Cross-Border Workers’ Well-being on the Island of Ireland: A Blind Spot of Cross-Border Cooperation?
摘要
The chapter considers cross-border labor mobility between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after Brexit and COVID-19. It highlights the importance of cross-border workers’ well-being and explores how their well-being is both linked with their visibility in the public sphere and their presence in official discourse. Our case study of three websites (BorderPeople, CBPES, Citizens Information), which provide online information to cross-border workers in Ireland, shows the commonly positive correlation between well-being and easily accessible and available information. Notwithstanding, any improvement of their well-being would require both jurisdictions to further address workers’ specific issues in the wake of Brexit and COVID-19 such as taxation and social benefits. This study is part of a wider and acute questioning on well-being, labor mobility, and cross-border cooperation. Additional research would be needed to better understand and address the daily challenges cross-border workers face in a north–south/east–west Ireland perspective, as well as in an all-Ireland and EU/UK perspective.