributions to improve dynamics (Herod, 2001), is not only participatory working conditions, secure higher compensation and ‘lived’, but also subject to collective action levels, and at times, even secure formal and interaction. employment. Our reframing of restructuring as a fluid, Before turning to the empirics of the case, participatory, and inconsistent process is based including describing the rise of labour on a multi-year study of construction workers in subcontracting in North Carolina’s construction Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina – a region that industry, we first provide an overview of

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp Latino Immigrants and the Inconsistencies of Economic Restructuring 3 contemporary perspectives on employment better remuneration are dismantled. Wage theft restructuring and its disproportionate effect on has also been noted in numerous reports on the immigrant workers in particular. We then outline effects of subcontracting on immigrants the challenges that labour subcontracting has (Milkman, 2010; Fussell, 2011). Moreover, the created in North Carolina’s construction restructuring process can result in diminished workforce and the solutions offered up by the industry safety standards, as nested labour Latino immigrant workforce. Finally, we subcontracting arrangements obfuscate which conclude by reflecting on the recognition businesses are assigned legal liability immigrant workers receive from native-born (Valenzuela, 2003; Theodore et al., 2008). Related supervisors and how this translates into tangible to this, employee misclassification is worker benefits. We argue this represents an commonplace, whereby immigrants are wrongly underutilised interdependency that immigrant categorised as independent (sub)contractors and labour advocates could make greater use of rather than wage employees and, in the process, for elevating the status of immigrant workers in lose essential rights as workers (Wells, 1996). In North Carolina and beyond. this regard, misclassification is not simply a coping mechanism through which employers THE INCONSISTENCIES AND conceal their dependence on a mostly INTERDEPENDENCIES OF RESTRUCTURING undocumented immigrant workforce – rather, it can be part of a more pernicious strategy that Economic restructuring can take a variety of reinforces immigrant vulnerability to employer forms, although many contemporary accounts abuse. stress connections between the restructuring Still, despite their precarious position, process and increased worker vulnerability. immigrants are not just complacent actors within Examples of employment restructuring are well restructured labour markets. A number of documented for immigrant heavy service and scholars have demonstrated their ability to resource-based industries that mostly employ successfully challenge and resist harmful forms less educated immigrants, including agriculture, of restructuring, including those stemming from janitorial services, and construction. (Zlolniski, abuses under legally questionable forms of 1993; Peck & Theodore, 1998; Doussard, 2008; labour subcontracting. While research on this Weil, 2014). In these industries, restructuring topic tends to emphasise improvements to job often involves the rise in contingent forms of quality and wage security that result from employment, most notably labour subcontracting immigrant affiliation with formal labour market (Wells, 1996; Peck & Theodore, 2001). intermediaries, especially worker centres or Furthermore, the adoption of labour labour unions (Fine, 2006; Milkman, 2006; Martin subcontracting in these industries is often et al., 2007), a growing body of research extends associated with greater incorporation of this further by featuring less explicit and marginalised, and often undocumented, deliberate acts of resistance and collective action immigrant workers and a subsequent shift away by immigrant workers themselves. from a native-born or more established As one illustration, Christian Zlolinski has immigrant workforce (Zlolniski, 2003; Doussard, documented instances whereby predominantly 2008). Under this arrangement, immigrants rarely undocumented Latino immigrant janitors secure direct employment from the end-user employed through nested subcontracting businesses or clients. More typically, they are arrangements in Northern California resisted hired through elaborate, often informal networks attempts by employers to speed up the work of labour subcontractors or temporary staffing routine in ways that would have undermined agencies (Zlolniski, 1993; Weil, 2014). their work performance (Zlolniski, 2003, 2006). The use of labour subcontracting in industries As one example, undocumented immigrant largely employing immigrants is closely janitors worked together to expedite completion associated with the degradation of the conditions of more routine tasks, thereby giving them extra of employment: industry wage standards are breathing room to accommodate more eroded, and the formal training systems used by challenging tasks (Zlolniski, 2003). At the same workers to acquire trade skills and leverage time, they coordinated strategies to create room

