The Pandemic, Migrant Essential Workers and the Global Colonial Division of Labour

Debbie Samaniego
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Jul 21 2022 •


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Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, the immigration politics of the US and UK centered on the Trump and Brexit campaigns that called for the removal of migrants and the imperative to ‘take our country back’. Such calls blamed the global movement of racialized migrants as ‘disadvantaging’ certain sectors of the white population and invoked notions of a past when the nation’s “white” population supposedly prospered (Bhambra, 2017). With the outbreak of Covid-19 and the increased pressure on key industries, a simultaneous narrative emerged in both countries that celebrated the bravery and commitments of ‘essential workers’ in the UK and workers who ‘feed America’ in the USA (Samaniego and Mantz, 2020). However, the workers who were celebrated for holding the nation together during the pandemic by working in key industries are precisely those workers who are targeted by the UK and US’s anti-migration, racist, and hyper-nationalist politics. This contradiction, and the broader crisis it is arose in, should not be understood as a moment of exception whereby migrants are accepted within colonial/imperial centers. Rather it is better understood as a continuation of the historical practice of excluding the racialized migrant politically so as to include them (i.e. their labour) informally into an economy in crisis (see Robinson and Santos, 2014; De Genova 2013). As such, we should question the category of essential worker and to what extent it exacerbates the vulnerability of migrant and racialized workers. I argue that the mobilization of this category by the state facilitates historical patterns of disposability and necropolitics in relation to racialized migrant workers.

The category of ‘essential worker’

Immigrants make up a significant share of the workforce in US essential industries (fwd.us, 2020). Immigrants – naturalized US citizens, lawful permanent residents, and undocumented migrants combined – constitute 28% of the workforce in agriculture, 23% in housing and facilities, 19% in food services and production, 19% in transportation, 17% in health, and 15% in other sectors (ibid.). Within this immigrant workforce, undocumented migrants comprise the largest percentage in the agricultural as well as housing and facilities industries (11% and 9% respectively). While these industries were deemed essential during the pandemic, they have in fact always been essential in maintaining social and economic conditions within settler colonial and imperial states. This also means that the labor force within these industries was essential prior to the pandemic and continues to be essential to this day: “In California’s Central Valley—which is responsible for nearly one-quarter of the United States’ food supply, an estimated 70% of farmworkers are unauthorized. In Idaho, unauthorized immigrants total 90% of the state’s dairy industry workforce, demonstrating the essential quality of and national reliance on their labor” (Roberts and Burks, 2021).

The US is no exception. Similar statistics exist for other Global North countries. According to Reid et al. (2021: 74), “[m]igrant workers form the backbone of the agricultural workforce in most developed countries. Germany relies on 300,000 season workers, whereas 90% of Italy’s and 80% of France’s agricultural workers are foreign.” In the EU, “[t]he highest share of migrant workers is among the cleaners and helpers (38%), labourers in mining and constructions (23%), stationary plant and machine operators (20%), and personal care workers (19%)” (Fasani and Mazza, 2020: 1). In the UK, migrants similarly constitute a large share of ‘key workers’ in many industries. The six industries with the highest share of migrant key workers in the UK are manufacturing (35%), information and communication (25%), health (22%), professional and scientific (22%), social work and residential care (19%), and transport and storage (19%) (Migration Observatory, 2022). It is important to recognize that these migrant ‘key’ or ‘essential’ workers had been working within these industries prior to the pandemic. Nevertheless, they were often the target of state anti-migrant policies such as ‘zero-tolerance’ policies in the US (Pierce, Bolter, Selee, 2018) and the ‘hostile environment’ in the UK (Goodfellow, 2019). In the US, industries that are known to rely significantly on migrant workers are often the target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. A few months prior to the global outbreak of Covid-19, ICE carried out the largest single-state raid in Mississippi, detaining approximately 680 undocumented migrants working in food processing plants. Less than a year after this raid, these workplaces and workers were deemed essential to the maintenance of the US food supply chain through the Defense Production Act and ordered to continue running despite mass Covid-19 outbreaks.

While there was indeed a growing recognition that migrant workers were essential workers in many Global North states, the term ‘essential worker’ does not function to highlight this reliance on migrant work. Instead, the term allowed for a distancing by the state from this workforce’s immigration status. The deployment of ‘essential worker’ temporarily blurred the contradictions that arose from the state’s reliance on this workforce during the pandemic and the exclusionary, racist, and anti-migrant policies leveled against it. As such, the category of essential worker allowed various states to call upon the labour of racialized migrants whom they had previously sought to remove from their territories or to some extent deemed as not belonging to the ‘nation’. In this context, it is imperative to understand the category of essential worker as a tool the state mobilized during the crisis, rather than a benevolent gesture of state recognition for these workers.

Necropolitics and Disposability Experienced by Migrant Workers

According to Anderson, Poeschel, and Ruhs (2021), “States in the Global North sought to protect, and in some case[s] even expand the supply of such [essential] workers during the health emergency”. However, during the pandemic, migrant workers experienced heightened vulnerabilities to their health and safety. An examination of state exceptions for migrant workers demonstrates that the state did not seek to protect migrant ‘essential workers’ but rather protected ‘essential industries’ that were ordered to continue production. For example, Anderson et al. (2021) finds that:

the Italian government granted temporary legal status to migrants employed irregularly in agriculture and the care sector in spring 2020; the United Kingdom announced the automatic extension of visas of migrant doctors, nurses, and paramedics; Austria and Germany exempted migrants working on farms and in care homes from international travel bans; in the United States, while normal consular operations were suspended, foreign farm workers were still permitted to apply for and receive work visas (OECD, 2020a).

These exemptions granting mobility across borders or temporary legal status were provided by states to stabilize industries that were in crisis rather than providing extra protection to migrant workers in these industries. Instead, these exemptions tied workers to their workplace, which during the pandemic often increased their risk of exposure to the virus. Moreover, a refusal to work in these ‘frontline’ industries could jeopardize their permission to remain in the country. For example, in the US, the pandemic exemptions for essential workers appeared to exacerbate the vulnerability of migrant workers holding H-2A visas:

There was a more than 70% increase in reported likely labor trafficking victims who held H-2A visas that authorizes the work of migrant agricultural workers in the United States. In addition to other abuses, one-third of these individuals complained about being denied medical attention, while they were deemed essential by the United States Government (see Polaris, 2022).

