Vulnerability Of Migrant Workers Research Articles

Local Village Workers, Foreign Factories and Village Politics in Coastal China: A Clientelist Approach

AbstractIn market reform China, contentious and unfair labour relations between vulnerable migrant workers and exploitative foreign factory owners are one of the most critical issues of the political economy. This article analyses another group of workers – non-migrant local village workers – who protect themselves from foreign employers using two political resources: collective land-use rights and local political organizations, such as village governments, affective networks and physical forces, during their suburban village's industrialization. Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork in Shandong (Qingdao) and other coastal regions in 2007, 2008 and 2011–2013, this article attempts to answer the questions of how local village workers protect their labour rights without reliable trade unions or rigorous governmental protection. How can villagers protect, if not maximize, their interests in their relations with the foreign factories in their villages? It also contrasts local labour relations in Qingdao with migrant labour relations in other coastal regions.

Organising migrants as workers or as migrant workers? Intersectionality, trade unions and precarious work

This paper considers precarious work from the point of view of trade union practice in the area of equality and diversity, exploring the way in which unions organise and recruit low-paid, vulnerable migrant workers. A theoretical approach is developed in order to understand the particular vulnerability and diversity of migrant workers in the labour market. Insights from the literature on intersectionality are applied to the study of employment, industrial relations and human resource management practice. Drawing from four case studies, the strategies of three UK trade unions towards organising low-paid migrants are compared. It is concluded that trade unions tend to consider migrants primarily as workers (taking on a so-called ‘universalistic’ approach), rather than as migrant workers with particular and overlapping forms of oppression (a ‘particularistic’ approach). As a result, unions tend to construct a dichotomy between workplace and migration issues, impeding the effective involvement of diverse and marginalised workers into unions. Based on these findings, we argue that integrating universalistic and particularistic approaches to union organising and recruitment strategies is critical to promote the successful involvement of vulnerable migrants into trade unions.

A Nurse-Led Wellness Program for Migrant Backstretch Workers

Migrant workers working at the back stretch of Philadelphia Park Racetrack are faced with healthcare challenges. This vulnerable population experiences health disparities as a result of lack of resources and increased exposure to risk. A needs assessment of backstretch workers was conducted to identify the healthcare needs of this unique population. The analysis revealed several areas of need for this vulnerable population primarily, effective bilingual communication, increasing access to healthcare services, implementing measures to address women's health issues, and improving nutritional status of workers. Through multi-agency collaboration, continued development, and revision of strategies, health enhancement and disease prevention are accessible to vulnerable migrant workers. Faculty, students, and staff work with clients to provide quality health education programs, screenings, and referrals to improve their health.

Community-based organizations for migrant workers' rights: the emergence of labour NGOs in China

In 1978, when economic reform began in China, it was the party- state-controlled people's organizations that were most deeply involved in people's work and social life. For example, the official trade union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), was the one and only legal organization representing workers. Although people who worked for state-owned enterprises were mostly unionized under the umbrella of the ACFTU, the new migrant workers in private enterprises were basically unorganized. Since the mid-1990s, labour activists, some of whom are supported by the international civil society, have tried to establish an alternative form of organization, specifically labour non-governmental organizations (NGOs), for migrant workers. The labour NGOs are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta of South China and provide services in migrant workers' settlement communities. This paper evaluates the degree to which the labour NGOs have maintained a relatively autonomous civil society space for the vulnerable migrant workers and nurtured a democratic form of labour organization.

Rights with Capabilities: Towards a Social Justice Framework for Migrant Activism

The paradigm of rights, established throughout the academic, policy and migrant activism arenas, governs the protection of vulnerable migrant workers against abuse. To what extent this approach has achieved social justice for the migrant worker in the current global political economy climate is, however, uncertain. In analyzing the use of rights in migrant activism in Hong Kong, this paper shows the limitation of rights in the migrant experience at the same time as it shows how a new paradigm based on the Capablities Approach could provide a more appropriate framework from which to achieve social justice for the migrant worker.