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp 4 N. Lowe and N. Iskander for unauthorised, yet much deserved breaks, Willis, in her study of immigrant labour market including taking turns as ‘look out’ for incorporation in North Carolina hosiery industry, approaching supervisors or clients. As this case extends the analysis furthest to examine demonstrates, immigrant workers can develop immigrant advancement opportunities that collective strategies to resist attempts by emerge at the jobsite itself (Willis, 2005). In her employers and supervisors to undermine poor particular case, highly-skilled Anglo workers working conditions (See also Wells, 1996). with decades of hosiery industry experience But also revealed through Zlolniski’ s detailed stepped in to support immigrant newcomers to ethnographic account are inconsistencies within the industry – but only once they had recognised restructured industries that immigrant workers the contribution of immigrant workers to have been able to leverage to reassert control over stabilising domestic hosiery employment. In the labour process. As Zlolinski stresses, essence, Latino immigrants filled a growing resistance by these industry newcomers was not industry void created as younger native-born simply an attempt to shirk established work residents turned away from traditional routines and responsibilities. Rather, immigrant manufacturing industries. In response, native- janitors resisted contradictory pressures imposed born incumbents provided Latino immigrants on them by their own employers – namely the with on-the-job training and, in the process, contradictory pulls they experienced between helped move them up the career ladder. As Willis client expectations for quality standards and the notes, ‘reaching out to the Spanish-speaking pressure placed on them to reduce costs by (immigrant workers) on the shop floor to … limiting how much time they allocated to engage them in more technological training was individual tasks. In response, ‘workers were not critical in ensuring that the mill will remain protesting their employer’s attempt to transform competitive’ (Willis, 2005, parentheses added). them into professional “custodial employees”, In essence, high-ranking, native-born workers but rather that the company failed to do so perceived training of immigrants as a necessary despite its official discourse’ in support of coping strategy to save their own jobs. quality service (Zlolniski, 2003). This ‘mismatch’ In this respect, the North Carolina hosiery case pushed immigrant workers to come up with foreshadows related dynamics we observe in the innovative solutions in an attempt to remove state’s construction industry. However, in obstacles to good performance and quality contrast to their counterparts in hosiery, workmanship. immigrant construction workers have not simply Ultimately, in this particular case, neither relied on native-born North Carolinians to impart employer nor client valued the innovative established knowledge and, thus, determine their solutions put forward by immigrant janitors. industry worth and value. Rather, immigrant As a result, the pressure to speed up the work construction workers have been active routine prevailed, forcing immigrant janitors participants in their own value creation, using to forego attempts at achieving quality collective knowledge and shared expertise to performance. But what might have happened devise innovative approaches to work-based if employers (or for that matter non-immigrant training and quality control. Additionally, their co-workers) took greater notice of these native-born supervisors have themselves learned immigrant-authored practices and, in turn, to value and defend that contribution – recognised and defended their contribution to recognising immigrant-authored solutions to quality service? How might employment conditions persistent industry challenges. In this regard, havechangedifemployershadincorporatedthe native-born construction workers do not simply informal strategies that migrants had developed to view their immigrant co-workers as a temporary resolve organisational contradiction in the formal resource for buffering against immediate or management structures of the janitorial service? individual job loss. Rather, they have embraced What effect might this have had on their status immigrants as essential partners in an on-going and bargaining power as workers? effort to reclaim control over the labour process Additional ethnographic research provides and, in turn, reintroduce deeply held values and some insight into this alternative outcome (Willis, norms around quality work and craftsmanship. 2005; Du Bry, 2007; Gomberg-Muñoz, 2010). As we argue further on in this paper, the

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp Latino Immigrants and the Inconsistencies of Economic Restructuring 5 exchanges Latino entrants and native supervisors Information on employment restructuring and have tethered immigrant and non-immigrant labour market dynamics was also captured workers together and in ways that challenge through an in-depth review of industry archives standard narratives of native dominance and and trade publications from 1980 to 2005, immigrant exploitation. The result is intensified including monthly publications of an influential interdependency and the creation of an enduring industry association, the Carolina’s branch of relational resource for promoting worker rights the Associated General Contractors. and guiding further immigrant advocacy. RESTRUCTURING IN NORTH CAROLINA DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY Since the