Temporary Migrant Workers Research Articles

Wage Theft in Silence: Why Migrant Workers Do Not Recover Their Unpaid Wages in Australia

Wage Theft in Silence presents findings from the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey -- the most comprehensive study of working conditions and access to justice among international students, backpackers and other temporary migrants in Australia. It draws on responses from 4,322 temporary migrants across 107 nationalities of every region in the world, working in a range of jobs throughout all Australian states and territories. The report reveals that although the majority of migrant workers were paid well below minimum wage in Australia, the overwhelming majority suffered in silence. Indeed, among international students and backpackers who acknowledged they had been underpaid, only 9% took any action to recover wages they were owed. The report considers the institutions from whom those 9% sought assistance, and whether they were able to recover their wages. These include the Fair Work Ombudsman, education providers and unions. The report also presents data on the attitudes and experiences of the 91% of migrant workers who suffered wage theft in silence. Though it is often assumed that most underpaid migrant workers are not interested or willing to take action to get the wages they are owed, in fact well over half of survey participants indicated that they were open to trying to recover their wages. The report presents findings on the range of psychological, practical and other barriers that deterred them from doing so. It concludes that many of these barriers can be addressed through practical measures and policy reform, and it presents a range of recommendations to government, parliament, business and the international education sector to make reporting wage theft possible and rational for migrant workers. These include recommendations for a new or improved process for wage recovery, better resourced support services, and a firewall between the labour regulator and the immigration regulator that guarantees that migrants’ visas will not be jeopardised if they report wage theft.

Towards professionalism through social networks: constructing an occupational community via Facebook usage by temporary migrant workers from the Philippines

ABSTRACTSocial networking sites (SNSs) have restructured the ways that workers reflect on their occupational identity and work to elevate its prestige and social status. In this study, we investigate Facebook activities of Filipino temporary migrant workers employed as caregivers in Israel and instead of cultural or leisure communal and SNS activities, this study aims to focus on migrant workers’ daily occupation, questioning: How do SNS expressions shape and co-create an occupational community of temporary migrant workers? Through an extensive methodology that incorporates over 800 Facebook posts and supported by an extensive ethnographic research, the study uncovers four facets of communication that relate to caregiver work: utility, care, emotive and legal. These facets are then related to the construction of symbolic knowledge, accountability, expressivity, responsibility (ethics) and developing know-how. Thus, SNSs are found to provide a powerful platform for marginalized occupations and communities, to foster preliminary forms of (semi)professionalism, and gain social recognition from within their community and beyond. Hence, the study elucidates unintended impacts of grassrooted online self-educating communities and demonstrates their potential for evoking change in self-image and occupational identity.

Class, identity, and insecurity: Bangladeshi temporary migrants in the United Arab Emirates

The main task of this article is to link the issue of the identity of migrants to the human security of migrants with temporary labor status. This article explores not only the politico-economic circumstances of temporary labor migration amid conditions of insecurity, vulnerability, and precarity, and its social and cultural underpinnings, which are mediated by migrants’ class position, but also the consequences on temporary migrants’ identities. The temporary migrant workers from Bangladesh in the Gulf Coordinating Council (GCC) countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) belong to multiple spaces yet their families and homes are foremost anchors in their narratives of belonging. The space most temporary migrant workers occupy is glocal with a specific focus on geography as well as the community. The article addresses the class-based identity and human security of the temporary Bangladeshi migrants in the UAE.

Migrant Workerss Access to Remedy for Exploitation in Australia: The Role of the National Fair Work Ombudsman

Exploitation of temporary migrant workers in Australia has emerged as a significant human rights concern. However, limited attention has been paid to the State’s responsibility to ensure individual workers can access remedies for rights violations. This article considers whether Australia’s government agencies and institutional frameworks are suitable to enabling remedies for temporary migrant workers, and how well they deliver remedies to individuals in practice. Drawing on new empirical data, it focuses on the role of the national labour inspectorate, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO). FWO has undertaken various education, compliance and deterrence initiatives directed to systemically improving conditions for migrant workers. This article considers the extent to which individual migrant workers seek assistance from FWO to recover their personal unpaid wages, and the remedial outcomes of individual claims lodged with the agency. We illuminate structural factors contributing to migrants’ reluctance to engage with FWO, as well as factors contributing to low wage recovery rates for those who do contact FWO. We conclude that although these challenges are numerous and multi-layered, they are not all inevitable. Reforms should incorporate a new migrant-centred approach that recalibrates the risks and costs of seeking remedies against the likelihood of obtaining a just outcome.