Zheng Xiaoqiong

Zheng Xiaoqiong was born in rural Sichuan in 1980. She moved as a migrant worker in 2001 to Dongguan City in southern Guangdong Province and began to write poetry during a six-year stint in a hardware factory. Zheng's poetry burst onto the literary scene from seemingly nowhere to win the Liqun Literature Award from Peoples' Literature in 2007 and quickly became the public face of migrant worker poetry, yet her poetry defies many of the aesthetic expectations this label might imply. While her work clearly foregrounds the painful vulnerability of migrant workers and draws upon the industrial and pastoral language of the factory and the rural landscapes she lives within, her work is stylistically quite complex. Her long poems like “The Complete Darkness” are layered in classical Chinese philosophical and cultural allusions in innovative collage-like assemblages. Unlike the poetry of Tian He and Zeng Dekuang, Zheng's poetry is truly from the migrant working classes, yet the aesthetic complexity of her work complicates the poetics of accessibility often championed by those writing for or about these classes. Therefore, Zheng's poetry offers something of a paradox in the present aesthetic debates. For more about Zheng's work, see Zhang Qinghua's essay “Who Touches the Iron of the Age: On Zheng Xiaoqiong's Poetry” in CLT vol. 1, no. 1 (2010), 31–34. Poems are selected from Minstrels 9 (August 2006).

The Ethics of Seasonal Labour Migration

Seasonal labour migration and ‘guest worker’ schemes are a common and growing phenomenon around the world. In 2008, the Australian government introduced the Pacific Seasonal Worker pilot scheme for workers from select Pacific Island nations to work in the horticultural industry in Australia. The scheme is the first guest worker scheme in the history of the Commonwealth. The visas entitle workers to reside in Australia for a maximum of seven months, with no provision for secondary visas for family members and no prospect of upgrading the visas to permanent residency. The introduction of the pilot scheme is indicative of a growing trend in the use of temporary labour migration in Australia, and raises the fundamental question of just what are the ethical limits of such schemes. The article addresses this question by considering whether it is consistent with liberal political values to deny long-term seasonal workers the opportunity to join the Australian community. It introduces Michael Walzer’s influential work on this question, and then proposes the liberal criteria of ‘freedom’ as the principle underpinning the state’s obligation to seasonal workers. The article draws on a distinction between freedom as non-interference and freedom as non-domination in Philip Pettit’s theory of republicanism, and uses the distinction to pose the question of whether the freedom of the migrant labourer can be assured through regulation of the employment relationship, or whether it can only be assured through removing the unequal status between alien workers and citizen employers. The article also considers the nature of work, and the vulnerability of migrant workers within the employment relationship. It argues that the problems which arise in the employment relationship between migrant workers and their employers, as they invariably do, are symptomatic of the exclusion of migrant workers from participation in the political life of the receiving state. The article concludes that there are problems with dissociating work in a state from membership of that state in the long term, and makes the case for providing the opportunity for guest workers to apply for permanent residence.

Occupational injury in the United Arab Emirates: epidemiology and prevention

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is developing rapidly, with many foreign construction, farm and industrial workers. To assess the epidemiology of occupational injury hospitalizations using a trauma registry. Surgical admissions from March 2003 to April 2005 were recorded in the registry at the main trauma hospital in Al Ain city (population 348,000). Prevention-related variables were analysed using SPSS and severity was quantified by injury severity scores (ISS). There were 614 occupational injury hospitalizations, an incidence of approximately 136/100,000 workers/year. Males accounted for 98% of injuries, the 25-44 age group for 69% and non-nationals for 96%. External causes included falls 51%, falling objects 15%, powered machines 11%, animal-related 7% and burns 6%. Median ISS was 4 for all six main external causes. Extremities were most frequently injured, followed by chest, head and neck, abdomen and face. Mean hospitalization duration was 9.4 days, with 36% hospitalized for >1 week. The main external causes were proportionately much more frequent than in industrialized countries. Effective countermeasures are needed to reduce the incidence and severity of occupational injury among vulnerable migrant workers in the UAE.

