Undocumented Migrant Workers Research Articles

Surveillance Without Protection: Policing Undocumented Migrant Workers in an American Suburb

Surveillance Without Protection: Policing Undocumented Migrant Workers in an American Suburb

Learning treasures within an unauthorized migrant workers’ community

This study was designed to explore the learning mechanism and its treasures within an undocumented migrant workers’ voluntary community in Korea. Based on a qualitative case study, major findings suggest that various modes of learning mechanisms acted as crucial foundations of the community’s diverse learning paths and participants’ social engagement. Four mechanisms steered the community towards a sustainable learning environment: constructiveness, communicativeness, collective autonomy and practicality. Through these, unauthorized migrants were able to have their “voices” heard in the wider society. These learning treasures have implications for both theory and practice, and for empowering underprivileged groups. They could also widen the horizon of understanding human learning in an informal learning context.

When Battlefields become Marketplaces: Migrant Workers and the Role of Civil Society and NGO Activism in Thailand

AbstractThe vast majority of migrant workers in Thailand are employed predominantly in low‐paying occupations commonly described as “3‐D jobs” (dangerous, dirty, and difficult). Currently, there are nearly two million documented and undocumented migrant workers, mostly from neighbouring Burma, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Cambodia, employed in various industries, including domestic service, throughout the country. While over half a million migrants are officially registered to work in the country, both documented and undocumented migrant workers remain unprotected primarily due to the lack of concrete measures to monitor, implement and enforce laws regarding working and living conditions. Regardless of where they are employed, migrant workers face common problems: low wages; harmful working conditions, poor living conditions; discrimination and harassment, the threat of arrest and deportation; and lack of access to basic resources such as medical care and legal assistance. Based on preliminary research conducted in the summer of 2005, this article looks at the situation of migrant factory and domestic workers in Thailand and explores the ways in which local activists, NGOs, community‐based organisations, and international bodies have been looking to assist and protect migrant workers. Successful migrant workers’ struggles and ongoing efforts of mobilization have been made possible with the help of these support groups, and raise the possibility that union and NGO activity have the potential to improve the situation of migrants in Thailand. This also raises the question of whether advocacy groups should be acting in lieu of the state rather than alongside the state, especially when it appears that they are fulfilling their civic duty as enforcer and monitor of migrant workers’ problems.

Considerations regarding medical services for undocumented migrant workers

The number of undocumented migrant workers in Korea is increasing. They are not covered by national health insurance, and thus find it difficult to access medical services. A number of medical service teams from religious organizations and some hospitals provide targeted services to migrant workers through special programs, but they face many limitations of scope and resources. In a globalized world, undocumented migrant workers should not be treated as simply passing through. Health care for these guests to our country should be of the quality we would expect for our neighbors and families.

A study on undocumented migrant workers in the Dutch household sector

Purpose – Migration waves have a significant impact on cultural diversity. But in various sections of the economy the authors observe large numbers of unregistered workers. The purpose of this paper is to map out the socio-economic situation of unregistered migrant workers and aims to identify the drivers of their labour market position in terms of job opportunities and salary. The specific focus of this study will be on undocumented immigrant workers involved in the domestic work (or household) sector in the Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach – This paper offers empirical evidence on two levels: the individual level (migrant domestic workers), and the household level (from an employer perspective). Findings – The paper finds that years of work experience and social network participation – in particular, family relationships and a combination of friends with employer relationships – increases the chances of finding a higher paid irregular job. From a household perspective, there appears to be a posi...

Haushaltsarbeit und affektive Arbeit

The central topic of this article is the social devaluation of domestic work, especially focusing on its affective dimension. The question of reproduction as well as the productive character of care-work is constantly neglected in many socioeconomic studies. This counts also for Marxist analyses. Following enquiries in European countries on how domestic work is sensed, how this impacts the people delivering this work, as well as how these feelings linger in spaces and are transferred within relations, the results are interpreted in the context of processes of feminization and the coloniality of labor. Special attention is given to the situation of undocumented migrant domestic workers. As conclusion to these observations some thoughts on formulating domestic workers’ rights along the lines of the politics of affect are elaborated.

