TRAM

Background

Migrant workers make up a significant proportion of the workforce in food production and agriculture in the Euregio region. The working and living situation of many transnational migrant workers is very precarious, and in the border region, a confusing legal situation made it possible to exploit transnational migrant workers.

Objectives

• For the first time, TRAM comprehensively examines the experiences of transnational migrant workers in the meat industry and agriculture living on the German side of the border in the Euregio Rhine-Waal and employed in the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia
• Establishment of cross-border exchange structures for social counselling

Results

• Findings on the living and working situation of transnational labor migrants in the Euregio/NRW
• Development of models for good work and housing for transnational labor migrants
• Action plan for cross-border Social Counselling

Funded within the framework of Interreg VI A

Updates

• On July 12, 2024, the project was presented to a scientific audience in the lecture Transnational Labor Migration in the Euregio - an Investigation in the Meat Industry and Agriculture (Transnationale Arbeitsmigration in der Euregio – eine Untersuchung in der Fleischindustrie und Landwirtschaft ) at the Section Work and Industry of the German Sociological Association (Sektion Arbeit und Industrie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie). The spring conference was entitled Migration and Work - Current Research, Methodological Reflections and Theoretical Implications (Migration und Arbeit – Aktuelle Forschungen, methodische Reflexionen und theoretische Implikationen).

Events & Press

• On July 4, 2024, the first Field Lab in the field of Work and Companies (‚Arbeit und Betriebe/ Arbeid en Bedrjiven‘) took place at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. The aim of the meeting was firstly to network stakeholders and secondly to plan a workshop initially aimed at employers from the agricultural sectoron the German side of the border who employ migrant workers. The workshop, planned in cooperation with the Chamber of Agriculture of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen), will be titled "Good Work - Attracting and retaining workers from South-East Europe". The workshop will be divided into the areas of management, on-boarding and best practice. The plan is to hold the workshop in Germany in January 2025 and also open it up to Dutch companies that are interested. More information will follow on this page.
• On June 27, 2024, the second part of the first Field Lab in the field of Social Counseling (‚Soziale Beratung/ Sociale begeleiding‘) took place at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. The aim of the Social Counselling Field Lab was to network employees from various counselling services on both sides of the border, gain an insight into the working methods and responsibilities on both sides of the border, get to know counselling cases and gather questions and interests of the counselling organizations for the TRAM project. Among other things, needs for a planned law clinic were to be compiled. Together with participants from various areas of social counseling in Germany and the Netherlands, it was determined that an overview of counseling centers with contact addresses on each side of the border would be of great benefit, as would an overview of the most important regulations for better understanding.
• On June 11, 2024, the first Field Lab on Housing and Living Together (‚Wohnen und Zusammenleben/Huisvesting en Samenleben‘) took place at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. The aim of this meeting on housing was to bring together employees and other officials from German and Dutch municipalities and regions to discuss bottlenecks and solutions for housing migrant workers in the border region and to gather ideas for follow-up activities. The participants of the meeting came from 14 different municipalities, regions or districts. In addition to three insights into the different ways in which municipalities deal with the sometimes precarious situation of migrant workers, questions were asked about the most important cross-border dimensions for improving the situation. This revealed the relevance of cross-border exchange and the joint tackling of problems such as the difficulty of exchanging data. The central topics are to be addressed and discussed in further meetings in order to develop solutions.
• On April 18, 2024, the project report of the TRAM pilot project "Work migration between borders - work migrants’ work and life conditions in relevant sectors in the Euregio region of Rhine-Waal" was presented to the Committee on Construction, Housing and Digitization of the NRW State Parliament. The report can now be downloaded in the Downloads segment at https://www.hochschule-rhein-waal.de/en/faculties/society-and-economics/research/research-projects/work-migration-between-borders-work
• On February 22, 2024, the first Field Lab on the topic of social counselling took place in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs of the state of NRW and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Municipal Affairs, Building and Digitalization of the state of NRW.
• On February 1, 2024, the public opening event of Project TRAM took place at the Euregio Forum of the Euregio Rhine-Waal in Kleve. Several media outlets reported about the event: i.e. https://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/rheinland/leiharbeiter-ausbeutung-hochschule-kleve-100.html (German) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JAkHigrCnQ (Dutch)
• On December 6, 2023, the project was presented at the Borderland Conference in Nijmegen in the workshop "Supporting Migrant Workers"
• On November 30, 2023, the project was presented at the Laboratorium Niederrhein in Wesel. The NRZ also reported on this: https://www.nrz.de/staedte/kreis-wesel/niederrhein-beim-menschenhandel-nicht-wegsehen-id240748826.html
• On November 24, 2023, the third-party funded project "TRAM – transnational labor migration in the Euregio" started with a kick-off event at the Faculty of Society and Economics, Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. The project, which is funded within the framework of Interreg VI, will be carried out under the project management of Prof. Dr. Ingrid Jungwirth in cooperation between Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (research assistant Marius Glassner), Radboud Universiteit (Dr. Pascal Beckers and Dr. Anita Böcker) as well as the Gemeente Apeldoorn (Iezte Oostinga) and Euregio Rhine-Waal (Andreas Kochs) until 2026. The overall objective of TRAM is to improve the working and living conditions of transnational migrant workers in the Euregio by establishing cross-border exchange structures for social counselling. Further information about the event can be found at: https://idw-online.de/de/news826502.