The making of ‘proper’ homes: Everyday practices in migrant domestic work in Naples

Changing from a country of emigration into one of immigration has been one of the major phenomena of Italian society in recent years. One of the realms where this has been most evident is in Italian households employing migrants for domestic service and care work. This article looks at domestic and care practices in the everyday life of a Neapolitan household. Based on participant observation conducted in Giuseppe's apartment, it shows how the traditional Neapolitan way of life can be maintained by employing a live-in worker. It discusses some of the contradictions and tensions involved in this kind of work, and, by looking at everyday life, it also questions depictions of vulnerable migrant workers at the mercy of their employers.

Risk amplification: HIV in migrant communities

The demography of both urban and rural South Africa is shaped by migration, with three unique patterns: labour-sending, labour-receiving and rural areas. This article explores the relationship between HIV risk and migration in South Africa. It identifies the urban informal settlements common in labour-receiving areas as key magnifiers of HIV risk, increasing the vulnerability of migrant workers in these townships. It examines the urban informal settlement, a unique social environment with distinctly high-risk behaviour dynamics, as a focal determinant of HIV. It proposes this framework as an extension of the migration–HIV dialectic beyond the traditionally unidimensional approach, to encompass a more contextualised discussion. This methodology, which uses the environment as an entry point to understanding behaviour and emphasises the importance of addressing the HIV–migration issue within a broader development perspective, has important implications for HIV programming in South Africa.

Urban Social Change in Transitional China: A Perspective of Social Exclusion and Vulnerability

Since the late 1970s, China has experienced rapid economic growth and urbanisation. However, in recent years, various social pressures and tensions began to hold down the optimism buttressed by the economic growth. There are signs showing that the basis of sustained economic growth - rich labour supply and stable social conditions will unavoidably suffer from the lagging social reforms targeting the inequality and vulnerability of migrant workers. This paper argues that the discussion of social exclusion and its risks as a potential threat to urban stability in the Chinese context should consider the deprivation of various rights, including political, social and economic rights and be extended to rural-urban migrants who do not necessarily enjoy urban citizenship. The paper suggests that there need be major policy changes in order to integrate rural-urban migrants into the mainstream of the urban society.

Anita Chan, China's Workers Under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy. Armonk, New York: ME Sharpe, 2001. 250 pp. $58.95 cloth; $22.95 paper

This is a powerful book that documents and examines the horrible exploitation of labor in contemporary China, particularly the vulnerable migrant workers from rural areas. The bulk of the book is the compilation of more than twenty investigative stories that Chan selects from the Chinese language newspapers and journals published in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. All the investigative stories were written by Chinese reporters—some took great risks to do it—and translated into English by Chan and her collaborators. For each case Chan provides a short introduction and “comment” to help the reader comprehend the materials in context and to clarify certain references. In several cases Chan also gives follow-ups to the stories.

Sexual behaviour and vulnerability of migrant workers for HIV infection

This paper presents findings from qualitative research carried out by the CARAM Southeast Asia Research Network in the period 1997-1999. In several countries in Asia, interviews and focus group discussions were held with migrant workers about their working conditions, access to health care, and factors affecting vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Factors that have an impact on migrants' sexual behaviour include the country of destination and the availability of a commercial sex sector. Cultural differences with respect to sexual behaviour are also important. As social control in migrant communities is often limited, sexual relationships that are prohibited at home are often possible abroad. Besides continuing to belong to their home communities, migrants gradually adapt to their new communities abroad. In so doing, they adopt a so-called 'migrant identity' which can lead to a denial of certain (sexual) behaviours. This can make them difficult to reach by means of conventional HIV/AIDS prevention approaches.