Representing foreign workers in the private security industry: a South African perspective on trade union engagement

ABSTRACTIn recent years South African cities have become home to a large number of undocumented migrant workers. If trade unions do not organise undocumented migrant workers, it opens up such workers to exploitation and maltreatment by employers, thereby creating a split labour market that undermines the entire labour movement. This article focuses on the responses of the national trade union movement in the private security sector to the presence of undocumented workers at the grassroots level. Using a case study approach, we find that the pressures of labour market informalisation in the industry prompt unions to seek to maintain and advance their position from their traditional support base of citizen workers rather than attempt to include new groups. The failure to engage is reinforced by anti-immigrant attitudes which link foreigners with problems in the industry such as low wages and portrays such workers as co-conspirators rather than comrades. While justice and solidarity have always been the foundation of trade unionism in South Africa, the movement is in danger of failing this test if the current situation in terms of the exclusion of undocumented foreign workers persists.

Chinese Newcomers in Japan: Migration Trends, Profiles and the Impact of the 2011 Earthquake

Since the late-1970s, millions of Chinese have arrived in Japan as students, workers, family members, long-term residents, and undocumented migrant workers. Hundreds of thousands of them have chosen to settle in this country. This paper introduces the major patterns of contemporary migration from China to Japan and describes some characteristics of Chinese migrants, highlighting the transnationality of their socioeconomic practices and settlement orientation. It also discusses the impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake on the Chinese community, pointing out that migration decision-making takes into account a complex set of contextual factors. Natural disasters might only be a small part of the causal reasons or a catalyst at best. On the other hand, the shared disaster experience might be an opportunity for migrants to participate in societal building and cultivate a sense of belonging.

Excesses and double standards: migrant prostitutes, sovereignty and exceptions in contemporary Italy

In this paper, the author proposes an analysis of the apparently contradictory attitudes towards transactional sexual exchanges, as they have emerged in public debate and informed legislation and policies in Italy over the past few years. The ambiguity towards commercial sex is linked to a specific dynamic of power, which denies sexual labour the status of work and makes it the object of repressive and criminalising policies, whilst at the same time habitually demanding sexual services in exchange for money, gifts or favours. The article shows how criminalisation functions as a prominent form for the control of subjects, related to the workings of sovereignty. In particular, the author considers the ways in which the criminalisation of prostitution and of undocumented migration, which compound in the figure of the migrant prostitute, represents a means for the exertion of sovereignty and relates to the centrality of desire, transgression and their disciplining in the contemporary context. However, closer examination of the subjective experiences of those who are supposedly excluded and criminalised, such as undocumented migrant sex workers in detention centres, reveals the incompleteness of disciplinary mechanisms.

Making a living at the interface of legality and illegality: Chinese migrant workers in Israel1

AbstractSince the late 1990s, Israel has become a new destination for Chinese migrant workers. In the view of many studies conducted in Israel, the Chinese migrant workers are often a neglected and almost invisible group. The purpose of this paper is to explore the initiation of this migration trend and its social consequences. The major discussion of this study focuses on how the whole process of migration is carried out at the interface between legality and illegality. Research in the sending area suggests that the urgent need for manual labour in Israel provides possibilities to attract both documented and undocumented migrant workers and therefore turns labour transportation into a profitable business. Although no one agrees that undocumented working activities should continue, all of the factors interact and result in a permissive situation allowing this particular combination of the illegal but licit to persist in transnational labour migration. More than anything else, this micro‐level study attempts to find the true story from the individual voices of local people.

Commodity Production and the Sociology of Work: Ideologies of Labor and the Making of Globalization

A common feature in almost any world atlas is the colorful, symbol-driven commodity maps that identify national and global regions by the production of specific types of crops or the extraction of natural resources found there. Oranges grow in the state of Florida in the United States; copper is mined in the northern region of Chile; perhaps tiny representations of sheep indicate that Australia is a major producer of wool. These visual productions of space are both compelling and misleading, implying that access to the world's bounty is as simple as knowing where things are located within a larger division and ordering of the world. Yet oranges are not indigenous to Florida, and their contemporary mass production is made possible largely by the employment of undocumented migrant workers and the legal exclusions that make them a cheap source of labor. Without well-funded and meticulously crafted campaigns urging residents living in temperate climates to purchase and consume oranges year round, oranges' profitable hold in Florida would likewise not be sustainable. Such complexities raise the question, where are the maps that illustrate the dynamic cultural, labor, and political relationships between the commodities and the places where they are produced?

