Immigrant Workers Research Articles

The freedom to love, move and organize

The late Tom Lodge’s magisterial Red Road to Freedom will surely become the standard text on communism in South Africa, definitively re-assessing the sociological development and historiographically-contested political arc of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). The book, nevertheless, is squarely focused on the South African public realm, eliding the important private experiences of individual CPSA members and significant transnational interchanges with the broader Southern and Central African region. Early CPSA leaders were often strikingly restrictive about the kinds of relationships available to members; had a complicated, often hostile, relationship with immigrant workers; and were opposed to organising across colonial borders. For marginalised groups, these examples prompt difficult questions about what ‘freedom’ meant to communists and where the early CPSA’s Red Road was ultimately headed to.

Unemployed, Immigrant, and Older Asian Workers in a U.S.-Based Job-Training Program: Their Experiences and Well-Being, and Strategies for Reaching This Important Population

ABSTRACT The Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) is a U.S.-based job-training program that serves unemployed workers aged 55 and older with incomes at or below 125% of the federal poverty level. While federal funds are set aside to serve Asian workers in SCSEP, little is known about their characteristics and experiences. In response, this pilot study aimed to document the health, well-being, and experiences of older Asian SCSEP participants in Massachusetts through the completion of a survey. Respondents (N = 39) ranged in age from 58 to 73 and identified as either Chinese (72%) or Vietnamese (28%). All were immigrants, and almost all spoke a language other than English at home. Most reported “good” health as well as financial difficulties. They also stated that their supervisors in their placements were supportive. On average, respondents noted moderate interest in searching for a paid job after exiting SCSEP, although more reported interest in searching for a volunteer role. Key to the success of this study was a robust collaboration with a local human services organization with strong ties to the Chinese and Vietnamese communities. The findings highlight the importance of this growing group of older workers.

Secure communities as immigration enforcement: How secure is the child care market?

Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children’s participation in center-based child care programs. The estimated reductions are substantially larger among advantaged children and in jurisdictions with a greater fraction of undocumented individuals. We also find that SC reduced the equilibrium supply and wages of immigrant and native workers in the center-based sector as well as the number of center-based facilities. There is no compensating increase in the home-based or private household sectors. Our findings suggest that immigrants and natives are likely to be complements in child care service production.

Labor Borders: Recruitment of Central American Migrants in “Exodus” through Southern Mexico and Indigenous Mexican “Braceros” in the Californian Fields

The article proposes the concept of “labor border” to explore the evolution of migration policies in the Central America-Mexico-USA region by investigating the dimension of work, through two case studies: (1) the US H-2A program for the temporary recruitment of foreign agricultural workers from Mexico; and subsequently (2) the Mexican regularization programs with temporary labor opportunity, implemented by the Mexican government in the context of the so-called “Central American exodus”: Social Emergency Program (Programa de Emergencia Social) and Sowing Life (Sembrando Vida). The objective of the research is to analyze how the political use of a labor border contributes to the social construction of a hierarchy of immigrant workers, as well as to the progressive closure of borders, and the outsourcing of control operations by the USA to the south of Mexico and other Central American countries. The research took place between March 2016 and December 2021, with a combination of mainly qualitative methodologies.

DI CƯ ĐÔ THỊ VÀ HIỆU ỨNG ĐẾN CÔNG NHÂN LAO ĐỘNG Ở THÀNH PHỐ HỒ CHÍ MINH HIỆN NAY

The article mentions the migration factor associated with the movement of labor in Ho Chi Minh City, specifically the number of workers by urban and rural areas by economic sector and enterprise sector. There have been both positive and negative impacts, especially on immigrant workers. Research methods of dialectical materialism, historical materialism along with the approach of historical science were used. In addition, data collection methods and data analysis methods combined with sociological approaches are also applied. The research results reconstruct the overall migration process in Ho Chi Minh City and its impacts. Simultaneously, the article offers a number of recommendations to improve policies for this group with the purpose of advising the government to promote migrant workers in the coming years

Immigration and Business Dynamics: Evidence from U.S. Firms

Abstract This paper studies the impact of immigration on U.S. local business dynamics using a comprehensive collection of survey and administrative data. It finds heterogeneous impacts across the employer productivity distribution that favor higher-productivity firms and lead to increases in average local earnings. Responses to immigration along the exit margin are particularly important. Immigrant inflows cull establishments from low-productivity firms while preserving establishments from high-productivity firms. Overall, reduced exit accounts for 43% of immigrant-induced job creation and 41% of immigrant-induced earnings growth. A general equilibrium model proposes a mechanism that ties immigrant workers to high-productivity employers and shows how accounting for changes to the employer productivity distribution can yield substantially larger estimates of immigrant-generated economic surplus than canonical models of labor demand.

