Alexandru Firus M.A.

I am a graduate of Economic Geography (M.A.) with a professional background in organization work in the broader field of European labour migration. I am particularly interested in questions of labour market integration, European integration, re-composition of workforce, class and labour struggles as well as social and labour law.

Before starting in the RTG, I conducted field research and outreach counselling work in questions of labour and social law with Romanian construction workers for five years in several large German cities. In this context, I documented over six hundred individual cases of labour exploitation and/or social implications thereof. Furthermore, I was involved in the conception of educational programmes for migrant workers, in organizing events on labour union-related topics and actively promoted exchange between mobile workers and civil society.

Research Project

Working Title: Matters of sustainability – labour migration and the regulatory legal framework in the German building construction sector

The research area within the RTG, which I am responsible of, examines challenges and limits of labour laws and social regulations, especially in the context of a far-reaching rearrangement of industrial relations. Against the backdrop of the multiple forms of precarity faced by new migrant arrivals, my doctoral research project critically considers possibilities of different actors to sustainably reform and enforce labour and social law.