Abstract
Contemporary modes of work organization within the global economy (short-term, mobile, contract labor) often place people of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds together and thus, usually unintentionally, promote forms of multilingualism. This is not, however, the elite multilingualism of countable language competencies but rather the often overlooked and discounted struggle to understand and be understood on the job. These workers learn language during rather than before work, with implications for language testing and citizenship regimes that insist on the importance of language knowledge prior to entering the workforce. Learning limited but relevant skills in the dominant local language may well bring benefits for work, business or accessing services, but so too may learning other languages of the workplace. Close studies of blue-collar multilingualism are important in order to get beyond accounts of language and political economy that have focused on the commodification of languages, the neoliberal co-option of diversity, and redistribution of resources rather than recognition of social action. We need instead to understand the complex intersections between linguistic resources and precarious employment.