Membangun Semangat Belajar dan Nasionalisme dengan Memperkenalkan Budaya Indonesia di Sanggar Bimbingan Kuala Langat

This article is the result of Community Service Activities, which are a form of implementation of KKN-Dik batch 5 and a form of participation to help fulfill the educational rights of the children of Indonesian Migrant Workers (PMI) in Malaysia as stated in the 1945 Constitution " Berperan dalam mencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa " by applying values -the value of love for the homeland. This service aims to foster the character of love for the homeland in immigrant children in Selangor, namely SB Kuala Langat students. Implementing this service is by applying learning methods in the classroom combined with nationalist values to foster a character attitude of love for the country through learning and playing activities based on nationalist values. The children of immigrant workers still lack the character of love for their homeland, so it is necessary to implement learning methods that foster enthusiasm for learning and increase their sense of love for their country to strengthen their identity as children of the Indonesian nation. The sense of nationalism must always be believed by the children of the Indonesian nation, wherever they are. Therefore, guiding efforts to foster a love for the homeland is very necessary for immigrant children in Selangor, especially for students at the SB Kuala Langat.

The Health and Safety Experiences of Precariously Employed Bangladeshi Immigrant Workers in Toronto During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Racialized immigrants in Canada have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our qualitative, community-based study with South Asian Women and Immigrants' Services examined the impact of the second and third waves of the pandemic on the work and health of precariously employed Bangladeshi immigrant women and men in Toronto. Our study is based on interviews and focus group discussions with 45 workers, all conducted in Bangla, and 11 key informants. Interviews reveal work transitions, an increase in precarity, work in essential sectors, exposures at work, home and in transit, workplace prevention and management gaps, and an inability to take time off, with significant impacts on workers' physical and mental health. We discuss the implications of our findings for prevention, preparedness, and response by workplaces and governments to decrease the risk and reduce the impact of infectious diseases emergencies in the precarious work sector.

Immigrant nurses' experiences of discrimination by patients and nursing home residents: a narrative review

Immigrant nurses' experiences of discrimination by patients and nursing home residents: a narrative review Abstract: Background and aim: Immigrant nurses are filling the shortage of skilled workers in many countries. Studies suggest that they may face discrimination in their destination countries. This paper aims to provide an overview of the experiences of immigrant nurses with regard to discrimination in their interactions with patients. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed by searching the databases PubMed and CINAHL. Additional articles were identified through a search in Google Scholar and by reviewing reference lists. Studies published between 1/2013 and 3/2023 were included. Results: The literature search yielded 103 studies, 18 of which were included in the narrative review. The review showed that immigrant nurses may experience discrimination in the form of rejection, questioning of their qualifications, unequal treatment, derogatory remarks, threats, as well as violence from patients. Discrimination is based on their ethnicity, country of origin, external characteristics, language, and accent. Conclusions: Overall, available data is insufficient. The results of this review can serve as a basis for further studies and help managers and policy makers to better understand discrimination against immigrant care workers, to develop strategies to support them and to implement appropriate prevention measures.

Immigrants’ Satisfaction With Regional Employment: A Human Agency Perspective

Attracting and retaining immigrant workers is a challenge in Canadian regions, where many employers face labor shortages. Based on an agency framework, this study explores immigrants’ satisfaction with settling in a region and how they have engaged, are engaging, or plan to engage in strategies to improve their work and life satisfaction. The results of focus group discussions and interviews with 41 immigrants enable us to classify them in a two-by-two table: satisfied, unsatisfied, work-oriented, and community-oriented. As agents, immigrants develop two broad strategies that impact their satisfaction: cognitive and behavioral. Our results put forward several benefits for employees, employers, communities, and society.