While various states appeared to recognize essential workers for their ‘sacrifice’, these exemptions marked migrant essential workers as disposable (Coleman, 2020; Dias-Abey, 2020) in a necropolitical sense. Mbembe (2004:27) argues that ‘sovereignty means the capacity to define who matters and who does not, who is disposable and who is not.’ The significant number of deaths amongst ‘essential’ BIPOC and BAME workers in the US and UK, both migrant and non-migrant, illustrates the states’ necropolitics. It is an example of state sovereignty mobilized to determine who mattered and who did not. This necropolitical disposability is evident in various accounts from migrant workers in key industries who expressed the lack of safety measures implemented in the workplace such as social distancing and face masks (Coleman, 2020; Dias-Abey, 2020). The label of ‘essential worker’ did not provide additional protections beyond the gesture politics of the state which did not address the vulnerability of migrant or BIPOC and BAME workers.

The concept of ‘essential worker’ emerged out of the state’s identification of key industries (also described as critical infrastructure sectors) and the legal protections that were implemented for them. These legal protections shielded firms from legal liability in relation to Covid-19 (see Carillo and Ipsen, 2021). For instance, in the US, the Defense Production Act (DPA) ordered beef production facilities to continue operating despite the delayed implementation of safety measures which resulted in massive outbreaks in various plants across the US (Hals and Polansek, 2020; Samaniego and Mantz, 2020). The liability protection granted to employers under the DPA made it easy for the meat-industry, which saw massive Covid-19 outbreaks, to deny compensation claims filed in relation to Covid-19 related illnesses, medical expenses, and deaths (Polansek, 2020). In other words, the label of ‘essential worker’ mobilized by the US state and codified by the DPA did not protect workers. It protected industries by ensuring that a workforce which has historically been marked as disposable due to its immigration status bears the frontline dangers of this crisis.

This critique of the state’s deployment of ‘essential worker’ as a political category should caution against the dangers inherent in a politics of recognition (Coulthard, 2014) that does not yield material or structural changes for workers.

Mobility and Colonial Divisions of Labour

The disposability and vulnerability of migrant essential workers is part of a longer continuum of colonial labor practices in settler colonial and imperial states. Various scholars have demonstrated the unequal power relations between (settler-) colonial and imperial states and migrant workers (Gonzalez, 2006; Karuka, 2019; Gutiérrez Rodríguez, 2018). Robinson and Santos (2014: 6-7) argue that:

State controls over immigrant labor and the denial of civil, political, and other citizenship rights to immigrant workers are intended not to prevent but to control the transnational movement of labor and to lock that labor into a situation of permanent insecurity and vulnerability… The creation of these distinct categories (“immigrant labor”) replaces earlier direct colonial and racial caste controls over labor worldwide.

In line with Robinson and Santos’ argument, the category of ‘essential worker’ similarly builds on deeper categories of colonial and racial control of labour. Historically, settler and imperial states have controlled the mobility of colonial subjects by implementing restrictions as well as temporary exemptions to their presence in imperial/settler colonial centers to fulfill labour needs. ‘The Braceros’ in the USA and the ‘Windrush generation’ in the UK are serve as two examples of temporary exemptions granted for the migration of colonial and racialized subjects due to labour shortages. Specifically, both the USA and the UK faced domestic labour shortages during and after the Second World War. They sought to resolve these labour shortages by encouraging migration from Mexico to the USA and the Caribbean to the UK.

The USA established the Bracero Program in 1942, granting nearly 4 million Mexican workers temporary contracts up until the early 1960s (Ngai, 2004). Braceros (the name given to these migrant workers) were recruited to work in labour intensive industries, including farms, railroads, and factories. The Bracero Program helped avert the crisis emerging from labour shortages during the war. As labour shortages subsided after the war, fewer contracts were issued (Mize and Swords, 2010). By 1954, over a decade after the Bracero Program was initiated, the state implemented legislation to ‘repatriate’ undocumented Mexican migrants from the US. Through ‘Operation Wetback’, established in 1954, the state began the mass deportation of approximately 1.3 million Mexican migrants (Mize and Swords, 2010), as well as US citizens of Mexican heritage (Astor, 2009). The Bracero Program demonstrates a cycle of temporary exemptions made for racialized migrant workers when the state experiences a crisis, followed by legislation that facilitates their removal once it is averted. The effects of these racialized labour cycles are still evident today as Latin American workers continue to constitute the largest part of the labor force in the US agricultural sector. In 2018, statistics of hired farm labourers showed that 57% of workers were Hispanic of Mexican origin, while an additional 7% were Hispanic ‘Other’. Put differently, at least 64% of the labor force is Hispanic, not accounting for workers that are undocumented and might not respond to surveys.

In a similar way, the UK encouraged the migration of ‘Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies’ to address labour shortages exacerbated by the Second World War. According to Shilliam (2018:85-86), ‘[i]n 1946 the Labour government set up a foreign labour committee to examine shortages in the industries essential to postwar reconstruction: coal, textiles, steel, construction and agriculture. With the lack of workforce estimated at almost one million, the government turned, necessarily, towards the importation of labour power’. Goodfellow (2019:43) explains that ‘[t]he Second World War had left the UK in economic decline’, thus ‘Post-war reconstruction required workers, and the official line was that the country at the centre of the Commonwealth would take anyone willing and able to work, regardless of colour’. Approximately half a million people arrived in the UK between 1947 and 1970 from the West Indies (National Archives, 2022). Similar to Braceros, these British citizens migrating from British colonies were legally allowed to work in the UK to avert the labour crisis experienced by the imperial state. However, by the 1960s, there were growing concerns over the increased presence of non-white Commonwealth citizens in the UK and the ‘government wanted to make it more difficult for people of colour to come to the country’ (Goodfellow, 2019: 47). As a result, the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act placed restrictions on their mobility by requiring Commonwealth citizens to acquire ‘an employment voucher from the British government to come and live in the country’ (ibid.). In this way, the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act alongside subsequent immigration acts, continued to erode the right to mobility of Commonwealth citizens within the imperial centre. This right was now tied to some extent to the labour needs of the British government.

