Guest Workers Research Articles

DECOLONISING LABOUR LAWS AND REPOSSESSING SUBALTERN EPISTEMOLOGIES: A REVIEW OF SOUTH AFRICAN AND NAMIBIAN MINEWORKERS’ FIGHT FOR LABOUR RIGHTS

In the historical and current transformation discourses in South Africa and Namibia, the concept of decolonisation is no longer a mere abstract concept. Decolonisation is now a fundamental policy and regulatory imperative that is heavily centred on, among other things, the land question and debates around the historical as well as present-day use of indigenous cheap and unskilled labour in underpaid sectors of industry –particularly the mining sector. During the colonial era, as the mining industries in South Africa and Namibia expanded, a substantial number of migrant labourers and local workers entered the mines. To safeguard these mineworkers’ legal rights, labour laws were passed. Despite the implementation of such labour laws, regular strikes were a feature of the mining industries in South Africa and Namibia at the time. In the post-colonial dispensation, the South African mining industry has been characterised by numerous strike actions, while in Namibia, widespread dissatisfaction with working conditions has been noted. This raises the question of whether or not South Africa and Namibia have made progress in defending mineworkers’ labour rights. This question is critical when viewed through the lens of a post-colonial society governed by a constitutionalised labour law framework. While there has arguably been a noticeable improvement in mineworkers’ employment conditions, labour-related inequities continue to characterise the mining industries in South Africa and Namibia in the post-colonial era. Profiteering, capitalism, safeguarding the security of tenure of foreign mining corporations, and the persistent need to ensure the ease of doing business in the mining sector appear to take precedence over defending mineworkers’ rights. Thus, this article explores the labour rights discourse developed by South African and Namibian mineworkers, as well as the applicable labour legislation. A strong case is made for reconsidering the extent to which South African and Namibian labour laws have been decolonised. This is done in a manner that is attentive to investment security and sustainable growth of the mining sector in the two countries as well as the realisation of African mineworkers’ fundamental labour rights.

Migrant Vulnerabilities: ‘Guest Workers’ in Kerala

This article explores numerous socio-economic facets of internal migrants from West Bengal, including their subjective conceptions of their social standing and social class, and analyses how these facets are intimately tied to growth in Kerala. In Kerala, a sizeable portion of internal migrants come from North India. With approximately 2.5 million internal migrants in 2013 and a population growth of 235,000 annually, Kerala is a preferred destination state for migrant labourers in India. Migrant workers from outside have grown to be a significant and essential component of the Kerala economy as a result of the state’s demographic shifts and high rates of educated unemployment, which has led to a severe labour shortage for low-wage frontline jobs. Due to the extreme labour scarcity, the state’s unorganised industries are seeing exceptionally high pay rates. Most migrants come from impoverished and marginalised communities and are employed in the state’s unorganised sector. These migrants frequently find themselves on the periphery of society despite being essential to the economy. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to job losses worsening the situation for migrant workers. The article examines the position of migrants in West Bengal, the source state, and Kerala, the destination state. Further, the article explores the governance of labour migration within the context of migration policies adopted in Kerala and examines how the term ‘guest workers’, which is used to describe internal migrants, can be seen as a distinct, complicated social dynamic in and of itself.

Understanding Migrant School-Aged Children’s Education in Public Schools Thailand: Teachers’ Perspectives and Classroom Narratives

Despite Thailand’s popularity as a destination for migrant laborers from neighboring Southeast Asian countries, little research has been conducted on the education of migrant school-aged children in Thailand’s public schools. However, knowledge in this area is important for improving Thailand’s education policy and curriculum for migrant children and addressing issues related to Thailand’s migrant education. As a response, framed by a phenomenological approach, this study conducted classroom teaching observations and interviews with Thai public-school teachers in the provinces, which are well-known for their large migrant populations. Presented in classroom narratives and teachers’ perspectives individually, the findings revealed teachers’ intentional misperceptions of ethnicity, pedagogical strategies to integrate migrant children into classrooms with Thai students, barriers that teachers must overcome to aid the educational advancement of migrant children, and non-governmental organizations’ support for teacher training (NGOs). Since Thailand has implemented a policy allowing migrant and stateless children to freely enroll in public schools, this study calls for the implementation of non-discriminatory, integrative efforts at the school level, beginning with the provision of training for teachers on multilingual education and ending with the enhancement of school participation in the integration of migrant children into the educational environment.