“No Avenging Gibbet”: The 1860 Pemberton Mill Collapse

Abstract This article examines a New England industrial disaster, the January 10, 1860, collapse in Lawrence, Massachusetts, of the Pemberton Mill. In under five minutes the building caved in and 98, mostly immigrant workers, lost their lives. An inquest assigned blame to one individual. The question remains: Was justice done?

How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT

How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT

How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT

How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT

Work precarity, employment characteristics and health among Canada's long-term care and seniors' home workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted several issues among health care workers in Canada's long-term care and seniors' (LTCS) homes, including labour shortages, staff retention difficulties, overcrowding, and precarious working conditions. There is currently a lack of information on the health, well-being and working conditions of health care workers in LTCS homes - many of them immigrants - and a limited understanding of the relationship between them. This paper examines differences between immigrant and non-immigrant workers' health outcomes and precarious working conditions during the pandemic. The data were from the 2021 Survey on Health Care Workers' Experiences During the Pandemic, which collected information on LTCS home health care workers' (n=2,051) health, employment or work experiences, and working environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Summary statistics and multivariable logistic regressions were conducted to examine the association between precarious work and workers' health (life stress, mental health and general health), stratified by immigrant status. Selected working characteristics were included in the regression models as covariates, namely occupation, number of locations worked, facility ownership status and number of years worked. Immigrant health care workers were more likely than non-immigrant health care workers to experience precarious work in LTCS homes. Precarious work - characterized by income loss, reduced hours of work, and unpaid leave - was associated with stress and poor general health among immigrant and non-immigrant workers in the sector. Employment precarity was also associated with poor mental health for immigrant workers, but there was no association for non-immigrant workers. Employment precarity and the health and well-being of health care workers warrants further attention, in particular among immigrants employed in the LTCS residential care sector.

Social benefits for European Union immigrants? A survey experiment on misperceptions

Using new experimental panel data for Germany, I investigate the role of income misperceptions for welfare restrictive preferences toward European Union immigrants. A majority of respondents misperceive their relative income position in Germany and the European Union and demand that European Union immigrants work and pay taxes before obtaining equal rights to social benefits. Randomized treatments inform subjects about their position in the national and European Union income distribution. My results provide evidence that welfare restrictive preferences are formed in the context of misperceived own income positions: Respondents become more welfare restrictive when they learn about a higher national or lower European Union income position. Information about European Union misperceptions has a persistent treatment effect after 3 months, driven by respondents with larger initial misperceptions, but becomes insignificant after one year.

Everyday forms of resistance in Istanbul day labourer areas: Comparative experiences of immigrant and local workers

AbstractPrecarity extends beyond economic and material conditions to shape people's identity, belonging and subjectivity. As a process, precarity has made instability a virtue by lifting the smokescreen that previously hid relations of production. Its institutional crystallization becomes concrete in state apparatuses and social relations. It targets both subjectivity and the life of the population as a whole. Therefore, it participates in everyday life as a hegemonic form of rule. This study focuses on the experiences of precarity, the production of subjectivity and the areas of conflict of local and migrant labourers in day‐labour hiring sites in Istanbul. Day‐labour sites are areas where precarity is normalized. In contrast, day labourers produce their own areas of autonomy in day‐labour sites. The loyalties of migrant and non‐migrant labourers to each other differ in day‐labour sites. Due to the production of certain oppositions through identities in labour areas, the relations of domination have certain invisibility. Nevertheless, the practices of day labourers in organizing their mutual relations intersect in these sites.

The effect of teacher empowerment-based course program on teachers' knowledge of Pancasila character on the Indonesia-Malaysia literacy

The lack of teachers' ability to apply the Pancasila character can contribute to the fading of Pancasila culture abroad, especially for the families of Indonesian Immigrant Workers in Malaysia. This research aims to explore the understanding of the character of Pancasila among parents in the Indonesian-Malaysian literacy context. A quantitative research approach was used with a sample of 80 educators from the Kuala Lumpur Indonesian School and learning centers in Malaysia. The research instrument consists of a questionnaire with 15 items for the Teacher Empowerment Program variable and 14 items for Teacher Knowledge. Data analysis uses simple linear regression with validity, reliability, normality, heteroscedasticity, t test, and coefficient tests, which are processed using SPSS software. The research results found that the training program had a positive effect on teachers' knowledge about the character of Pancasila. The Teacher Empowerment Based Course Program has had a significant impact on teachers' understanding of the Indonesian-Malaysian Literacy Based Pancasila Character. After attending a course based on teacher empowerment, there was a significant increase in teachers' knowledge about the character of Pancasila based on Indonesian-Malaysian language literacy. This teacher empowerment-based course program provides educators with the opportunity to gain knowledge about Indonesian-Malaysian literacy. They can apply this knowledge through innovative and effective teaching methods. Future research could investigate further potential benefits beyond increasing teachers' knowledge after participating in this program.

