Global Cities at Work

Book excerpt: 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 new century. Global Cities at Work breaks new ground in linking London's new migrant division of labor to the twin processes of subcontracting and increased international migration that have been central to contemporary processes of globalization. Global Cities at Work raises the level of debate about migrant labor, encouraging policy-makers, journalists and social scientists to look behind the headlines. The book calls us to take a politically-informed geographical view of our urban labor markets and to prioritize the issue of working poverty and its implications for both unemployment and community cohesion.