early 1980s, North Carolina’s urban To examine employment restructuring and construction industry has gone through a worker responses to it, we relied on open-ended protracted period of restructuring that has shifted interviews with approximately 125 Latino the dominant work structure. Admittedly, this immigrant construction workers at or near transformation has opened up job opportunities project sites in Raleigh-Durham area of North for Latino immigrants; most of them are recent Carolina. The vast majority of immigrants arrivals, and many are undocumented. But it interviewed were from Mexico, although many has also generated challenges in training, project arrived via other US destinations. We asked management, and quality control for the open-ended questions about their migration industry, which Latino immigrants not only journey, with responses suggesting the majority encounter at work, but also have helped to of our sample was also undocumented. resolve. Interviews with immigrant workers were A key component of this restructuring mostly conducted off-site to encourage workers involves the diffusion of labour subcontracting to speak more candidly about their employment throughout North Carolina’s commercial and experience. We coupled immigrant worker large-scale residential construction industry. interviews with open-ended interviews with their Labour subcontracting involves the use of employers, as well as industry experts and indirect employment by specialised training providers through 2013. In addition, we subcontractors or third-party staffing agencies. conducted a dozen interviews with native-born Subcontracting of this type is not unique to North industry ‘old timers’ with over 20 years of Carolina. Starting in the late 1970s, construction industry experience and, thus, with first-hand industry associations representing general knowledge of employment restructuring and its contractors and prominent industry suppliers impacts. Most of these individuals were senior outside of North Carolina promoted labour field superintendents for prominent general outsourcing as an intentional strategy to contractors or licensed subcontractors in the undermine labour union power (Erlich & region. Each had advanced through the industry, Grabelsky, 2005; Weil, 2005). In some cities, this initially starting their construction careers as coordinated response greatly curtailed labour entry-level labourers or helpers. They provided union representation in the building trades. Still, us with a historical perspective on the industry in other places, including a number of East Coast and its employment transformation in recent cities like New York and Philadelphia, labour decades. They were also asked to reflect on their unions managed to mount a successful challenge daily interactions with Latino immigrant workers and, for the most part, have retained tight control they supervised or interacted with at the job site. over hiring and wage setting practices for non- Interviews with industry old-timers were residential construction work (Fine et al., 2008; conducted at the project site and, most often, Iskander et al., 2010). were paired with a supervised tour of that site. In North Carolina, however, labour unions This enabled us to observe immigrant were never a strong institutional influence, and construction workers on those sites and gave this helped to diffuse adoption of subcontracting industry experts an opportunity to feature their practices. An additional push came from contributions by pointing to specific types of southern general contractors who initially immigrant work practices and interactions. experimented with labour subcontracting as a

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp 6 N. Lowe and N. Iskander means to expand their southern territorial established training programmes that catered to reach in response to growth opportunities in larger general contractors and their workforce ‘Sunbelt’ cities in the 1970s. But equally, (Northrup & Northrup, 1984). Subcontractors, declining Federal support for large-scale however, were less interested in supporting these infrastructure projects forced many prominent institutions. Much of this was due to their smaller Carolina contractors to bid for smaller projects size and related resource constraints. But equally, across multiple urban geographies. Through a mismatch existed between earlier training subcontracting, general contractors were able programmes that emphasised comprehensive, to reduce direct labour costs, yet still amass a craft-style training versus the narrower task suitable (albeit temporary) workforce by orientation of most subcontractors. As relying on independent brokers in local labour subcontracting rose, worker access to formal markets to deal with worker recruitment and training programmes declined. wage setting. Changing perceptions among younger labour Subcontracting within licensed building market entrants in North Carolina further trades, namely electrical, air conditioning, compounded North Carolina’s labour and skill pipefitting, and plumbing, had long existed in shortage. A series of reports by Carolina’s North Carolina (Wood, 1990) and elsewhere Associated General Contractors captured this (Erlich & Grabelsky, 2005). But throughout the shift, pointing especially to the problem of 1980s and 1990s, the practice of subcontracting construction’s ‘low-image status’ and the ‘need extended to other, non-licensed trades and task to improve construction’s image with young areas in North Carolina, including labourers, people’. While some of this image problem painters, carpenters, and roofers. Today, the reflected a rise in college attainment among practice of labour subcontracting is nearly North Carolina’s younger population and related universal in North Carolina, and for many desire to explore employment options well construction trades and specialties, it has been beyond traditional ‘blue-collar’ occupations, it used as a strategy to further subdivide task was exacerbated by declines in industry wages responsibilities. In drywall installation, for that went hand in hand with the narrowed task example, separate subcontracting companies orientation (Wood, 1990). exist for different sub-task areas – that is to say, Labour shortages and related skill gaps were separate crews, managed by different employers, not the only problems created by labour are each responsible for hanging, taping, or subcontracting and sub-task specialisation. finishing pre-fabricated wallboards. Similar Concerns over declining quality control were also divisions exist within carpentry and brick raised in light of reduced investments in industry masonry. skill development and worker training. Ultimately, the widespread use and acceptance According to industry experts interviewed for of this practice has helped reduce barriers to this project, sub-task specialisation reduces the entry encouraging a new generation of smaller- likelihood that crews performing a given task sized contractors to set up shop. In the past within a prescribed sequence will overlap at a decade, the practice has also enabled prominent large-scale project site and this has implications general contractors in North Carolina to shed all for managing quality. As one superintendent direct employees and focus their resources explained, ‘it is important for each crew to do its entirely on supplier logistics and project best job. Otherwise the next step doesn’t turn management, leaving the task of hiring and out right. For example, if one crew countersunk managing work crews to companies further the screws too far it causes problems in laying down the contracting chain. the paper in the next step. Sometimes the quality But while subcontracting aided industry is not up to par.’ Quality control problems can growth and expansion, it also created a nagging remain hidden until subsequent tasks in a industry challenge – namely a protracted skills sequence have been completed and with crews shortage, which reflects inconsistencies in responsible for the offending action long gone. training standards and practices across North One superintendent described an incident where Carolina’s diverse construction landscape. Some cracks emerged in the finished ceilings of a of this shortage resulted from the dismantling of multi-storey, mixed-use high-rise building: each

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp Latino Immigrants and the Inconsistencies of Economic Restructuring 7 time the door opened the ceiling appeared to development through active models of training. ‘breathe’. After moving up and down, several This mentoring is often initiated by Latino hundred times the ceiling eventually cracked, immigrants themselves, not by their employers, exposing electrical wires and other structural and is typically informal in nature. It often elements. The only solution – one that was costly extends from informal social networks that and could have been avoided through better immigrants use to recruit other workers. When coordination – was to tear down and rebuild the referring a friend, family member, or former co- entire ceiling structure. Reinforcing this, yet worker for a job, an established immigrant another project supervisor noted, ‘other groups worker often trains that new recruit – a do not do such good work, forcing others to clean reciprocated practice long documented by up their mistakes’. This coordination challenge immigration scholars (Bailey & Waldinger, has created a need for workplace solutions that 1991). This training might take place at the main promote greater task integration and with it more jobsite or at side projects undertaken during consistent quality standards. weekends or evenings. Still, informal mentoring among co-ethnics is THE IMMIGRANT SOLUTION more than a mechanism for diffusing knowledge across the Latino immigrant workforce. Starting in the 1990s, Latino immigrants offered a Fundamentally, it represents an important viable solution to North Carolina’s construction challenge to passive styles of training often labour shortage (Johnson-Webb, 2002; Kasarda promoted by non-immigrant employers and & Johnson, 2006). By the mid-2000s, Latino project supervisors. Immigrants acknowledge immigrants accounted for one-third of the state’s they are often told by native-born employers construction workforce, with estimates reaching and supervisors to simply observe others at as high as 70% for urban labour markets (Martin, work, receiving simple instructions like ‘just copy 2004; Hummel, 2006). Still, in the last decade, what he does’ or ‘observe his technique’. While Latino immigrants have proven themselves to observation is certainly part of the learning be more than just a low-cost, replenishable labour process, immigrant mentors are also mindful of supply. other learning modalities, including expert Similar to the native-born incumbent demonstration, supervised experimentation, and workforce, they have encountered substantial co-worker feedback and guidance. These problems with restructuring that impede their multiple modalities are noted elsewhere as being daily work. But in response, they have also crucial to tacit skill formation in manual trades helped to resolve these shortcomings and, in the like construction (Iskander & Lowe, 2010) and process, enhance project management to the undergird most industry apprenticeship benefit of those supervising and employing them. programmes (Palladino, 2005). Their responses have largely been informal, in In the North Carolina context, active, on-the- that they have not initially been indicated or job mentoring by Latino immigrant workers has sanctioned by the formal organisational filled an existing institutional void with respect structures in the industry, and often, have to upskilling. Immigrant mentors, through their diverged substantially from institutionalised promotion of active learning practices, have practices for production and training. However, demonstrated to other immigrants the best way as these solutions become more visible, they are to perform a given task or set of sequenced tasks. motivating supervisors and native-born co- They have also provided a much needed source of workers to intervene in an effort to protect and feedback and guidance, at the same time that they reward the immigrant workforce. In this respect, have helped fellow immigrants that arrived with immigrant-authored strategies are contributing construction experience in Mexico translate pre- to further advances in employment practices existing construction knowledge to the North and labour standards and create an opening for Carolina context (Iskander & Lowe, 2016). In this further advocacy. respect, they have helped immigrant co-workers The first of these immigrant-authored develop a deeper appreciation for and more solutions involves the introduction of new forms sophisticated understanding of tasks to which of on-the-job mentoring that facilitate skill they are assigned and thus have contributed

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp 8 N. Lowe and N. Iskander greatly to industry skill development. Equally demonstrate green building techniques, thus important, with this mentoring, they also help further expanding the repertoire of industry skills to reinforce and uphold quality standards. of the immigrant workforce. As such, safety A second, related industry contribution training represents a circuitous pathway for involves the co-optation of workplace safety skills-based advancement, one accessible to standards and resources by higher-ranking undocumented immigrants excluded from the immigrant workers in an attempt to forge new state’s few remaining formal technical training channels for technical skill development and programmes. Much like on-the-job mentoring, deepening. In non-residential construction in this co-optation of safety standards by immigrant North Carolina, industry safety standards have workers has helped fill a gap in the wake of been promoted by general contractors, in part dismantled training institutions and contributed because they are held accountable for jobsite to the soundness and quality of buildings and accidents. Safety training at these sites has homes in North Carolina. focused primarily on proper use of construction The final institutional influence that we have equipment and fall prevention. At most observed involves the formation of stable work building sites, safety training is also designed teams that not only challenge established job to reach all construction workers, especially hierarchies within the state’s construction immigrants, regardless of their spoken industry (Iskander & Lowe, 2010), but also language, education level, or even legal status. provide a vital source of industry problem- To address potential language barriers, safety solving and quality control that general training for Latino immigrants is often contractors and specialised subcontractors conducted in Spanish, and the curriculum especially covet. These immigrant work teams displays a high sensitivity to cultural differences tend to be long-lasting, reproducing themselves in translation and interpretation. Educational over several years and across multiple barriers are overcome through the use of safety construction projects. Most involved five or six videos and visual demonstrations of safe immigrant members, often with prior social or building practices, rather than reliance on familial ties. Most include at least one immigrant written manuals and tests. spokesperson fluent in English, acting as the This emphasis on safety training has point of contact for non-Latino co-workers and ultimately helped to lower injury rates among supervisors. North Carolina’s Latino immigrant population. While these teams often have members with But safety training has also played a critical role considerable construction experience, they have in deepening the technical skill level of the state’s chosen to engage in strategies that help to diffuse immigrant workforce. Well-tested visual aids, knowledge and responsibility to all members of safety videos, and on-site demonstrations have the team.1 Immigrant teams often encourage been used by immigrant workers as resources frequent job