Abstract

This book is about the people who always get taken for granted. The people who clean our offices and trains, care for our elders and change the sheets on the bed. Global Cities at Work draws on testimony collected from more than 800 foreign-born workers employed in low-paid jobs in London during the early years of the twenty-first century.

This book breaks new ground in linking London's new migrant division of labour to the twin processes of subcontracting and increased international migration that have been central to contemporary processes of globalisation.

It also raises the level of debate about migrant labour, encouraging us to look behind the headlines. The authors ask us to take a politically informed view of our urban labour markets and to prioritise the issue of poverty in underemployed communities.
'A rare but critical window into the scale, nature and contradictions of contemporary immigration into the UK'
Danny Sriskandarajah, former Head of Migration at the Institute for Public Policy Research
'A very timely book. The description of migration-based divisions in the labour market should be of concern to all policy makers and politicians currently involved in planning a way out of deep recession'
Don Flynn, Director of the Migrants Rights Network
'The voices of migrant workers come alive in these pages'
Jamie Peck, Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia