Labour, population, and precarity: temporary foreign workers transition to permanent residency in rural Manitoba

Bryan, Catherine

doi:10.1080/07078552.2019.1682779

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Workers are no longer dependent on their employers, nor are they vulnerable to the threat of deportation. The transition to permanent residency also brings opportunity for family reunification, and for a life (often highly sought after) lived more in place ( Bryan 2019a ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Equally absent from this literature is consideration of effects of the transition or potential transition to permanent residency. While permanent residency status is held out as a solution to the damaging effects of temporary labour programs ( Nakache and Blanchard, 2014 ), with some notable exceptions ( Polanco, 2014 ; Bonifacio, 2015 ; Tungohan et al, 2015; Polanco, 2016 ; Bryan, 2019a ), little has been published on the actual implications of transitioning to permanency for temporary foreign workers and their kin. In addition to redressing this, this paper also illustrates the ways in which the “taken-for-granted” good of permanency can also be harnessed by state and capital to hold migrants in place, and to duplicate hierarchies and structures of accumulation that benefit employers.…”

Section: Migrant Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3.75 km-squared with a permanent population of approximately 1700 people, the town is a thoroughfare for most: truckers, mobile construction crews, regional travelers, and tourists arrive with some frequency at the Hotel or its adjacent amenities, staying for the night, a few days, or—in the case of construction crews—a few weeks. Like many rural centres across the Canadian prairies ( Moss et al, 2010 ; Nakache and Blanchard, 2014 ; Bucklaschuk, 2015 ; Wright et al, 2017 ), the labour required of meeting the needs of these temporarily mobile people has fallen to a largely migrant workforce, comprised predominantly of Filipino workers, though more recently, workers from the Caribbean ( Bryan 2019a ; Bryan, 2019b ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contingent Relations: Migrant Wellbeing and Economic Development in Rural Manitoba

Bryan

2021

Front. Sociol.

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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in rural Manitoba and the Philippines, this paper uses the example of the small town of Douglas, which since 2009 has been home to a small Filipino community, as a tenuous counter-point to the accounts of exclusion that dominate the scholarship on Temporary Foreign Labour in Canada. This paper draws on ethnographic research conducted in Manitoba with the region’s newest immigrants—those recruited to ensure the viability of the new, diversified rural regional economy, and more specifically, the tourism and hospitality sector, established in the 1970s. In 2009, unable to meet its labour needs regionally, a local hotel began recruiting temporary foreign labour. By 2014, the Hotel had recruited 71 workers from the Philippines, most of whom arrived through Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program; others having arrived through the province’s immigration scheme, the Manitoba Provincial Nominee Program (MPNP). A reflection of the ubiquity of globalized Filipino migration, the well-being of these workers had long been informed by economic development in the Philippines and the centrality of international labour mobility to that state project. What emerges from the data is a simultaneous acceptance and contestation of the conditions of transnational family life, and moreover—reflecting the focus of this special issue—the extent to which migrant well-being shifts in accordance to labour mobility regimes responsive to development. Migrant workers and their families are implicated in these connected, yet differently motivated, state projects. And while particular narratives concerning their contributions come to be valorized and even celebrated, their mental, physical, affective, and relational well-being is often over-looked by those who benefit from their labour and mobility. Of equal importance is the provincial state’s participation in this process through the provision of permanent residency to existing and in-coming migrants. While this benefits individual families, it does not inherently challenge the logics of neoliberalism; rather, drawing on its nuances, it create new possibilities for capital accumulation and exploitation, while offering some protection for select families who are willing and able to abide by the terms established by their employer and the Manitoba state.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Migrant Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Contingent Relations: Migrant Wellbeing and Economic Development in Rural Manitoba

Bryan

2021

Front. Sociol.

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“…Here, her sister's aspirations were redirected towards the family's reproductive project, which had long depended on temporary overseas employment, and had recently become oriented towards more permanent opportunities. Given the networked recruitment strategy of the hotel, Ester's sister's labour would be set to work in the service of the Hotel, and by extension, Manitoba's small, more steadily growing, rural hospitality sector (Bryan, 2019).…”

Section: Reproducing Labour and Consumers For Tim Hortonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a growing body of literature on the country's Provincial Nominee Programs reveals, this decentralized approach to immigration provides new opportunities to individual franchisees for labour recruitment in some parts of the country, while restricting those in others (Baglay & Nakache, 2013; Baxter, 2010; Nakache & Blanchard, 2014). Where they do exist, these new recruitment opportunities may also correspond to an increased likelihood of permanent residency for migrants who—by strategy or luck—find themselves in provinces where the transition to permanency through the provincial programme is possible (Bryan, 2019).…”

Section: Mobile Workers: Mobile Filipino Labour Navigates Tim Horton mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parsing the mobilities of capital and labour: The case of Tim Hortons and internationally mobile Filipino workers

Bryan

Barber

2021

International Migration

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In 2007, Canada expanded the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) to include service and hospitality sectors. By 2010, more migrants entered Canada with temporary visas than as permanent residents. While some found employment in hospitality and tourism, most were concentrated in the fast food sector. Working transnationally, this paper uses Tim Hortons' concurrent global expansion and its arrival in the Philippines as a case study of the global mobilities and intersecting pathways of capital and labour. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of feminist political economy, it illustrates how the aspirations and mobilities of the Filipino workers at the centre of this study are organized in the service of capital; capital, in this example, as represented by the globally ambitious Tim Hortons' parent corporation, Restaurant Brands International (RBI) and, more specifically, the Brazilian American global investment firm that owns and manages RBI, 3G Capital, as well as by the efforts and objectives of franchise holders.

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Exploring the wellbeing of migrants in third places: An empirical study of smaller Canadian cities

Zhuang¹,

Lok²

2023

Wellbeing, Space and Society

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Labour, population, and precarity: temporary foreign workers transition to permanent residency in rural Manitoba

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

Contingent Relations: Migrant Wellbeing and Economic Development in Rural Manitoba

Contingent Relations: Migrant Wellbeing and Economic Development in Rural Manitoba

Parsing the mobilities of capital and labour: The case of Tim Hortons and internationally mobile Filipino workers

Exploring the wellbeing of migrants in third places: An empirical study of smaller Canadian cities

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