rotation, whereby each member for learning about new machinery or specialised cycles through different tasks as they move from equipment and new methods to complete specific one project to the next. Cross-training is also used building tasks. Worksite safety coordinators – to encourage on-going learning, in turn allowing most of whom are Latino immigrants with 10 or individual members to share and disseminate so years of construction experience – have new knowledge. For one team we studied, this reinforced this dual purpose training, setting enabled them to ‘keep learning new codes aside time reserved for safety reviews to also together’, thus allowing them to gain access to discuss proper use of new tools and equipment more sophisticated construction projects. In this and preferred construction techniques. regard, the strategies they devise also enable This pedagogical use has gone beyond the them to resist rigid job hierarchies and fixed job transmission of information necessary to descriptions that have long been used to structure maintain conventional construction techniques. work processes in North Carolina (Iskander & At ‘green building’ sites, immigrant safety Lowe, 2016). coordinators have also used safety training Work team dynamics have also encouraged sessions to explain the logic underpinning on-going group problem-solving, which in turn environmental building practices and to enables team members to collectively identify site

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp Latino Immigrants and the Inconsistencies of Economic Restructuring 9 specific problems and develop innovative and half.’ In explaining this delay, he went on to say effective solutions. Similarly, the closeness of ‘this was not about attitude – about them being team members and familiarity with each other’s angry with me for splitting them up. I think this work styles and non-verbal cues means that tasks just messed with their routine.’ When asked what performed by an immigrant work team are not about their routine was crucial, he said ‘it had to only well sequenced and seamless, but do with (non-verbal) communication. They have performed both expediently and to high worked together for so long, they can just pick standards. it up immediately and go.’ From that moment forward, he took every measure possible to BUILDING RECOGNITION maintain team cohesion, eventually asking members of the group to determine how best to Still, in many cases, the strategies developed by allocate tasks and responsibilities. immigrant work teams to advance industry skill Another superintendent described his core and quality standards remain unobserved by immigrant work team as his ‘A-team’, explaining native born co-workers and supervisors. Our that their work together is ‘like a professional interviews with immigrants also suggest that sports team. Every one of them knows what the supervisors often fail to recognise the social other one is doing....We just tell them to go prep dynamics within these teams and how they a slab and it’s done.’ A second superintendent contribute to overall gains in industry at the same company stated emphatically, ‘(the productivity and performance. In several cases, A-team) can do anything!” supervisors simply assigned value to one Superintendents at some general contracting immigrant worker – typically those with English firms have assigned immigrant teams the fluency – at the expense of other skilled members responsibility of managing quality control of their team. Interestingly, however, we also problems throughout the entire construction found examples of push back, where offers for sequence. This is often carried out by bringing individual promotion were turned down in an select immigrant teams on site at various points effort to maintain team cohesion and secure in the process with the goal of identifying and collective gains for the entire group. resolving lapses in quality standards as they Especially intriguing were examples involving emerge. Once a problem is identified, these teams supervisors that not only acknowledged and are encouraged to engage specialised crews and rewarded collective contributions of immigrant help them learn from mistakes or oversight. As work crews, but also did so in ways that one superintendent explained, ‘the concrete sub- reinforced a shared resource for collective action contractor wasn’t getting it done fast enough so and group bargaining power that could stretch I got our guys in, they were able to absorb his across a larger swath of the immigrant workforce. Hispanic employees into their group and (train) Many Anglo superintendents interviewed for this them, and knock the thing out.’ As this suggests, project admitted benefiting directly from having these work teams not only help to enhance the access to a skilled immigrant workforce. These productivity of fellow team members, but also same ‘old timers’ also recognised the contribution enhance the performance of other immigrant of immigrant work teams in resolving quality crews. control challenges that stem from North Immigrant workers in North Carolina have Carolina’s task-oriented division of labour. found ways to leverage the growing recognition One superintendent at a specialised plumbing they receive for their industry contribution. In firm described a defining moment, which helped some cases, immigrants have secured these gains him recognise and even quantify this individually by moving from one employer to contribution. At one construction site, he decided another and, in the process, negotiating slightly to break up an immigrant team and assign higher wages – strategies, which we have individual members to different floors of the documented in detail elsewhere (Lowe et al., ‘high-rise’ residential building. But after 2010; Hagan et al., 2011). But more substantial separating the crew, he noticed ‘it slowed down advances in earnings and working conditions progress a lot. Something they would do in four have been garnered when teams or crews of or five days easily, took more than a week and a immigrant workers collectively secure the help