Health Conditions of Inter-State Migrants in Marine Fisheries: A Study of Kerala

The marine fisheries are one of the vital occupations in the southern parts of India. This industry is considered to be the foundation of revenue generation for these states. Kerala, being located at the southernmost part of India, is promoting this industry with support from inter-state migrant labourers. The inter-state migrants working in Kerala’s maritime industry are from northern and southern India. As a result of higher salaries and improved working conditions in this unskilled sector, people from the North and Eastern parts of the country have started to migrate to Kerala. Indeed, the continual cash flow in this sector makes it lucrative and invites a large influx of migrant labour to this region. These inter-state migrant labourers work for more than eight hours and spend 10 to 15 days at sea while fishing. They have to stay with heavy pieces of equipment at sea away from shore. This heart-wrenching situation deteriorates their health. They come across various kinds of professional injuries while fishing. Some of these fishermen and fisherwomen encounter long-term effects from those injuries. On the other hand, catering to their health needs seems challenging due to the lack of adequate medical facilities for migrant labourers. Following the increase in migratory flow, Kerala’s health system has faced several institutional impediments. The lack of identification of migrant labourers cripples the entire process of providing access to a better healthcare system to them. As a result, inter-state migrant labourers in the marine industry are facing various health-related challenges due to the nature of this profession and the apathy of state machinery. Therefore, this study seeks to explore the health issues affecting the inter-state migrant labourers in Kerala’s marine sector through a mixed-method research design.

Outbreak narrative: China's migrant women labor in the COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic, which broke out in early 2020, has disrupted China's population mobility on which its cities depend. Especially, during the two years of the pandemic, female migrant laborers have been taking the risk of becoming the surplus population in an unstable and hyper-competitive job market. Such circumstance has led their images and urban engagement to be finitely recorded by the narrative that emerged based on the pandemic -- outbreak narrative in Priscilla Wald's term (2008), serving as an essential archive to examine Chinese women labor and urban history during the COVID-19. Taking an article narrating the vagrancy of a female migrant worker -- Ah Fen in Shanghai as a threshold, this paper explores China's gendered migrancy and female migrant communities during the COVID-19. By tracing China's COVID-19-related outbreak narratives through literary analysis, this paper reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic has flooded more migrant workers, especially female laborers, into the gig economy and this new urban engagement pattern has made migrant women's mobility higher and encouraged them to rebuild migrant communities in the city. However, the high mobility and fragmented urban distribution, in turn, have strengthened their roles as “infected strangers” in the outbreak narrative, particularly in the context of China's strict differentiated quarantine governance. This research, initiated by literary analysis, on the one hand, draws a dynamic map of capital and population flow during the pandemic era, while on the other hand, exposes the injustice among different classes, genders, and ages in urban China enlarged by the virus.

Interpretive Methods as Policy Tools: The COVID-19 Migration Crisis in India and the Case for Policy Innovation

Attempts to quantify and measure migration in India have proved inadequate as far as policy change is concerned. The Census of India 2011 and the National Sample Surveys (particularly the 64th Round conducted between 2007 and 2008), while useful, are too infrequent and temporally limited to offer insights into real-time movements and seasonal migration. On the other hand, even when data is available, it can be difficult to use it to understand future patterns and reactions to policy changes, as the COVID-19 pandemic-induced crisis showed. It was not just the number of migrants residing in major cities that was unanticipated. The government and local authorities also failed to anticipate the impetus for migrant labourers to move back to their hometowns once their revenue streams were cut off. This suggests that the government had not considered the subjective, emotional concerns that migrants had about their well-being, and consequently failed to predict how they would react. This article argues that a paradigm shift towards a deeper, more wide-ranging use of qualitative-interpretive methods is in order if we are to obtain a fuller picture of migrant needs and actions. This qualitative data may then be used in tandem with surveys, enumerations and quantitative studies to predict both the quantum and the direction of migrant movements, actions and reactions. These methods are, therefore, not just supplementary, but critical policy tools in themselves, allowing policymakers to craft interventions and responses that account for the subjective considerations surrounding migrant mobility.

Development of a scale to measure the livelihood status of migrant labourers in coffee Plantations of Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru districts Karnataka state

Development of a scale to measure the livelihood status of migrant labourers in coffee Plantations of Kodagu and Chikkamagaluru districts Karnataka state

Japanese Immigration in America: Fleeing Riots, Escaping Imprisonment, and Assimilating.