ASEAN’s governance of migrant worker rights

Temporary migrant workers in Southeast Asia are subject to various abuses in recruitment, work and repatriation. A decade ago ASEAN governments committed to developing an Instrument governing migrant worker rights, but a series of deadlocks have stymied this agreement. Prevailing accounts explain this impasse as the consequence of incompatible national interests, norms of non-interference and consensus, a lack of institutional capacity and the limits of rights advocacy in ASEAN. Conversely, utilising a political economy framework, this article demonstrates this impasse in regional governance reflects societal-level conflicts among migrant workers, civil society organisations, business groups and state-based actors, generated by the latter’s adoption of migrant labour as both a livelihood and development strategy.

Migrant workers’ access to remedy for exploitation in Australia: the role of the national Fair Work Ombudsman

ABSTRACTExploitation of temporary migrant workers in Australia has emerged as a significant human rights concern. However, limited attention has been paid to the State’s responsibility to ensure individual workers can access remedies for rights violations. This article considers whether Australia’s government agencies and institutional frameworks are suitable to enabling remedies for temporary migrant workers, and how well they deliver remedies to individuals in practice. Drawing on new empirical data, it focuses on the role of the national labour inspectorate, th Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO). FWO has undertaken various education, compliance and deterrence initiatives directed to systemically improving conditions for migrant workers. This article considers the extent to which individual migrant workers seek assistance from FWO to recover their personal unpaid wages, and the remedial outcomes of individual claims lodged with the agency. We illuminate structural factors contributing to migrants’ reluctance to engage with FWO, as well as factors contributing to low wage recovery rates for those who do contact FWO. We conclude that although these challenges are numerous and multi-layered, they are not all inevitable. Reforms should incorporate a new migrant-centred approach that recalibrates the risks and costs of seeking remedies against the likelihood of obtaining a just outcome.

A Policy Brief: Prolonged Precarious Status in Canada

The scope, frequency, and intensity of the recent reforms to Canadian immigration, refugee, and citizenship policies have made the process of gaining access to permanent status in Canada lengthier, more complicated, and more onerous with little opportunity to appeal or review denied applications. The current federal government has an ambitious roadmap outlined for the immigration, refugees and citizenship portfolio. The one-day workshop titled “Prolonged Precarious Status in Canada: Generating policy directions for the new federal government” sought to provide concrete policy recommendations to the new Minister as he responds to his mandate. Twelve experts selected on the basis of their scholarship and engagement with policy makers, civil society organizations, and the broader community found that the problem of prolonged precarious status in Canada touches upon two broad categories of persons: persons with temporary residence (mainly temporary migrant workers, refugees and refugee claimants) and persons with no status (ascribed by the state designating their entitlement to rights and access to services). Their recommendations are divided into three broad categories: revisions, repeals, and proposed additions to current policies. All experts noted that policy action must involve meaningful consultations with activists, labour unions, and civil society organizations, alongside a variety of governmental bodies across municipal, provincial, and federal jurisdictions. There is consensus that current migration management involves a greater but concerning reliance on temporary status and that such reliance leads to abuse, exploitation, family separation, and contributes to racialized and criminalized misinformation about migrants. This policy brief calls for a systemic approach to not only reviewing temporary and precarious status in Canada, but also recommends that permanent status should be used more.

Perspectives on Working Conditions of Temporary Migrant Workers in Australia

The author is executive director of workplace relations policy and education for the Fair Work Ombudsman. Here he describes the Ombudsman’s role in promoting compliance with workplace laws in settings where temporary migrant workers are employed.

EMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA TO SOUTHEAST ASIA: FACTORS, GEOGRAPHY AND IMPLICATIONS

The article describes the geographical features and trends of emigration of Russian citizens to the countries of Southeast Asia on the basis of a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign statistics. The results of sociological research in these countries have been used: interviews with experts and migrant citizens of various countries of the former USSR who live or stay in Southeast Asia for more than six months. In the course of the study, a comprehensive methodology was developed and the degree of favorableness of the migration and visa regimes of the Southeast Asian countries for Russian citizens has been assessed for a number of characteristics. Factors attracting Russian citizens to the countries of the region in the context of the migration theory of the factors of “pull and push” have been revealed. The socio-demographic structure of migration flows and the geographical features of the resettlement of Russian citizens in the Southeast Asian countries have been considered. The main channels of migration of Russian citizens to the region are given: temporary labor migration, migration for permanent residence, and tourism. Several groups of Russian-speaking migrants in the Southeast Asian countries have been singled out: migrants who have moved to permanent residence, as a rule, opened their own businesses; temporary migrant workers who work for several years in Southeast Asia, are tied to work and are planning to return to Russia after some time; temporary migrants who live in Southeast Asia for several months and periodically return to Russia; Russian women who married citizens of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries – former students who studied in the USSR and Russia. On the basis of expert assessments, the types of migration and visa regimes of the countries of Southeast Asia for Russian citizens have been highlighted. Specifics of the formation of Russian-speaking communities in the countries of the region are established, including the specificity in the main countries – Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore. It has been determined that Russian-speaking communities are becoming an important social and economic phenomenon and influence the political relations of Russia with the countries of the region.

Migration Intermediaries and Codes of Conduct: Temporary Migrant Workers in Australian Horticulture

Over recent decades, developments in network governance have seen governments around the world cede considerable authority and responsibility to commercial migration intermediaries for recruiting and managing temporary migrant labour. Correspondingly, a by-product of network governance has been the emergence of soft employment regulation in which voluntary codes of conduct supplement hard (enforceable) legal employment standards. This paper explores these developments in the context of temporary migrant workers employed in Australian horticulture. First the paper analyses the growing use of temporary migrant labour in this industry. It then describes how different types of intermediaries interact with this workforce. The paper then outlines both hard and soft employment regulations, and contrasts them with actual employment conditions, questioning how a network governance approach has affected this vulnerable workforce. The paper concludes that changes in network governance of migration and employment relations have emasculated formal legal regulation, leaving market forces to operate without effective or ethical constraints at the expense of the public good.

Restricted entitlements for skilled temporary migrants: the limits of migrant consent

ABSTRACTTemporary labour migration programmes have often attracted significant controversy, particularly with regard to provisions that restrict the social entitlements available to temporary migrant workers, compared with other categories of residents. Advocates of such restrictions have argued that migrants freely choose to participate in temporary migration schemes on the prevailing terms, and are free to leave at any time if such participation no longer serves their interests. Our central goal in this paper is to critically evaluate such consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements of temporary migrant workers, with reference to empirical evidence concerning the practical social and economic conditions of choice experienced by these temporary migrants. Drawing on evidence from one major receiving country – Australia – we show that consent-based justifications for restricted social entitlements fail to fully account for either the practical complexity of individual migration choices, or the de facto operation of Australia’s skilled temporary migration programme as a ‘test run’ for potential future permanent residents or citizens. By bringing sociological analysis of lived migrant experiences into critical engagement with normative debates about restricted social entitlements, we contribute to the bridging of empirical and normative migration debates, which too often evolve in parallel.

Introduction

In this issue, six articles are presented analyzing quite different issues and using very different methods. A common denominator for all of the articles is, however, that they examine new trends and issues in work life, discussed in the public debate and experienced in the working life of many employees. Two articles highlight the current trend toward a labor market with temporary and precarious employment: One article examines artists' work orientation and working conditions. Artists have a long tradition of working in employment arrangements that increasingly characterize the current labor market. Another article explores how our understanding of temporary migrant care workers is constructed.A third article contributes to our understanding of the effect of New Public Management on working conditions: the article analyzes coping and resistance when employees in the public sector experience moral distress as a result of New Public Management.Personality seems to have increasing importance in the differentiation at the labor market. A fourth article examines how the assessment of personality actually is performed by recruitment consultancies.Two articles examine the opportunities to improve working conditions under the new conditions: One article examines the effects of interventions designed to improve the work-life reconciliation. Another article examines the public regulation of the psychosocial work environment (...)