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Popul. Space Place (2016) DOI: 10.1002/psp 10 N. Lowe and N. Iskander of sympathetic supervisors, who have brought become keenly aware that they risk losing the migrant-authored informal training practices entire team to another employer or even another closer to formality by incorporating them into state if they fail to step in and advocate on their their management strategies. teams’ behalf. At stake for native-born The A-team, introduced earlier, provides an superintendents is their ability to deliver illustrative example. While one member of the consistent, quality work and, ultimately, their team initially received a promotion offer, he overall contribution to industry productivity. turned it down in favour of negotiating for But interestingly, these superintendents have increased wages and job security for the entire taken steps to reinforce, rather than diminish, this team. Interestingly, the promotion he received interdependency overtime. was due in large measure to having a valid Many superintendents we interviewed driver’s licence. The earnings needs of the team acknowledged investing heavily in immigrant were made known to several superintendents, team upskilling, including using the construction who in turn helped carry the case up the chain slowdown in 2011–2013 to cross-train these teams of command. Eventually, the same on new, yet related tasks and trades. One superintendents helped to guarantee greater job supervisor helped his crew master all steps in security, initially by coordinating work schedules drywall installation for example, thus opening across multiple projects and months in advance up opportunities to bid for longer contract terms in order to ensure the A-team consistently involving previously disconnected tasks. Other worked 40 or more hours per week. This offer of supervisors have even secured funding from their consistent hours was particularly valuable as it employers to enrol team members in community occurred during the 2011–2013 construction college certificate courses. These courses cannot industry slowdown in North Carolina – a time substitute for the formal, craft-oriented training when many immigrant workers in the state once available through industry apprenticeship struggled financially in the face of unpredictable programmes like the Carolina’s Construction work schedules. As one of the superintendents Training Council (CCTC). Still, they do enable explained it: ‘the biggest thing about that group participating immigrants to formally demonstrate (the A-Team) is knowing that the more they competence in blue-print reading, safety assurance, produce consistently at a highest quality level and welding, among others. Furthermore, this they can… this company is going to keep them subsidised training offer is typically made busy. And that is the most important thing that available to immigrants with legal standing and anyone in the industry now has going for them.’ with the expectation that newly acquired skills In a second example, a highly valued and standards will be shared across their entire immigrant team was able to convince their team. supervisor to defend their need for higher wages, Anglo supervisors have also reintroduced as well as provide free transportation to and from elements of mentoring that they themselves project sites, which included a dedicated truck experienced in their youth as young apprentices and driver. This benefit greatly lowered monthly and new labour market entrants. Interestingly, transportation costs and with it increased this mentoring opportunity was extended in disposable income for each member of the team. response to language constraints, which required But equally, it protected them against the risk of English-speaking supervisors to conduct most driving without a licence and insurance – a training through physical and tactile demonstration common challenging facing undocumented and not just through verbal description. As one immigrant in North Carolina. Related to this, supervisor put it, ‘whathelpsisthatalotof another employer hired an immigration lawyer communicationinconstructioncanbedonewith in an effort to secure work permits for his the hands.’ To overcome this language barrier, immigrant workforce and help them gain legal ‘old timers’ have stepped into the trenches with status. Latino immigrants, in turn, opening an additional What makes these collective strategies spaceinwhichtoobserveimmigrantworkersin especially effective is the implicit threat of action and reinforce their contributions by sharing movement by the entire team, not just individual knowledgeofpastindustrypracticesand members. In other words, superintendents have routines.