When 13-year-old Teruichi Nakayama, my grandfather, came to San Francisco from Osaka in 1906, he was assured of an education in a public school by an 1894 treaty between the United States and Japan that gave the latter most-favored-nation status. In 1906, racist mobs forced a decision by the school board to assign 41 school aged Japanese children, including him, to a segregated school for Asian children in violation of the pact. In 1907, he escaped street violence to work as a migrant laborer on inland farms. Settling in the state's Central Coast, he started a confectionary, the family business he knew from his childhood in Japan. He eked enough money to raise a family with a wife arranged for him in the traditional manner by a go-between in Japan. The school board action opened a diplomatic rift between the 2 countries that never resolved and ended in war in 1941. Just days ahead of the imprisonment of Japanese living in California in 1942, he and his family fled to Colorado, a sanctuary state where he reestablished the confectionery. He faced every misapprehension of the current immigration crisis: racism, unfair labor competition, the impossibility of assimilation, and suspicion of a fifth column. Now 5 generations later, none of the fearful predictions when he first arrived came true. His legacy proves immigration as an essential rejuvenating force in America.

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.

Preparing for the Future in the Shadow of the Pandemic—The Goat Trust Emerges Digitally

The founder of a charitable organization dedicated to small livestock management for livelihood generation now confronts the additional challenge of supporting returnee migrant workers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19. Simultaneously, addressing the need to navigate the economy during and after the COVID era became imperative. India’s diverse economic landscape, marked by substantial regional disparities, compels thousands of labourers to migrate annually for a better life. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the plight of these migrant labourers. Faced with joblessness and unable to sustain themselves in large cities, they began returning to their homes. The Goat Trust, actively promoting livelihood development in resource-deprived areas, is exploring avenues to reshape the value network of goat farming in India. The urgency of the situation demands immediate action. This scenario underscores the potential for social enterprises to play a pivotal role in building the new post-pandemic economy. Organizations like the Goat Trust can seize opportunities presented by this social crisis by upgrading and digitising local economies. This approach is pertinent to India and relevant to the global economy. Focusing on local economic development emerges as a key strategy for alleviating the profound economic depression induced by the pandemic.

Thinking across agrarian class hierarchies in guest worker programs: Limitations to worker and farmer collective strategies

Both farmers and workers utilize guest worker programs to gain access to the transnational food labor economy. Yet such programs reinforce both employees’ and farm owners’ relative lack of power in the global food system. This paper discusses the approaches farmers and workers utilizing the H-2A guest worker program in the United States employ to cope with such inequalities. We assess findings from qualitative interviews in New York state with current and former workers and farmers participating in the program. We find that farmers draw on regional agrarian communities with historically established networks to collectively manage labor acquisition, seasonality, and affordability. In contrast, the temporary nature of workers’ time in the United States limits their ability to establish deep social networks, and workers cope either by increasing their hours and commitment or by leaving the program to work in agriculture without work authorization. These temporal and spatial constraints further diminish worker power within the food system by limiting their ability to effectively organize for better conditions, with consequences for global food system equity.

Rural migrant labourers and their livelihood during COVID-19 in India

Rural migrant labourers and their livelihood during COVID-19 in India

Fale Pili: a Tuvaluan perspective on mobility justice

ABSTRACT This paper suggests that the Indigenous Tuvaluan concept of fale pili, looking after one’s neighbour as if they were family, must be centralised in understandings of mobility justice for Tuvaluan people. While the risks of sea level rise to Tuvalu’s low-lying national territory are well-recognised, the culturally specific ways in which Tuvaluans perceive and experience mobility are not. From a fale pili perspective, mobility is a way of enacting family, fenua (indigenous island within Tuvalu) and responsibilities to the Tuvaluan (political) community. Conceived in this way, Tuvaluan mobility does not primarily see migrant-as-individual; rather the migrant is always a representative of, and contributor towards, collective wellbeing of family, fenua and nation. Our paper is structured as follows. First, we discuss the importance of approaching both mobility and mobility justice as culturally specific concepts that are scripted and experienced by different peoples in different ways. To do so, we read contemporary theorisations of mobility (in)justice, and encourage attention to understanding the cosmological dimensions of contemporary (global) life that a critical civilisational perspective affords. Drawing on two case-studies of fale pili, one involving urban-rural migration in Tuvalu during the COVID-19 pandemic, and one involving Tuvaluan guest workers in Australia, we suggest that fale pili offers an approach to understanding mobility justice as culturally and geographically situated. By way of conclusion, we also consider the ways that fale pili can contribute to wider debates on mobility (in)justice in turbulent times.