Conclusion

It is important to place temporary exemptions that tie migrant ‘essential workers’ to their workplace during the pandemic within the context of such histories of colonial labor relations. It is crucial to understand the disposability and vulnerability of ‘essential workers’ in relation historical processes that order mobility and labor across the world. As others have remarked, ‘the association of some kinds of dangerous, low-status, fast-paced, insecure work with racialized people or with foreign nationals is a feature of racial capitalism’ (Rogaly and Schling, 2021: 382). The historically constructed racialized division of labor created and upheld by settler colonial and imperial states continues to produce violence and injustices against current and former subjects of Empire. Many Global North states rely on an immigration system that allows for the exploitation and disposability of migrant workers in specific labour intensive and dangerous industries. For instance, visa programs such as the H-2A visa in the USA tie migrants to their employer, making them precarious and exploitable. These visa programs are not too dissimilar to the Bracero Program’s temporary work contracts or the work voucher scheme the UK government implemented in the 1960s. The exemptions made for the presence of migrants in various Global North states during the pandemic operate squarely within a global colonial order, one that relies on immigration and border controls to enforce a necropolitical and racialized division of labour.

By connecting colonial processes and histories to contemporary politics, it becomes clear that addressing these issues requires more than reform to the immigration system. Instead, it requires the abolition of borders, border regimes, and the colonial labour systems they sustain. We must refuse a politics of recognition and gesture politics, and instead contribute to radical internationalists, pro-migrant and anti-racist labour movement.

References

Anderson, B., Poeschel, F., & Ruhs, M. (2021) “Rethinking labour migration: Covid-19, essential work, and systemic resilience”, Comparative Migration Studies, 9(1), 1-19.

Bradley, G. M., & de Noronha, L. (2022). Against Borders: The Case for Abolition. Verso Books.

Carrillo, I. R., & Ipsen, A. (2021) “Worksites as Sacrifice Zones: Structural precarity and Covid-19 in US meatpacking”, Sociological Perspectives, 64(5), 726-746.

Dias-Abey, Manoj (2020) “Disposable workers, essential work: migrant farmworkers during the COVID pandemic”, Migration Mobilities Bristol, available online at: https://migration.bristol.ac.uk/2020/08/11/disposable-workers-essential-work-migrant-farmworkers-during-the-covid-pandemic/ (accessed 19 June 2022).

Gonzalez, G. G. (2015) Guest workers or colonized labor?: Mexican labor migration to the United States. (London: Routledge).

Goodfellow, M. (2019). Hostile environment: How immigrants became scapegoats. Verso Books.

Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E. (2018). The coloniality of migration and the “refugee crisis”: On the asylum-migration nexus, the transatlantic white European settler colonialism-migration and racial capitalism. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees/Refuge: revue canadienne sur les réfugiés, 34(1), 16-28.

Pierce, S., Bolter, J., & Selee, A. (2018) “US immigration policy under Trump: Deep changes and lasting impacts”, Migration Policy Institute, 9, 1-24.

Reid, Alison, Elena Rhonda-Perez, and Marc B. Schenker (2021) “Migrant Workers, Essential Work, and COVID-19”, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 64(2): 73–77.

Robinson, W., & Santos, X. (2014). Global capitalism, immigrant labor, and the struggle for justice. Class, Race and Corporate Power, 2(3), 1-16.

Rogaly, B. (2021) “Commentary: Agricultural racial capitalism and rural migrant workers”, Journal of Rural Studies, 88, 527-531.

Rogaly, B., & Schling, H. (2021) “Labour geography, racial capitalism, and the pandemic portal”, in Andrews, G. J., Crooks, V. A., Pearce, J., & Messina, J. P. (eds.) COVID-19 and similar futures: Pandemic Geographies (Springer, Cham), pp. 381-385.

Shilliam, R. (2018) Race and the undeserving poor: From abolition to Brexit. Agenda Publishing.

Subcomandante Marcos (2001) Our Word is Our Weapon – Selected Writings (London: Seven Stories Press).

Further Reading on E-International Relations

Crisis and the Everyday: Global Connections, Resistance and Solidarity
Labouring Geography: Towards World-Making Praxis in a Global Pandemic
Covid in an Uneven World: Are We All in This Together
Opinion — Paradiplomacy in Times of Pandemic: The Paths Ahead
Oil Power Politics amidst a Global Pandemic
Opinion – The Fragile Power of Populist Leaders in a Pandemic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Debbie Samaniego is a Doctoral Tutor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on the intersection of decolonial theory, colonial histories, processes of racialization, migration, and the modern international order.

Advocates call for more rights for migrant workers amid deaths on the job

TEMP WORKERS ARE USED TO AVOID WORKERS RIGHTS
It’s dawn in Batangas, a city more than a hundred kilometres north of the Philippine capital city of Manila, when Eric Gutierrez recalls memories of his college best friend Efren Reyes.

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Reyes was smart and unassuming, and they would play pool, eat fast food and hang out in the early 2000s. Gutierrez jokingly says without Reyes, he probably would’ve failed all of his courses.

The last time they spoke three years ago, Reyes had just arrived in Canada and told him about his new job working as a chicken catcher and his hope of making the country a permanent home for his family.

But on May 26, while on the job at a poultry farm in Wetaskiwin, Alta., Reyes was struck by a Bobcat machine and died on the spot.

“There are a lot of bad people in the world,” Gutierrez says in Filipino. “Why does it have to be him?”

Reyes was not the first migrant worker to suffer this fate.

According to Syed Hussan, executive director of the Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, there hasn’t been a national assessment on the number of migrant workers who have died on the job in Canada. However, in the shadow of the pandemic, these deaths and the rights of migrants have found their way to public discussions.

Migrant Workers Alliance says four migrant workers have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in Canada last year.

Hussan said in 2021 alone, there have been at least 10 migrant workers who died of various causes on farms. One of those, Mexican migrant Fausto Ramirez Plazas, died of COVID-19.