Determinants of temporary labour migration in southern India

ABSTRACTWe present new data from three village panchayats in northwest Tamil Nadu and investigate the associations between demographic and socioeconomic factors with temporary labour migration from this setting. Individual (n = 1110) and household (n = 278) level logistic regression models were used to demonstrate how factors at each of these levels can influence temporary labour migration trajectories. Young males were most likely to temporarily migrate for work from this region. Additionally, large households from historically disadvantaged castes with marginal land and housing were most likely to have at least one migrant member. Households with multiple migrant members appear to use temporary migration to cope with serious deprivation relative to households with only one migrant member. These findings provide a strong case that can be compared to other settings in India and can be used to inform improved policy and targeted development initiatives to support temporary migrant workers and their households.

Layered vulnerability: Temporary migrants in Australian horticulture

Australian horticulture (fruit and vegetable production) relies upon a seasonal harvest workforce, much of which now consists of temporary migrant workers. This article argues that the composition of this workforce and the character of the work lead towards layered vulnerability, some groups being more exposed to low pay and substandard working conditions than others. Formally at least, employment conditions are generally protected by the federal Horticulture Award (2010). But are decent employment standards consistently observed? The article explores this question, examining three issues. First, does analysis of workforce composition reveal different tiers in the workforce, some more vulnerable than others? Second, do the casual nature of harvest work and the job search processes used by temporary migrant workers create disadvantaged groups? Third, does evidence about pay, working hours and work intensity reveal some workers to be more vulnerable than others? The article concludes with an examination of those factors that appear to be associated with layered vulnerability in the harvest workforce, and considers some policy implications.

Troubling the Fields: Choice, Consent, and Coercion of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers

AbstractThis article brings a new, theoretically minded approach to weighing the relative utilities and harms of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) without dismissing the agency of SAWP enrollees or arriving at an abolitionist argument to end Temporary Migrant Worker (TMW) programmes in Canada. Building on the anti‐trafficking debate within feminist migration studies, we evaluate the availability and exercise of consent, choice, and coercion among SAWP workers. We draw on extensive documentation by scholars across disciplines to contextualize the SAWP within a socio‐economic history that engendered and continues to legitimize the “success” of the programme in both Mexico (the largest sending state) and Ontario (the largest provincial recipient of workers). Our analysis suggests that, while grievous, the SAWP's structural injustice ought not to preclude individuals from migrating and earning wages. The article concludes with recommendations to create a fairer avenue for Mexican workers into, through, and out of the SAWP.

Examining a Temporary Migrant Worker's Ability to Make a Complaint of Sexual Harassment

Australia’s migration landscape has been transformed in the past two decades. Although Australia was initially founded upon a culture of permanent migration, built upon ideas of nation-building and citizenship, temporary labour migration has now become the norm. There are over one million migrants with work rights temporarily residing in Australia. Although Australia has only one primary pathway for temporary migrant workers, namely the subclass 457 visa, a number of other visas provide opportunities for temporary migrants to perform work in the domestic labour market. Both international students and working holiday makers have work rights, and a significant amount of unskilled and low skilled work is done by temporary migrants on these visas.

Temporary Low-skilled Migrant Worker Program in Korea: Employment Permit Scheme

In Korea low-skilled migrant workers increased drastically entering the 1990s. In 2003 ‘Employment Permit Scheme (EPS)’ was introduced as social consensus formed that there should be legal channels to employ low-skilled migrant workers while providing proper treatment for them. In 2007 ‘Training-Working Scheme’ under which migrant workers were treated trainees, not workers, was folded into the EPS. Different set of policies have been implemented for overseas Koreans reflecting the experiences of 36 years of Japanese colonial rule. Through implementing EPS, the government mainly aims to prevent corruption that might occur in the admission process of migrant workers and establish the employment order for migrant workers by suppressing undocumented stay and illegal employment. EPS has made a remarkable process in terms of achieving transparency and eradicating the corruption in the admission process. The number of undocumented migrants including low-skilled migrant workers reached its peak in 2002 at 289,239 then declined to 179,846 in March 2013. Among those, who entered Korea through EPS and ‘Working Visit Scheme’ accounts for 24.1% and 2.5% respectively. Even though the number of undocumented migrant workers has significantly reduced after the implementation of EPS, they are still a big part of migrant workers who are in the dead zone of labor rights and human rights. However, Korea’s temporary low-skilled migrant worker program, EPS cannot be free from the criticism that it is a mere short-term manpower supply policy lacking comprehensive consideration of how to embrace low-skilled migrant workers as a migration policy or as a countermeasure to population changes.

