Temporary migration, precarious employment and unfree labour relations: Exploring the ‘continuum of exploitation’ in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Strauss, Kendra; McGrath, Siobhán

doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.01.008

Cited by 199 publications

(191 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…The capitalist mode of production requires that our labour is commodified and sold on the market in return for a wage in what appears to be an equal exchange. However, wage labour is only ever formally free (workers are 'free' to sell their labour power to any buyer but are also compelled to do so in order to survive) and is always exploited (albeit to different degrees) because the production of surplus value, part of which equates to profit, is essential for the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production (Banaji 2003;Brass 1994;Holmstrom 1977;LeBaron 2015;Strauss and Fudge 2013;Strauss and McGrath 2016). Marxist feminists have, however, expanded our understanding of the capital-labour relationship beyond capital's need for labour that produces surplus value.…”

Section: The Centrality Of Labourmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Political economy scholars use the term 'hyper-precarity' to mark the effect of neoliberal labour markets, 'migration trajectories', and highly restrictive immigration regimes on the working conditions of migrant workers, asylum seekers, and refugees (Lewis et al 2014). Hyper-precarity, then, is an effect of exclusion from, and/or 'adverse incorporation' within (Phillips 2013, see also Brass on 'deproletarianization' 1994), employment and immigration regimes in the UK, which, combined with certain 'push' factors, leave workers with few options (Lewis et al 2014;see also Fudge 2013;Strauss and McGrath 2016). In this context, migrants will often enter 'the labour market at the lowest possible point in their effort to secure work' (Lewis et al 2014, 13).…”

Section: Gender 'Race' Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholarship that addresses whether and how to understand trafficking for sexual exploitation and migrant sex work from a labour unfreedom perspective are, however, in their infancy (Kotiswaran 2014;Strauss and McGrath 2016) and there is currently no scholarship that focuses on the UK. In part two I outline the classical liberal approach that is applied by sex workers rights activists and academics to define voluntary migrant sex work and trafficking for sexual exploitation.…”

Section: Subjectivity and Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The key question now animating many critical studies of trafficking is 'whether we should work towards reforming the UN Protocol or [whether] we are better training our energies elsewhere…' (Kotiswaran 2014, 404). While some are attempting to resituate trafficking within a broader critique of precarity or unfreedom that falls short of its threshold (Shamir 2012;Strauss and McGrath 2016;Kotiswaran 2014;Lewis et al 2014), others insist that we 'stop talking about trafficking ' (O'Connell Davidson 2014a). Scholarship that addresses whether and how to understand both migrant sex work and trafficking for sexual exploitation from a critical political economy perspective are, however, in their infancy (Kotiswaran 2014;Strauss and McGrath 2016) and there is currently no scholarship that focuses on the UK.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

Cruz

2018

Fem Leg Stud

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In this article, I use a Marxist feminist methodology to map the organisation of migrant sex workers' socially reproductive paid and unpaid labour in one city and country of arrival, London, UK. I argue that unfree and 'free' (sexual) labour exists on a continuum of capitalist relations of (re)production, which are gendered, racialised, and legal. It is within these relations that various actors implement, and migrant sex workers contest, unfree labour practices not limited to the most extreme forms. My analysis reveals that many migrant sex workers have very limited 'freedom'. This is in stark contrast to the classical liberal claim of sex worker rights activists and academics that the vast majority of migrant sex workers are free, and therefore not coerced, exploited or trafficked. I then consider whether the emerging labour approach to trafficking could help achieve 'freedom' for migrant sex workers. Advocates argue that anti-trafficking efforts must, and can, be refocused on extending minimum labour and social protections to all vulnerable workers. I argue that this approach is disconnected from material interests and history. Rather, migrant sex workers, sex worker rights activists, and all migrant and citizen workers and activists globally must collectively organise against 'labour unfreedom' and hence for meaningful control over their labour and lives.

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Section: The Centrality Of Labourmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender 'Race' Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Subjectivity and Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

Cruz

2018

Fem Leg Stud

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“…Discussions about this are embedded within wider analyses of the quality of work and employment relations, such as fairness, precariousness, deskilling and slavery (see for example, Alberti, Holgate, & Tapia, 2013;Siar, 2013;Strauss & McGrath, 2017). On the one hand, the increasing participation of women in labour markets (see Cipollone, Patacchini, & Vallanti, 2014;O'Reilly & Fagan, 1998;Rubery, 2015) has been attributed to a combination of factors linked to the changing status of women (Esping-Andersen, 2009).…”

Section: Changing Trends In Work and Employmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation of work and employment: advances, tensions and future directions in research in international and comparative HRM

Rodríguez

Johnstone

Procter

2017

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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a alliance manchester Business school, university of manchester, manchester, uK; b newcastle university Business school, newcastle upon Tyne, uK ABSTRACT Changes to dynamics work and employment have resulted in calls for more sustainable management, procedural control, institutional governance, and political accountability. Against this background, there is renewed attention to regulation, its terms, nature and quality, and its role to shape the employment relationship. An important concern for international and comparative human resource management (I/CHRM) is understanding the role of regulation in interacting with these changes and how this varies across within and between countries. Regulation sits at the centre of competing economic and social demands, which are seen as both complementary and irreconcilable, and its complexity needs to be theorized and empirically mapped. The article discusses key themes related to changes to dynamics, processes and structures, and tensions that concern the fields of I/CHRM and its relationship with the regulation of work and employment. The article calls for more comprehensive insight into the theoretical links between regulation and I/CHRM, and more empirical evidence of their interplay across contexts. It suggests that engaging with the paradoxes and ambiguities of different competing agendas of regulation of work and employment, and exploring these in relation to different social actors within and across geographies is a significant step in advancing research in this area.

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Rights, Labor

Doucette¹

2019

International Encyclopedia of Geography

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Labor rights include geographically limited normative and legal rights, universal human rights that pertain to labor relations between workers and their employers, and the collective rights of workers within society; the latter are presumed to be geographically and politically universal but in practice they are unevenly distributed and exercised. In capitalist economies, the collective nature of such rights creates tension with existing property rights; nonetheless, the exercise of labor rights remains an important aspect of the pursuit of social justice. In order to better understand how labor rights have been unevenly recognized and exercised across geographic space, recent scholarship has examined how labor rights are configured through diverse sociospatial registers, including global production networks, national territories, and geographic scale, as well as practices of migration.

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Temporary migration, precarious employment and unfree labour relations: Exploring the ‘continuum of exploitation’ in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Cited by 199 publications

References 86 publications

Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

Beyond Liberalism: Marxist Feminism, Migrant Sex Work, and Labour Unfreedom

Regulation of work and employment: advances, tensions and future directions in research in international and comparative HRM

Rights, Labor

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