Ramirez Plazas arrived in Canada shortly after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for international arrivals. Five workers, including Ramirez Plazas, have died while in quarantine, but there has been no assessment of the causes of death for the other four migrants, Hussan said.

He said, based on families asking the organization for assistance and on cases it hears about, the number of migrant workers’ deaths in workplaces is severely underreported. Employers are more likely to violate these workers' rights due to their temporary status and fail to report accidents, he said.

In some cases, he said, migrant workers were sent back to their country of origin and ended up dying outside of Canada. In other instances, when migrant workers develop sickness, like cancer due to years of exposure to pesticides, they are sent back to their country and not invited back, he said.

“It’s very difficult to count all of the people who have died as a direct result of working in Canada,” Hussan said, but he believes the numbers are “quite astonishing.”

When a migrant worker gets injured, they are typically supposed to make a claim along with their employer to their province’s workers’ compensation board. However, Hussan said there’s little to no data when it comes to injured migrant workers or one that accounts for the number of deaths.

The federal government, on the other hand, only regulates a number of industries such as airline attendants, interprovincial truck drivers and federal employees.

Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer for the advocacy group Justice for Migrant Workers. He said in some cases when a worker dies on the job, workers’ compensation provides support for the family.

Depending on the number of years the person has been working in Canada, their family could also get survivor benefits from the Canadian pension plan.

“It’s also incumbent on the provincial Ministry of Labour to both prosecute and hold employers accountable,” Ramsaroop added.

In Reyes's case, his family will receive benefits from his employment insurance and from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration in which he’s an active member.

All Filipino temporary foreign workers need to register with OWWA before they work outside the Philippines to ensure coverage in case of their deaths. It also co-ordinates repatriation of remains.

Calgary’s Philippine Consulate General Zaldy Patron said his office, along with OWWA, is in touch with Reyes’ workplace, Elite Poultry Services, with regards to supporting Reyes’ family and in finding a funeral home to lay his body before repatriation to the Philippines.

In a statement, Elite Poultry Services says it’s still investigating the accident and co-operating fully with authorities.

“We are saddened by the loss of one of our team members,” it reads. “Our sympathies and condolences go out to the family and those involved in the incident.”

Hussan says there needs to be a greater push to improve the lives of migrant workers in Canada.

“We have a federal government who are well aware of what the crisis is and what the solutions are,” Hussan said. “Most people will tell you not having permanent residency is the reason people don't have full rights.”

“The question we need to ask is,” Hussan added, “what is politically stopping the decision-makers from doing the right thing?”

When asked who takes responsibility for migrant workers’ deaths in Canada, he answered, “Nobody takes responsibility. That’s the problem.”

“That’s why our people keep dying, and all you get are platitudes.”

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada as well as Employment and Social Development Canada did not respond in time for publication to requests for comment on the federal government's role when a migrant worker is injured or dies on the job.

Gutierrez recalls Reyes telling him how tough his job as a chicken catcher was. When grabbing chickens for processing, he would hold five of them in his right hand and four in the left.

“He said he felt three times more exhausted in his new job compared to the last one,” Gutierrez remembers. “But he said it was all worth it for his family.”

He wants Reyes to be remembered as a kind friend who had big dreams not just for himself but for his family.

Mostly, his family.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 13, 2021.

Arvin Joaquin, The Canadian Press

Taiwan's migrant workers scapegoated for spread of COVID

Canadian writer and Taiwan resident Joe Henley 

says country operates form of 'apartheid'

By Chang Ya-chun, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

2021/07/03 13:45

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Migrant workers in Taiwan have been exploited and treated as "scapegoats" for spreading COVID-19, a Taiwan-based Canadian reporter claims.

In early June, due to cluster infections, 202 of 249 confirmed cases in Miaoli County were migrant workers at high-tech factories. Locals accused workers of venturing out and spreading the coronavirus despite the Level 3 restrictions in place.

On June 7, the county government announced a lockdown for all migrant workers in the area, confining 22,952 people to their quarters except to go to work. The measure was condemned by local human rights groups.

In an Apple podcast called Excuse英國腔! ("Excuse English Accent") on June 24, Joe Henley, a writer and singer who has been living in Taiwan for 16 years, shared his perspective on the dilemma faced by migrant workers in this country.

Henley said it was poor treatment of migrants that led to the cluster infection in the first place. Dozens were forced to live in a "grossly overcrowded dorm," with narrow bunks, restrictions, and curfews. As a result, "one person in the room gets affected, then it spreads to the entire room," said Henley.

He added that migrant workers are exploited by being made to work long hours for low wages, with fewer freedoms and protections during the pandemic. Even so, they were turned into "scapegoats" as Taiwanese looked for someone to blame for the outbreak.

Compared with their Taiwanese coworkers, the unfair treatment of migrant workers is Taiwan's version of "apartheid," according to Henley. He continued that blue-collar migrant workers are a vulnerable minority in Taiwan and treated differently from white-collar, highly-valued Western professionals: “There is racism in Taiwan.”

He added that migrant workers in the social welfare and domestic helper industries are ignored and vulnerable. Up to 99 percent of caregivers and domestic workers are female and live with their employers, according to the Ministry of Labor.

The U.S. Department of State released a global report on Friday (July 2) on human trafficking. It said Taiwan meets the minimum standards but needs to improve labor laws to prevent exploitation.

Henley has focused on the plight of migrant workers as a journalist since 2015. He recently wrote a book about migrant fishermen called “Migrante.”

He has compared the treatment of migrant workers in Miaoli County to what happened in Singapore last year. He said people in both countries have a negative attitude toward migrant workers and try to “keep them separated from the society.”

He called for an improvement in the treatment of migrant minorities, as “it can help us do better in crisis.”

According to the Ministry of Labor, in May, there were 711,015 migrant workers in Taiwan, 467,763 of whom were working in industry, while 243,252 were caregivers and domestic workers. About 71 percent were from Indonesia and Vietnam, with around 21 percent from the Philippines and 8 percent from Thailand.

