Racialized Treatment of Migrant Workers in Europe Critical Reflections and Recommendations

Over the past decade, the European Union’s peripheries have seen a surge in migrant labor, particularly in low-wage and hazardous sectors. While framed as a solution to labor shortages, this system entrenches legal precarity, racialized exploitation, and disposability. Drawing on research from Croatia and the wider EU, this analysis exposes how intersecting systems of migration governance and deregulated racial capitalist labor markets produce chronic insecurity and hyper-exploitation. Migrant workers often face unpaid wages, degrading living conditions, health exclusions, and racialized policing, all while cycling through short-term, employer-tied permits that keep them vulnerable and replaceable – and often irregularized. Despite this, migrant workers have organized strikes, legal actions, and solidarity networks, demanding justice. However, their organizing remains unsupported by mainstream institutions. This research calls for structural reforms to uphold labor rights, dismantle racialized governance, and humanize migrant workers.