Trying to secure a future in uncertain circumstances. The social security of temporary migrant workers in Finland

This article deals with temporary migrant workers experiences of social security in Finland, and the question how temporality influences the motivations of migrant workers to find out about their rights in the welfare system. What kinds of experiences do temporary migrants have? Have they met specific problems related to temporariness? The article shows how motivations to find out about the welfare system are linked to the length of stay of the migrant, sector of work, gender of the temporary worker, country of origin of the worker. Finally motivations are in a high degree influenced by objective possibilities of accessing the welfare benefits of the country, for instance related to problems in receiving work permits, residence permits, and the national insurance institution (KELA) insurance cards. The article shows how many temporary workers, especially within seasonal agricultural work, are in Finland solely in order to work, and are not directed towards other aspects of life while in Finland. Temporary migrants learn about the Finnish Social Security System through their own experience, which makes their knowledge dependent on initiation processes at work places. In many cases a private insurance is required from the temporary worker in order to get the visa and many immigrants are not motivated to contribute to a system, which they don’t benefit of. Migrants incorporate possibilities provided by the social system. They thus adjust their subjective expectations to the objective conditions. Sometimes this adjustment is done in frustration as benefits are out of reach despite having to contribute to the system financially by paying taxes.

Rock Stars and Bad Apples: Moral Economies of Alternative Food Networks and Precarious Farm Work Regimes

Alternative food networks face both challenges and opportunities in rethinking the role of precarious employment in food system transformation. We explore how alternative food networks in British Columbia, Canada have engaged with flexible and precarious work regimes for farmworkers, including both temporary migrant workers and un(der)paid agricultural interns. Based on in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis, we find that alternative food actors often normalize a precarious work regime using a moral economy frame. This framing describes precarious farm employment as either a necessary challenge in the transition to sustainability, or merely involving a few individual “bad apple” farmers. Further, this framing involves an aversion to “one-size-fits-all” regulation by the state in favor of consumer-driven regulation of labor standards. Our analysis suggests that a moral economy framing can obscure systemic inequities in precarious farm employment and dampen the impetus for structural change through collective food movement organizing.

Passing the Buck? Neoliberal Restructuring and the Transformation of the Live‐in Caregivers Program to Keep “Women’s Work” Undervalued and Out of Sight in the Canadian Workforce

In recent years, Canadian policies have reflected global trends towards neoliberal restructuring and a determination to participate in globalization processes. The emphasis is now on less government “interference” in order to encourage greater flows of capital, goods, and labour. At the same time, Canada has become increasingly dependent on migrant labour in order to fill “labour shortages;” in particular, the number of temporary Filipina migrant workers in Canada has risen dramatically over the last thirty years. While rhetoric states that government cutbacks in social spending, services, and regulation will benefit us all, questions arise about whose labour and spending will fill in these gaps left by a lack of public services. My research, based on a comprehensive overview of related literature, will demonstrate that in the end, these cutbacks in government spending have far‐reaching and profoundly gendered effects; Canadian women are greatly impacted by these reductions in government involvement. Furthermore, a disturbing trend is arising. Many women are now using the Live‐in Caregivers Program as a means of using their privilege to buy their way out of their gender subordination through the purchase of migrant labour. In the end, I conclude, that this is neither a sustainable nor appropriate means of dealing with Canadian household insecurity. Furthermore, the vulnerability of these workers and the restrictions on their opportunities while within Canadian borders is a true testament to long‐term societal issues in Canada that must be addressed in order to create a more just Canadian society.