Danish unions grapple with massive increase of migrant workers

In the last decade in Denmark's construction industry alone, the number of migrant workers has leapt from around 9,000 to 25,000. Now a new report has exposed their long-suspected super-exploitation, writes MARTIN MINKA JENSEN

MANY trade unions across Denmark have a great focus on the conditions of migrant workers in the Danish labour market. It has not been an unknown phenomenon that this group often has to work under worse conditions than Danish colleagues.

Often it has not only been about inferior conditions, but downright miserable conditions. It is particularly within the building and construction sector that over time it has been possible to report on deeply objectionable conditions.

The trade unions have shown this for a long time, as they themselves experience it in their daily work and in their movements on construction sites, but now a large-scale report from Aalborg University shows that it is not just plucked out of thin air.

The basis of the report

It is precisely the construction industry that is under scrutiny in a report from Aalborg University that was published earlier this year.

Against the background of an increase in the number of migrant workers in the Danish labour market, a doubling since 2013, as well as the many stories about miserable working conditions, a research team has delved into the matter.

More than 310,000 full-time migrant workers are now part of the Danish labour market. It is therefore no longer a question of a marginal group, but a large proportion of employment.

The report states that the increase in the number of migrant workers is particularly large in the construction industry. Here, in the same period of 10 years, there has been an increase from 8,782 to 25,014 full-time employees.

The majority comes from the newest EU countries, which became part of the EU’s eastern enlargement in 2004. The three largest groups are respectively from Poland, with 11,585 people, Romania with 4,024 people and Lithuania with 2,741 people.

Although the largest part of migrant workers are from EU countries, there is an increase in the number of people coming from so-called third-world countries outside the EU. This group consists of a total of 5,848 people.

Despite this increase in the number of migrant workers, there has not been significantly more research in the area. Six researchers are now making amends for this in this report.

As mentioned before, this is not unknown territory for the trade union movement, but the fact that you now have a thorough research report on the area gives an insight into the mafia methods used by parts of the construction industry, and an insight into the fact that the employers are not driven by charitable ideas, but by ruthless exploitation.

In addition, this report must also be seen as a political and professional tool to strengthen the trade union movement’s fight for orderly conditions and justice on the labour market. The report’s analysis is data-driven and thus based on factual data collected on the subject. It is therefore not an interpretation based on academic theories regarding causation.

Methodologically, the report is based on, among other things, register surveys from the CPR register, interviews with 84 migrant workers from 13 different countries, primarily eastern and southern Europe, interviews with 37 professional informants such as occupational health and safety consultants, representatives from employers and trade union employees.

This article is not intended to explain all aspects of the method, analysis or conclusions, but to give an overall picture of the basis, method and results.

Longer hours and more dangerous work

What is of greatest importance is, of course, what the report has arrived at. It shows that it is not uncommon at all for migrant workers to work more hours than their Danish colleagues, that they have a far worse and more dangerous working environment, which is also shown by an over-representation in work injuries.

There are several examples of reasons for this, but one of the topics the interviewed migrant workers themselves focus on is the high work pace and the employer’s constant pressure on the workers to increase the work pace even higher.

It is interesting that several of the interviewees see a marked difference in the pressure on Danes, who are not put under such pressure and have more breaks. That part of the explanation is also to be found in the uncertainty that migrant workers live under is also repeated.

More often, they are more dependent on the employer who provides accommodation. At the same time, the language barrier is an aspect that means that you do not have the same opportunity to speak up or negotiate about terms and working hours.

A third aspect is that many migrant workers send money home to their families in their home country, which makes the family even more dependent on their relative’s work in Denmark.

The high pace of work, combined with poorer safety advice and equipment, also explains why the number of occupational accidents among migrant workers is higher.

Their work tasks and working environment are simply harder and more dangerous. A high degree of occupational injuries is also not reported, which is why there may actually be hidden figures that show even more unacceptable conditions and accidents.

Better tools for the trade union movement

The fact that the trade union movement and this newspaper’s readers are well aware that the law of the jungle rules in the Danish labour market as well and that all employers are not nice people who intend to do the best for the workers is probably not surprising.

But this report can undeniably make someone’s eyes open to the fact that what it’s all about is conflicting interests. Employers want to make money, lots of money. They do so at the expense of the welfare of the workers.

The fact that many Danish workers, through many years of industrial struggle, have won better conditions means that employers, especially within the construction industry, look for other pastures and use migrant workers.

In principle, they don’t care about skin colour or language, they just want the cheapest and least demanding labour. This is how capitalism is screwed up.

But it is not enough simply to state that capitalism cannot deliver a healthy labour market. Something has to be done here and now.

Therefore, the trade union movement needs better opportunities, in their active fight for better wages and working conditions, also for migrant workers.

Here, it is pointed out, among other things, that the Working Environment Authority must be stronger and trade unions must have better opportunities to investigate the conditions on construction sites.

It is also pointed out that massive pressure must be placed on employers, who must be much more responsible in relation to creating a good working environment.

Martin Minka Jensen is international secretary of the Danish Communist Party.

Please, go home: How COVID-19 halted labor migration

The COVID-19 pandemic brought international migration to a standstill — and migrant workers have borne the greatest cost. But Bangladeshi workers are doing surprisingly well.

Many migrant workers waited for plane tickets in front of a Saudia Arabian Airlines 

office in Bangladesh in 2020

Abul Basar has been in Saudi Arabia for 14 years now. After failing to find a suitable job in Bangladesh, he tried his luck as a migrant worker in the oil-rich desert state in order to support his family in Bangladesh, first in Riyadh, later in Jeddah. Most recently, he worked as a plumber at a water treatment plant in Al Qasim province. Then the coronavirus hit. 

Abul Basar has a job in Al Qasim province, Saudi Arabia

As of today, Basar is one of approximately 260 million migrants worldwide whose labor contributes to a major redistribution of capital to lower-income regions of the world. Ninety percent of what he earns — 2,000 Saudi riyals ($533, €498) a month — he sends home to support his family of four people.

More than half of all migrant workers are from South, East and Southeast Asia. They make up around 20% of the workforce in Western, Northern and Southern Europe — and the US. In the Gulf states, it's around 41%.   

Europe, the US, and the Gulf States are particularly important destinations for migrant workers and the source of most remittances (dark blue on the map).