“Less Documented” Immigrants and the Changing U.S. Economy

Research on immigrant and undocumented migrant workers in the United States tends to overlook the range of legal and various other barriers to employment that such workers face in the U.S. labor market. This paper proposes the category worker to reflect a broader spectrum of employment barriers for immigrant workers. Drawing on a participatory research project with less documented workers in Southern California, this study describes how changes in the U.S. economy are forcing immigrant workers to find new ways of obtaining work, that the search for work and types of employment are increasingly flexible and contingent, yet typically have a coherent organizational structure, and that the range and diversity of work that immigrant workers engage in is far broader than was previously known.

Regulating Migrant Domestic Work in the Netherlands: Opportunities and Pitfalls

Aux Pays-Bas, les travailleuses domestiques migrantes font actuellement campagne sur plusieurs fronts pour avoir davantage de droits, pour que leurs droits soient mieux protégés en tant que travailleurs, pour réclamer l'aide sociale, et pour le droit de résider et de travailler aux Pays-Bas. Depuis 2006, elles reçoivent l'appui des syndicats néerlandais. Bien que les soins à domicile et les services ménagers aux Pays-Bas suivent traditionnellement la ligne de faille fondée sur le sexe et qui démarque la main-d'œuvre payée et non payée, on accorde davantage de place aux autres lignes de faille qui distinguent les citoyens des étrangers, et le groupe ethnique dominant des minorités ethniques. Pour assurer le succès d'une campagne menée en collaboration avec les travailleuses domestiques migrantes sans papier et les syndicats néerlandais, il faudra réconcilier les besoins et les désirs d'un groupe de plus en plus divers de travailleuses. Dans le présent article, l'auteure décrit les intérêts divergents, les possibilités de collaboration et les contraintes politiques qui marquent la situation actuelle des travailleuses domestiques aux Pays-Bas, qu'elles soient migrantes ou de souche. Les propositions actuelles pour revoir la loi sur l'immigration aux Pays-Bas peuvent non seulement inspirer une campagne concertée visant à améliorer la situation de toutes ces travailleuses, mais aussi soulever de nouveaux défis. Pour arriver à donner du travail décent à toutes les travailleuses domestiques, il faudra éventuellement chercher au-delà de l'horizon national, en tentant à distribuer plus équitablement les soins, de protéger la main-d'œuvre et d'assurer des avantages sociaux à toutes les travailleuses à l'échelle mondiale.

The Employment Contract Revisited. Undocumented Migrant Workers and the Intersection between International Standards, Immigration Policy and Employment Law

AbstractThis article considers recent legal developments on undocumented migrant workers, finds the acceptance of international legal standards unsatisfactory and argues that the private law rights derived from the “semi-legal” employment contract between the employer and the undocumented migrant worker generates a solid base for significant legal claims. It further monitors the promotion of the position of the undocumented migrant workers under recent EU law and calls for a refocusing on the employment contract in the reading of a relevant EC Directive, with a particular emphasis on the issue of access to justice for the migrant workers. The increased number of undocumented migrants who leave their countries of origin for reasons outside the scope of the asylum procedure, as well as the circumstances under which this migration is undertaken and the working conditions of these individuals in the host countries, have brought about legal activities from governments and institutions such as the EU. The aim has in general been to establish sanctions against employers of undocumented migrant workers, but a shift towards a compensatory, employee protective, attitude has recently emerged, both in EU legislation and in a broader perspective in US case law. The article concludes that such a development must be massively supported in relation to access to justice in order to fulfill the ambition. The poor legal position of the undocumented migrant workers is significantly connected to issues of legal representation, trade union participation and the threat of repatriation.

GIVING WAY AT THE INTERSECTION

GIVING WAY AT THE INTERSECTION

“The Illegal Lives”: Art Within a Community of Others

Since 2002, Mixrice, the artist collective, has pursued social interventionist activities and collaborative projects with a group of undocumented Asian migrant workers in South Korea. Utilizing photographic and media recordings, comics, murals, and texts in the form of exhibitions, publications, and the Web, they engage the question of the Other within the context of an ostensibly monoethnic South Korean culture. Through their critical practice of working with members of a transnational community, Mixrice probes the issues of human rights and the ethics and roles of the artist in a volatile sociopolitical environment.