The Political Economy of the Kafala Abolishment in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia – an oil-rich rentier state, receives a large number of guest workers, and they were maintained under the controversial Kafala system. Recently, Saudi Arabia announced to abolish this system to come into effect in March 2021, but excluded domestic workers. Such observations show that there are political-economic incentives for the authority in abolishment apart from the humanitarian ground. Again, the current regime is willing to reduce its dependency on oil by diversifying its economy. Crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman announced massive reform plan – “Saudi Vision 2030” – to bolster FDIs and develop the public sector and service industries, where they need skilled labourers and experts to run their economy, where Kafala is not suitable. In this context, this paper would like to follow the political economy of migration policy as an analytical framework to provide a political-economic analysis of Kafala abolishment in Saudi Arabia by looking at the current transformation and Kafala abolishment.

“Garima Means to Live with Pride:” A Case Study on Provider Perspectives and Local Government Response to Health of Internal Migrant Laborers in Kerala

Background: Addressing the health needs of interstate migrants in India is a complex challenge. We undertook a case study of Garima, a migrant health intervention in Kozhikode district, Kerala, and explored the perspectives of the health system and the role of local governments with regard to the programs targeting the health of migrant laborers in Kerala. Methods: We used a qualitative descriptive case study approach as described by Baxter and Jack and used Braun and Clarke’s intermediate Q thematic analysis approach. We conducted one key informant interview (KII) and one in-depth interview (IDI) and review of 23 documents obtained from the corporation health department and online sources, including media and social media review. We also did two KIIs with experts and nine IDIs with field workers of the health department of the state. Results: Intervention execution was mainly through inspectorial health teams comprising representatives from multiple sectors, including local governments, law enforcement, and health. Actions included registration, screening, disease surveillance, and care provisioning through regular medical camps. Referral and follow-up through regional health-care centers were consistently made available in Garima. Migrant health programs increasingly focus on living conditions, including hygiene and sanitation, and employers, contractors, or building owners are to take responsibility for these. Conclusions: The Garima project for the health of interstate migrant laborers reflected a shift in the Kerala health system toward welfare rather than disease control and intersectoral coordination. Local governments hold the promise of advancing such interventions and scaling them up across the state.

Entry of Migrant Workers to Malaysia: Consideration to Implement Mass Drug Administration Against Intestinal Parasitic Infections.

Over the last five decades, widespread industrialisation and urbanisation have resulted in the influx of low-skilled workers, particularly from Southeast and West Asia to Malaysia. The current practice for migrant workers entry for employment requires mandatory medical screening for infectious diseases. However, screening for parasitic infections in Malaysia is woefully inadequate. Many migrants come from low-income countries where parasitic infections are common, which may have public health implications for their overall well-being as parasitic infections, although not critical, may impact their overall productivity. The high prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections (IPIs) recorded among migrant workers in Malaysia necessitates improvement in the national health policy to include mandatory mass administration of a single dose of anthelmintic drugs to all low-skilled migrant labourers, particularly upon entry into the country, admission, and encourage continuous surveillance. A constant stream of migrant labourers is anticipated, potentially resulting in an ongoing occurrence of parasitic infections within the population. The implementation of economic measures like health awareness initiatives, routine deworming campaigns, and improved sanitation facilities holds the potential to reduce the spread of these infections notably. More often than not, taking preventive actions proves to be more financially efficient over time compared to addressing severe infections at a later stage.

Irrigation, migration and infestation: a case study of Chagas disease vectors and bed bugs in El Pedregal, Peru.

The city of El Pedregal grew out of a desert, following an agricultural irrigation project in southern Peru. To describe infestation patterns by triatomines and bed bugs and their relationship to migration and urbanization. We conducted door-to-door entomological surveys for triatomines and bed bugs. We assessed spatial clustering of infestations and compared the year of construction of infested to un-infested households. To gain a better understanding of the context surrounding triatomine infestations, we conducted in-depth interviews with residents to explore their migration histories, including previous experiences with infestation. We inspected 5,164 households for Triatoma infestans (known locally as the Chirimacha); 21 (0.41%) were infested. These were extremely spatially clustered (Ripley's K p-value < 0.001 at various spatial scales). Infested houses were older than controls (Wilcoxon rank-sum: W = 33; p = 0.02). We conducted bed bug specific inspections in 34 households; 23 of these were infested. These were spatially dispersed across El Pedregal, and no difference was observed in construction age between bed bug infested houses and control houses (W = 6.5, p = 0.07). The establishment of agribusiness companies in a desert area demanded a permanent work force, leading to the emergence of a new city. Migrant farmers, seeking work opportunities or escaping from adverse climatic events, arrived with few resources, and constructed their houses with precarious materials. T. infestans, a Chagas disease vector, was introduced to the city and colonized houses, but its dispersal was constrained by presence of vacant houses. We discuss how changes in the socioeconomic and agricultural landscape can increase vulnerability to vector-borne illnesses.

СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ ВНЕШНЕЙ ТРУДОВОЙ МИГРАЦИИ НАСЕЛЕНИЯ В РОССИИ И ИХ РЕГУЛИРОВАНИЕ

The subject of the study is a set of issues related to the regulation of external labor migration in the Russian Federation. The goal is to justify the need to further use external labor migration as a source of replenishing Russia’s labor resources and mitigating the growing personnel shortage in the economy. For this purpose, the main problems and myths associated with the current aggravation of the migration situation are considered. The scientific novelty lies in the substantiation of the need to reform migration statistics, clarify the scale of labor migration, and manage its flows. The study was conducted using quantitative and qualitative analysis methodology. Its empirical basis was statistical data, materials from media publications, and the results of published and own sociological expert surveys of migrants. As a result of the study, a conclusion was drawn: modern flows of foreign migration are quite stable, and in their scale and structure they serve as a necessary addition to the country’s shrinking labor resources. The modern shortcomings of accounting, control, and regulation of external labor migration and their reasons, which cause uncertainty in the assessment and forecasting of migration processes, are revealed. The proposals made based on the results of the study are aimed at determining the conditions that, in addition to the project for reforming migration legislation, should be ensured for the effective use of the labor of external labor migrants and not pose a threat to Russian society.

Parenting Patterns of Substitute Parents for Children of Indonesian Migrant Workers

This research is motivated by the importance of parenting education for the families of Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI) working abroad, especially in the Donomulyo District, Malang Regency, which has become a major concern for the government. With a focus on strengthening social capital and Spiritual Capital, this study aims to address horizontal conflicts resulting from poverty conditions and conflicts among families and social environments. This dissertation focuses on strengthening social capital in parenting education for the families of Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI) working abroad, with a study on the behavior of caregivers and children from TKW familiesin the Donomulyo District, Malang Regency. It aims to provide insights and practical recommendations to support the fulfillment of child custody rights in the context of TKI families working abroad by strengthening social capital and Spiritual Capital. The research uses a qualitative method, involving interviews, documentation, and observation, and uses interactive data analysis as a data analysis technique. By exploring how strengthening social capital can influence parenting practices in the context of poverty and horizontal conflicts, as well as how this can support the fulfillment of child custody rights. The results show that poverty conditions drive the choices of migrant laborers, creating closed horizontal conflicts within families and social environments. To create social concern for the children of migrant laborers, strengthening Spiritual Capital in social capital is needed, including Bridging Social Capital and Bonding Social Capital, oriented towards family and community actors in shaping attitudes and behaviors that are friendly to children. Implications include strategies to increase social capital and Spiritual Capital, as well as the importance of developing deep communication and social support between families and communities.

Dengue fever in Saudi Arabia: review of the recent literature

Dengue fever (DF) stands out as one of the most perilous mosquito-borne viruses, exerting a significant toll on both medical and economic fronts globally. Historically, Latin America and Asia have emerged as focal points for much of the DF research endeavors, owing to the pronounced burdens the virus imposes on these regions. In other areas, like in the Middle East, where DF has posed a significant public health risk, research is critically required. Therefore, this review of literature attempted to cover a variety of DF-related topics in Saudi Arabia to help healthcare professionals improve the level of DF management. The review was conducted by searching the Medline, PubMed archives, National Library of Medicine, Google Scholar, and other resourceful databases with relevant information regarding DF. The search was conducted using Arabic and English literature. Extra references were located in the reference lists of the selected articles, whereby, the selection process involved reviewing the abstracts and titles of each article. It was found that in Saudi Arabia, the first known case of DF happened in 1993. However, in 2004, the disease was officially declared an endemic, following a decade of intermittent outbreaks. Similar to other countries where DF has been declared endemic, Saudi Arabia&amp;apos;s climate, sociodemographic diversity, and growing population have contributed to the spread of DF. Several factors including the substantial influx of migrant laborers and religious visitors from dengue-endemic regions across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia contribute to the proliferation of DF in Saudi Arabia.