Remittances: The economic stabilizer

With their remittances, migrant workers don't just provide for their families. They also stabilize entire national economies. In Zimbabwe, Georgia, Nicaragua and Senegal, remittances account for more than 10% of the national economy. In El Salvador, Gambia, Jamaica and Nepal, it's more than 20% and in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. it's around 30%. 

North and sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Central America benefit particularly from remittances.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this model appeared to be in jeopardy. Lockdowns and job losses threatened to choke off the steady flow of capital transfers. In April 2020, World Bank experts estimated that migrants would send $129 billion less back home in the first year of the pandemic — a 20% drop.

In reality, payments recovered quickly after a brief, sharp drop. Currencies of key emerging economies such as Brazil, South Africa and Turkey depreciated sharply at the onset of the pandemic while remittances from dollar and euro economies grew in value. A large number of migrant workers also likely drew on savings in order to support their families back home, despite losing their jobs. 

"Usually I send around 500,000 BDT ($5,775; €5,450) a year to my family," Abul Basar said. 

But this has changed during the pandemic. Over the last two years, he tried to send more money to his family. 

"In 2021, my father was infected with COVID-19 and his treatment cost over 100,000 BDT. Compromising my savings that year, I sent more than 600,000 BDT to my family for bearing their extra cost."

The 'employment gap' with the local population

So the pandemic led to a greater financial burden and to severe cuts for migrant workers. Seasonal and migrant workers in particular, who had little legal protection, quickly lost their jobs. The unemployment rate also rose among the local population in many countries. But migrant workers were more affected by layoffs. In some countries with many seasonal workers, such as Hungary, Spain and Italy, a migrant worker was 50% more likely to be unemployed compared to a local worker.

According to the International Labor Organization, a UN institution, the reason for migrant workers being more likely unemployed than the local population is that they often work in the precarious, low-wage sectors. These include industries hit particularly hard by the pandemic, such as catering, tourism, culture, retail and construction.  

The true unemployment figures are likely even higher when you consider migrants who left the country due to job losses and therefore aren't counted in the statistics.  

India alone counted 6.1 million stranded workers who had to be flown home on charter flights when the pandemic hit. Thailand, Nepal, Malaysia, Sri Lanka also saw hundreds of thousands leave the country, in many cases due to layoffs. The ILO says the situation in South America and Africa was similar. Migrant workers in the Arab Gulf states were affected even more.  

It's unknown whether these people will be able to return to the countries where they were working anytime soon. While at the beginning of the pandemic, virtually all countries in the world closed borders to prevent travel, migration policies have varied since then: Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa quickly lifted regulations, while other European ones such as Spain and Italy tightened travel restrictions after COVID numbers increased.  

Vaccination rules have also made entry more difficult. The US, EU, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and especially Saudi Arabia not only require proven vaccination against COVID-19. At least for some time, they rejected certain vaccines produced in China, deeming them insufficient. But these were frequently used in South and Southeast Asia.  

The 'Saudization' of Saudi Arabia

The restrictive policy in the gulf in particular could be due to the so-called Saudization of the economy. Underway since 2018, the government initiative requires companies to "increase the proportion of Saudi nationals in their workforce," with penalties for "firms with low percentages of Saudi workers and 'redundant' foreign workers," a study of human rights organization FairSquare Project described. The Saudi health sector, for example, has to achieve an employment quota for locals between 30% and 60%. 

"Firms above the quota are granted benefits, while those below face restrictions for expat hiring," a study by Harvard University's Center for International Development indicates. 

Throughout the pandemic, discrimination against foreign workers was made even worse by demonization in the media. Many reports alleged that migrant workers were driving up infection rates.

Labor migration out of Bangladesh, however, only took a short term hit from restrictions such as those in Saudi Arabia. The number of workers going abroad decreased by more than two-thirds from 2019 to 2020, the Bangladeshi Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training documented. But since 2021, the number has risen again sharply. 

Recent figures show that about 75% of Bangladeshi migrant workers have left for Saudi Arabia

For three years running, Bangladesh has broken the record for highest remittance inflows ever seen in its history. According to official estimates, the workers sent back over $22 billion in 2021.

According to Dr. Zahid Hussain, formerly lead economist of the World Bank's Dhaka office, there are two special factors behind the recent record remittance inflow in Bangladesh. First, migrant workers likely sent more remittances through unofficial channels than the legal ones. 

"Because of the complete disruption of unofficial channels during the pandemic time, they have been forced to choose the latter one," Hussain said. 

Many also transferred their savings to Bangladesh amid fear of losing their jobs. 

"Some may have returned to the country with all their savings because they did not have a job," he said. "This may help boost the remittance inflow of the last two years."

Edited by: Kristie Pladson

EU & USA
Pandemic has revealed our dependence on migrant workers

Rye and O'Reilly are clear on what the research shows: migrant workers and seasonal workers are marginalized, invisible and exploited.

by Svein Inge Meland, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Major geopolitical changes have influenced labour migration in Europe. The fall of communism, EU expansion, globalization and the dismantling of national borders have enabled extensive labour migration, says Professor Rye. Photo: Johan Fredrik Rye

The coronavirus has taught us an important lesson.

"The pandemic has shaken the entire system. Migrant workers weren't allowed in. Production dropped and people were afraid that the fields wouldn't be sown or harvested. A number of steps were taken to limit the effects, including separate entry rules for agricultural workers. This demonstrated the important role of migrant workers in the European food industry," says Johan Fredrik Rye, professor in NTNU's Department of Sociology and Political Science.

In Norway, the state wanted to stimulate farmers to entice domestic labor to take on the spring planting and fall harvesting of this year's crop. In the UK, Prince Charles was at the forefront of trying to get the English to go out into the fields.

Both attempts were unsuccessful.

"The challenge is that migrant workers do the jobs that a country's own population no longer wants to do. These are jobs that are often poorly paid, poorly regulated, monotonous, dirty and sometimes dangerous," says Rye.

When migrant workers take over manual jobs, the status of those jobs drops further and makes them even less attractive to local people. The emphasis is more on the employer's needs than on the employee's right to a decent job, according to the migrant researcher.