The right to stay: challenging the policy of detention and deportation

The aim of this article is to shed light on the situation of refugees (formally designated as asylum seekers) and undocumented migrant workers, who are among the most vulnerable inhabitants of Europe. Both groups face the threat of detention and deportation. The normative framework, which consists of legal standards and residential institutions, will be critically examined. Despite international standards for respecting the human rights of refugees and undocumented workers, policies of detention and deportation and the mass rejection of asylum claims leave little hope for the empowerment, autonomy and social inclusion of these persons. Instead of a straight-forward argument for closing down all detention centres and putting an end to forcible deportations, the article investigates small scale structural possibilities for inclusive – non-selective – responses to these non-citizens.

UNDOCUMENTED INDONESIAN WORKERS IN MACAU

Presenting new research findings on undocumented Indonesian migrant workers in Macau, this article explicates the dovetailing arrangements between public and private sector interests that are systemically creating undocumented labor migration flows. It then shows how these arrangements are structurally inherent in the mutual competitiveness of globalizing nodes of wealth creation. Undocumented migration cheapens production costs and results in a flexible black market of vulnerable, right-less, and exploited workers. Contrary to illusions of an urbanizing Asia with expanding spaces for civil liberties, the development of globally competitive megacities, built and supported by low-skilled migrant workers, rests on a global underclass of transient workers who bear the human costs of transience and labor flexibility, enabling megacities to externalize such costs and enhance their global competitiveness. The article analyzes the vulnerabilities of undocumented Indonesian workers in the context of Macau's rapid economic development as an aspiring megacity The Macau government's laissez-faire tolerance of such workers is grounded in its need for human labor that is abundant, cheap, marginal, and disposable. The flow of Indonesian migrant workers into Macau is linked to Hong Kong's exclusionary immigration policies, which aim at extricating surplus migrant labor. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government refuses responsibility for its migrant workers in Macau because Macau is not recognized as an official destination. The article shows how public and private interests motivate increasing numbers of migrants to become undocumented overstayers in Macau, as they try to avoid oppressive practices in labor migration from Indonesia and the exclusionary policies of Hong Kong.

Irregular Migration: Challenges, Limits and Remedies

This article outlines the applicability of international human rights principles to undocumented migrants residing in the European Union (EU). It examines three areas critical to protection of the human rights of all migrants: health, education, and employment. In each of these areas, the article identifies specific standards and principles that apply to the protection of migrants and contrasts current situations where these rights are not being protected. In doing so, the article attempts to identify through a human rights lens the limitations existing between the local level, where the unprotected status of these migrants is most evident, and the political level, where laws and policies concerning irregular migration are developed. It highlights several examples of innovative solutions and effective strategies developed by civil society actors often excluded from the political spheres of influence, yet who succeed in overcoming the barriers which impede the realization of vulnerable migrants’ innate dignity. It also proposes remedial policy lines and/or practical responses and identifies the key tenets for an effective remedy to the situation facing undocumented migrant workers. Through an informed exploration of this policy debate, so often blurred with criminalizing terms and dehumanizing images, the article affirms the urgent need to fully integrate human rights principles, standards, and goals into each aspect of the policy responses of the EU and its Member States to irregular migration.

Gender, Class and Nation in a Transnational Community: Practices of Identity among Undocumented Migrant Workers from Vietnam in Bangkok

This article discusses the social construction of identities in transnational migration as experienced by a community of undocumented Vietnamese service workers in Bangkok. Being of rural origins, undocumented and on a temporal, sequential and circular move without a defi nite time line, these migrant workers are set apart from the larger and more established overseas Vietnamese community and knowledge workers. Members of the overseas community are active in recruiting and employing them. The transmigrant workers form their own community, weaving gender practices with identities such as family and community, ethnicity and nation to ensure mutual protection and support. Confl ating femininity with ethno-marking lends legitimacy to the control over transmigrant women as workers and their identity as Vietnamese. Identifi ed also as homemakers, these women also carry responsibilities for caring and maintaining the well-being of this community. Displacing their resistance and gender confl icts takes place by way of redefi ning social bonds in the community as kinship relations.