As this suggests, native-born supervisors are producing a relational resource through which contributing to a virtuous cycle whereby greater immigrants can better demonstrate and even breadth of skill and expertise creates additional defend the informal strategies they use to opportunity for immigrant workers to develop skills and improve construction collectively negotiate for enhanced benefits. But techniques. In this regard, our case complicates equally, by drawing on and augmenting standard immigrant narratives of supervisory strategies that new labour market entrants use dominance and worker exploitation. But we to overcome the challenges they encounter from would be remiss if we simply presented our case restructuring, native-born supervisors are also as an oppositional alternative – after all, many transforming immigration into a shared resource immigrants we interviewed for this project for reestablishing worker participation in described in harrowing detail a myriad of abuses processes of industry and employment they encountered over their construction careers restructuring. in North Carolina and neighbouring states. These ranged from cases of wage theft to lapses in REFLECTIONS FOR ADVOCACY safety standards that ultimately put their lives at risk. Recent scholarship on immigration has turned an By focusing less on these stories, our goal is eye towards internal sources of worker not to minimise or under-report worker bargaining power through which immigrant vulnerability. To the contrary, the aim is instead workers resist exploitative and demeaning to draw attention to emergent, informal practices working conditions (Zlolniski, 1993; Gordon, by immigrants that can be targeted with further 1995; Milkman, 2011; Iskander & Lowe, 2013). assistance and advocacy. What this advocacy This represents a return to earlier studies of might look and who should lead it is a topic for labour processes internal to the workplace that future investigation. One step might involve have helped advance job quality and working working with immigrant crews to make their conditions for low-wage workers, including industry contribution more visible, not only Latino immigrants (Burawoy, 2008; Osterman, among their peers but through engagement with 2011). This paper further extends this inward institutional actors that have wider labour market looking approach by featuring interdependencies reach and influence. Another step might involve between immigrant and non-immigrant workers coordinated advocacy efforts to leverage the that emerge within immigrant-heavy industries position of enlightened supervisors and secure in the wake of employment restructuring. their support in carrying forward the message In considering such interdependencies in of widespread immigrant influence and impact. Raleigh-Durham’s non-residential construction A third step could even involve a direct challenge industry, we move beyond a narrow framework to employment restructuring itself – building a that simply casts employment restructuring as case for more stable and direct employment a tool for employers or supervisors to exert relationships and with the assumption these greater ‘control and discipline’ over their might produce better paying jobs. immigrant workforce. Instead, we draw But here, we wish to end on a cautionary attention to inconsistent and contradictory note and in light of the main focus of this pulls that can accompany employment special issue – migration and the informal restructuring and pulls that create persistent economy. One immigrant founder of a highly challenges for workers and managers alike. In adaptive workcrew admitted he lost control our case, these interdependencies emerge as a over team management when his group was result of competing logics between industry- offered formal employment at a reputable wide strategies designed to cheapen the labour plumbing firm. ‘The group structure is now process and the simultaneous need by industry different because when we started (formally) supervisors to maintain quality construction with the company, they separated us. When standards and replenish workforce skill. we were an (informal) subcontractor for the As our case highlights, the contradictions of firm, it’s as if they were asking our restructuring can act as a powerful tether permission’–which he acknowledged was between immigrant and non-immigrant workers, essential to the informal practices his team

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