Karen O'Reilly and Rye teamed up to edit the recently published book titled International Labor Migration to Europe's Rural Regions.

The book includes contributions from a number of research groups that have studied different aspects of the diverse labor migration patterns in Europe.

Migrant workers range from Russians and Poles in the Norwegian fishing industry, Polish seasonal workers in container barracks on German farms and Thai berry pickers in Swedish forests, to Ukrainian farm workers in Poland, Eastern European strawberry pickers in Norway and England, Albanians in Greek agriculture and shepherds in the Mediterranean countries.

Two chapters compare American and European agriculture.

Rye and O'Reilly are clear on what the research shows: migrant workers and seasonal workers are marginalized, invisible and exploited.

"Poor working conditions and low status characterize Norwegian rural communities more than before and will continue to do so. Migrant workers often find themselves in the marginal zone of the regulated labor market, both in Norway and elsewhere in Europe," says the sociologist.

"A lot of people are trying to change these conditions, but it's tough, even when you try to pass laws to regulate working life. The problems lie more with how global food production is organized than in the unwillingness of individual employers."

Change is difficult because farming needs to be profitable, so the wage level has to be kept low.

Consumers are happy to say yes when asked if they would be willing to pay a little more for their food if it were produced in a more responsible way, but when they're actually shopping they opt for the cheapest choice. It's not easy to do anything about that, says the professor.

Europe is estimated to have 5.5 million migrant workers, and the number may well be higher. Photo: Johan Fredrik Rye

According to Rye, migrant workers are expected to work hard—and settle for little.

Poles in Norway are said to be ideal workers despite the fact that their living conditions are poor and isolated. We find similar situations all over the European continent. For example, Romanian strawberry pickers in Andalusia are housed in rooms with anywhere from two or six others. They're far from home and are only minimally integrated into the host culture.

Common to the various host countries is that the authorities ignore the migrants' poor working and living conditions. Recruitment companies minimize the possibility of employees participating in collective bargaining schemes.

"Working life in Norway is among the most regulated in Europe. It's a good starting point. But at the same time, the state's attention has been less focused on some parts of working life in the rural districts. The labor market in rural areas may seem more immune to attempts at state regulation, making migrant workers' ability to organize that much harder," says Rye.

More than almost any other industry, food production depends on migrant workers. Employers defend low wages by saying that migrants earn much more than they would in their home country.

"The system maintains an idyllic picture of a triple-win from labor migration: the employer gets good, cheap labor, the employee earns more than at home, and the family and home country benefit from it," says Rye.

Rye points out that major geopolitical changes have influenced labor migration in Europe. The fall of communism, EU expansion, globalization and the dismantling of national borders have enabled extensive labor migration. Cheap flights have made it easy to get around. In theory, you could live in Gdansk and commute weekly to Norway. The book refers to the fact that there are 5.5 million migrant workers in Europe, and says that the actual number is probably even higher.

THIRD WORLD USA
Agriculture in the United States is highly industrialized. The country's two million farmers produce as much as 10 million farmers do in the EU. American working life is also far less regulated, less unionized and the welfare schemes much worse than in Europe.

Rye says that large parts of the agricultural and food production sectors in Europe are heading into similar industrialization at full speed.

"This is most evident in labor-intensive fruit and vegetable production in the Mediterranean countries, such as in southern Spain, where a 450 square kilometer area is covered with plastic for growing vegetables," he says.

"But agriculture is becoming much more centralized in Norway too. Small farms are dying out and being replaced by much larger enterprises. This development sets the stage for bringing in more farm workers from abroad," Rye adds.

Labor migration has a lot to do with emotions, says the professor. Migrant workers' driving force is most often the hope of a better life for themselves and their families. But for many of them, it's a demanding life, even if they make more money than at home.

The jobseeker leaves home and often has to live in a shared household. That might not pose a problem for a young Swede who's spending a few months cleaning crabs on the Norwegian coast. It's something else for a father with three children back home in Poland.

"Migrant workers live a kind of shadow life. They aren't at home nor are they part of the community they've come to for work. Right-wing populism in Europe is strongest in rural areas, which probably affects migrant workers in some countries. The main impression in the Norwegian debate, however, is that people have a positive view of labor migration from Eastern Europe," says Rye.

The researchers' use a broad definition of "migrant worker." It includes Poles who have worked in fish processing on Frøya island for ten years and Thai berry pickers who comb Scandinavia's forests for a few weeks.

A high percentage of those who come to Norway as refugees also end up in low-paying agricultural jobs or in the food industry in rural areas. Getting a job without a Norwegian education and with poor language skills is difficult.

Explore further COVID-19 gets to India's villages via migrant workers

More information: International Labour Migration to Europe's Rural Regions, edited by Johan Fredrik Rye and Karen O. Reilly, Routledge.

Provided by Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The new geography of labour migration: EU11 migrants in rural Norway

Author links open overlay panelJohan FredrikRyeMarie HolmSlettebak

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.01.014

Under a Creative Commons license

open access

Highlights

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In recent years, larger immigrant populations have arrived in rural destinations.

•

EU11 migrants are unevenly distributed across rural Norway.

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Localities with larger primary industries host more labour migrants.

•

EU11 migrants reside in areas with higher unemployment and few refugees.

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The rural localities that struggles the most with depopulation have received fewer EU11 migrants.

Abstract

Historically, immigration to Western countries has been an urban phenomenon, but in recent decades, larger immigrant populations have also arrived in rural destinations. In this paper, we address the dynamics of inbound flows and geographical distribution of labour migrants within rural regions: While some rural localities have received large numbers of migrants, others have seen just a few. Specifically, we explore the case of Eastern and Central European labour migrants (EU11 countries) travelling to Norway's rural regions following the EU enlargements in 2004, 2007 and 2013. Which factors explain the spatial distribution of EU11 labour migrants in Norway's rural regions? We evaluate three assumptions in the extant literature – that labour migrant inflows are related to labour market characteristics, demographic profiles and localities' degree of peripherality. Norwegian register data at municipality levels are employed to estimate a regression model for how these characteristics impact sizes of EU11 labour migrant populations in rural municipalities. Finding show that EU11 migrants are found where the most labour-intensive rural industries dominate; industry-particularly fish processing industry, agriculture and the hospitality sector. Further, they reside in areas with higher unemployment and few refugees. Lastly, we find that the rural municipalities that struggles the most with depopulation has not received the relatively largest number of labour migrant, as EU11 migrants are more often found in the more demographically viable rural communities.