Reducing the impact of COVID-19 in immigrants: a systematic review of the efficacy of interventions

the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the population has amplified the effects of health inequalities, particularly in the most vulnerable groups such as immigrants and refugees. An assessment of the intervention to contain the COVID-19 in these population groups was essential to define new strategies for more equitable, inclusive, and effective health policies to on health. to provide a systematic synopsis of the impact of interventions to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in immigrants. data sources included major bibliographic databases. Using a study protocol, already shared with the international scientific community, two independent researchers reviewed the citations, selected and evaluated the interventions studies. Due to the heterogeneity of the interventions, a narrative synthesis was carried out. three eligible studies were identified. The first study modelled the incidence of the disease in a refugee camp in Greece, based on an intervention of sectorialization of people that accessed to services, the use of masks, the early identification and isolation of cases and their family members, and the limitation of movements within the camp. The second evaluated the impact of preventive pharmacological interventions such as the use of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, povidone-iodine, zinc, and vitamin C, in different dosages and combinations, to a group of immigrant workers in a city dormitory in Singapore. The third study evaluated an intervention to increase vaccination coverage within a Latino immigrant community in the United States, moving the location of vaccine supply throughout the most frequented contexts by the immigrant community to access the city services. The results of the first and second studies suggest impacts for some of the proposed interventions even if they have been partially overcome due to the use of mass vaccination. The third showed a reduction in vaccine hesitancy and an increase in vaccination uptake and a snowball effect. the systematic review identified few heterogeneous studies, preventing any generalization of the results. Probably, the low scientific production does not reflect the successful experiences implemented. In the case of a possible resumption of the epidemic or new emergencies, it will be necessary to rely on indirect evidence and the scientific community should consider more the responsibility to evaluate and make available the experiences gained in the field. A constant monitoring activity of the evidence that will be necessary to updating the results for suggest consolidated prevention measures to for controlling the incidence of COVID-19 in immigrants during a possible resumption of the epidemic and for application in other similarly emergency contexts.

Access to Educational Services for Children from Migrant Worker Households in Vietnam's Industrial Zones

Over the past 30 years, Vietnam's export processing zones and industrial parks have grown in number, drawing foreign laborers to places like Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, and Long An. In such scenario, getting social services is extremely difficult for immigrant workers in industrial parks and processing zones for a variety of reasons. The availability of schooling for children from working-class and immigrant families is a common example. In addition to having a direct impact on the stability of immigrant workers' lives and the growth of enterprises in industrial parks and export processing zones, failing to address the learning needs of this particular set of children also lowers their quality of life. Impacting the Vietnamese government's ability to carry out its obligations under the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Based on the synthesis and analysis of secondary data sources gathered in Bac Ninh and Hanoi, the article's main goal is to give a general picture of how immigrant working families currently ensure their children's right to an education. From there, some suggestions are made to address this issue in the future from the standpoint of social work.

The Carceral Geographies of Platform Delivery Work: Essential Workers and Bike Registrations in New York City

AbstractThe critical platform studies literature is increasingly considering the role of social difference as a structuring logic in the platform economy, complementing understandings of worker precarity facilitated by worker misclassification and algorithmic management. Contributing to this literature, this paper demonstrates how platforms and police produce carceral geographies that manage and exploit immigrant delivery workers as surplus populations. The carceral geographies of the platform economy account for both how carceral space produces and manages the surplus populations from which platform capital draws its workers, facilitating the disposability and exploitation of workers. Focusing on South Asian delivery workers in New York City, the paper uses the example of bike registrations to show how police and platforms expand carceral spaces in immigrant communities, increasing their vulnerability to premature death and violence. Finally, it suggests how delivery worker organising offers instances of situated resistance that challenge platform capital and carceral logics.