ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the role of wage-setting institutions in the regulation of migrant workers' wages by discussing the examples of Germany, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It discusses whether minimum restrictions on cross-border labour mobility and maximum security of workers' rights are incompatible. Since the European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004, there have been widespread fears that increasing East-West migration would put wages and labour standards in the receiving countries under massive pressure. According to Friedberg and Hunt many older studies suggest that a 10 percent increase in the fraction of immigrants in the population reduced native wages by at most 1 percent. After the EU enlargement in 2004 Germany and Austria were the only countries that made use of the full transitional period and prolonged the restrictions on the freedom of movement for workers from EU8 countries until May 2011.