CANADA
For migrant farm workers, housing is not just a determinant of health, but a determinant of death


Anelyse Weiler, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of Victoria 

and C. Susana Caxaj, Assistant Professor, Nursing, Western University
Tue, July 12, 2022 

Migrant farm workers were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 because of poor housing conditions. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

Imagine if, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — before vaccines were available — you had to share a cramped bunkhouse with a dozen co-workers. Imagine if your employer forbid you from having personal visitors, or if you had to ask your boss for permission to visit the doctor.

Agricultural workers hired through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program regularly confront these dynamics while they leave their families behind in countries like Mexico and Jamaica for months or even years at a time to work in Canada. Frequently, they live on their employer’s property. These housing conditions are inconsistent, often overcrowded and sometimes grossly substandard.

But this month, the federal government is holding a roundtable to improve migrant farm workers’ employer-provided housing. This is a crucial opportunity to tackle persistent problems.
COVID-19 revealed dangers of poor housing

When COVID-19 hit migrant farm workers disproportionately hard in 2020, many Canadians recognized the connection between farm workers’ poor housing and the avoidable health challenges they often face. Our own research shows housing conditions played a major role in the untimely death of several farm workers.


Policymakers are increasingly recognizing that housing is a significant determinant of health. But for migrant agricultural workers, housing is also a significant determinant of death.

Before the pandemic, agricultural industry groups pushed back against creating national housing standards for workers. The federal government commissioned a study in 2018 by the National Home Inspector Certification Council, a non-profit organization that certifies housing inspection credentials. The study concluded that the quality of housing for migrant farm workers lacked uniformity, and the investigators recommended standardized criteria.

Yet four years later, the government has made sluggish progress towards enforceable national housing standards.

Key housing issues

Our research in British Columbia and Ontario, including interviews with over 50 migrant agricultural workers, identified several key housing issues:

Water, food and sanitation: Lack of access to clean drinking water and insufficient toilets, showers and handwashing stations are common concerns raised by migrant workers. Inadequate refrigeration, food storage and stoves were also often reported. This has serious consequences for the type of food workers can cook and store, and their nutrition. Because of limited laundry, cooking and washroom facilities, some workers spend their days off waiting in line for a turn at these basic amenities.

Heating, cooling and electricity: Some workers told us that on a cold winter’s night, they gather around a space heater or oven door to stay warm. In the summer heat, one worker told us that trying to sleep after a long shift is a “living hell” due to a lack of ventilation and air conditioning in the trailer he shares with another worker.

Exposure to pests, hazards and disrepair: The 2018 report commissioned by the federal government found that 40 per cent of workers’ housing was reported by employers as “dual purpose.” This means living quarters also functioned as workplace facilities (for example, granaries, garages, etc.). This finding suggests many workers may live in close proximity to agricultural chemicals and other hazards, which echoes findings from previous research. Lack of maintenance is also common.

Overcrowding and lack of privacy: One study reported the ratio of workers to functioning toilets on one farm was 45 to two. Echoing this research, overcrowding and cramped living quarters were among the most common complaints made by participants in our own study. During COVID-19, these cramped living quarters amplified uncertainty and anxiety for workers. A lack of personal space also undermines workers’ basic need for privacy and intimacy. One interviewee noted, “you can’t even wish your wife a good night,” without someone overhearing.

Isolation and employer control: Migrant agricultural workers tend to live in rural areas far away from basic services and community activities outside of work (such as religious services). Recent farm worker deaths from motor vehicles point to the lack of public and safe active transportation in workers’ neighbourhoods. Workers have told us they may be required to bike one- or two-hour round trips to access services or participate in social events.

Workers also face explicit restrictions on their freedom. Among the rules some workers are expected to conform to while living in Canada include curfews, prohibitions on visitors and being locked into their living quarters. Workers are often hesitant to report illegal behaviours by their employer for fear it may put their livelihoods in jeopardy.

Action to ensure safe housing

Migrant workers from Mexico maintain social distancing as they wait to be transported to Québec farms after arriving at Trudeau Airport in Montréal in April 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Migrant agricultural workers deserve to live with the same health, safety, and dignity owed to any Canadian worker. The federal government should take the following actions immediately:

Consistent national housing standards. The federal government should co-ordinate among all levels of government so that workers no longer fall through the jurisdictional cracks. Standards should be significantly raised for physical housing conditions (e.g., no bunk beds), health and safety, freedom from employer control and security of tenure.

Proactive, unannounced and thorough housing inspections to ensure standards on paper are enforced in practice. Workers need accessible channels to report problems while being protected from employer backlash, alongside the freedom to collectively organize. Penalties for non-compliance should be high enough to promote deterrence.

Government-funded housing (for example, in residential areas, with safe transportation to farms) would help promote inclusion and access to community services, while reducing inappropriate employer restrictions or control.

Permanent residency, open work permits and a fair grievance procedure before facing deportation would allow workers to refuse unsafe housing and poor work conditions, which often go hand-in-hand. A secure immigration status would also give workers the option of bringing their families with them.

The federal government’s upcoming roundtable is an urgent opportunity to raise the bar on dignified housing and living conditions for these members of our communities. Canada should stop expecting low-wage, racialized migrant workers to bear the brunt of preventable illness and death.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: C. Susana Caxaj, Western University and Anelyse Weiler, University of Victoria.

Read more:

Coronavirus: Canada stigmatizes, jeopardizes essential migrant workers

Migrant workers face further social isolation and mental health challenges during coronavirus pandemic

C. Susana Caxaj's research is currently funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Her work has previously been funded by the Vancouver Foundation and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She is a member of the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group.

Anelyse Weiler has received funding from SSHRC. Her work has previously been funded by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She is affiliated with the BC Employment Standards Coalition, Worker Solidarity Network, and Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group.