Abstract
After a long period of decline in the Global North, migrant worker policies are making a comeback on the agenda of the European Union and several of its member states. Inspired by Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser’s accounts of structural injustice, this article argues that such policies cannot be reconciled with the principle of equality between migrant and national workers enshrined in international legal instruments such as the Convention on Migrant Workers and the EU Seasonal Workers Directive. To make this point it draws on a selection of UK based empirical literature as well as primary data from a recent study on domestic workers admitted to the UK under temporary visas since 1998. Results suggest that such visas tend to push migrants’ working conditions downwards (exploitation); prevent them from changing employer, enforcing rights in court or mobilising in unions (domination); and ultimately exacerbate racial conflict and stereotyping (stigmatisation).
 Received: 10 February 2021Accepted: 14 May 2021
Highlights
The UK case1After decades of near abandonment in the Global North, Global South migrant worker policies have recently come back on the agenda of several governments and international organisations
Inspired by Iris Marion Young and Nancy Fraser’s accounts of structural injustice, this article argues that such policies cannot be reconciled with the principle of equality between migrant and national workers enshrined in international legal instruments such as the Convention on Migrant Workers and the EU Seasonal Workers Directive
Far from enabling equal opportunities for everyone to develop and exercise their capacities, these policies push racialised migrants’ working conditions downwards; prevent them from leaving their employer, enforcing their rights in court or mobilising in unions; and exacerbate racial conflict and stereotyping. Insofar as these conclusions can be extrapolated beyond the occupations and contexts examined here, labour shortages should be addressed through alternative means such as the training of national workers, the improvement of working conditions, technological innovation or fair international trade
Summary
After decades of near abandonment in the Global North, Global South migrant worker policies have recently come back on the agenda of several governments and international organisations. While the experiences exposed here, taken from two interviews, cannot be mechanically extrapolated to all migrant workers, they can illuminate in a grounded and tangible way key problems facing those who are legally employed in low-paid occupations The focus on this particular category of migrant workers, rather than on their undocumented or highly paid counterparts, is due to the renewed interest they have recently aroused among European policymakers, as well as to the reduced bargaining power that makes their working conditions highly sensitive to the legal rights they are able to exercise. The sections will unpack how migrant worker policies, notwithstanding their formal commitment to equality, find themselves implicated in all three forms of structural injustice
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