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Labour struggles for workplace justice: Migrant and immigrant worker organizing in Canada
Abstract
This article explores the dynamics of labour organizing among migrant and immigrant workers in Canada, focusing on two case studies: first, recent efforts to organize migrant farmworkers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Program; and, second, the work of the Immigrant Workers' Centre in Montreal. The Seasonal Agricultural Workers' Program, which employs workers from Mexico and Caribbean countries, is often viewed by policymakers and employers as an example of 'best practices' in migration policy. Yet workers in the program experience seasonal employment characterized by long hours and low wages, and are exempt from many basic labour standards. The Immigrant Workers' Centre formed in 2000 to provide a safe place for migrant and racialized immigrant workers to come together around problems in their workplaces. Through these case studies, we examine labour organization efforts including advocacy and grassroots organizing through the Immigrant Workers' Centre and legal challenges attempting to secure recognition of freedom of association rights for farmworkers. The article explores the 'limits and possibilities' of these strategies, and concludes by assessing the implications for labour organizing among the growing numbers of migrant and immigrant workers employed in a wide range of low-wage, low-security occupations due to the recent expansion of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program. © Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association (ALERA), SAGE Publications Ltd, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC.
... The program brings in over 45,000 people at a time to work on farms and in greenhouses across Canada on a temporary basis. According to a review of the literature, workers' experiences under the SAWP are mainly characterized by poor living and working conditions, discrimination, and abuse (Binford, 2019;Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Strauss & McGrath, 2017). Using the province of British Columbia (BC) as a case example, this paper explores the lived experiences of Mexican seasonal agricultural workers in BC. ...
... Agriculture is one of the primary areas in which migrant workers are hired, a practice that began in the late nineteenth century with workers from South and East Asia coming to work on farm fields and gardens in British Columbia (BC) (see Lim, 2015;Preibisch & Otero, 2014, p. 178). Since the neoliberal turn of capitalism 1 in the 1980s and the increasing globalization of the agri-food market, 2 Canada's dependence on temporary labour migration has grown (Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Preibisch, 2007;Roberts, 2019). Temporary labour migration is a growing phenomenon that arises from the dependence of "developed" countries on foreign workers as a "flexible workforce" to remain competitive in the global market (Preibisch, 2007, p. 418), and from the changeable and precarious socio-economic and political conditions in "developing" countries (Cundal & Seaman, 2012;Roberts, 2019). ...
... The SAWP has been promoted in Canada as an exemplary program, providing a "win-win" situation for the states involved, for the employers, and for the workers (Binford, 2019;Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Roberts, 2019). However, over the years, a number of researchers and migrant workers' advocates have raised concerns about the structure and regulation of the SAWP; specifically, evidence has emerged of different forms of inequalities, and there have even been cases of blatant oppression and abuse towards workers (see Binford, 2019;Cohen & Hjalmarson, 2020). ...
The Canadian government co-manages the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) with the governments of Mexico and 11 Caribbean countries. The program brings in over 45,000 people to work on farms and in greenhouses across Canada on a temporary basis. According to a review of the literature, workers’ experiences under the SAWP are mainly characterized by poor living and working conditions, discrimination, and abuse (Binford, 2019; Choudry & Thomas, 2013; Strauss & McGrath, 2017). Using the province of British Columbia (BC) as a case example, this paper explores the lived experiences of Mexican seasonal agricultural workers in BC. In-depth interview data were collected and analyzed from six workers who were recruited using quota and snowball sampling techniques. The findings indicate that workers’ experiences have complex and intersecting political and racialized dimensions. Implications for policy and program changes are discussed.
... Others evaluated the SAWP according to internationally recognized practices for temporary migration programs. These studies investigated the ways international human rights protections may be extended to non-citizen migrants and the organizational strategies that activists employed to ensure that labor and civil rights are afforded to migrant workers (Basok and Carasco 2010;Choudry and Thomas 2013;Faraday et al. 2012;Gabriel and MacDonald 2011;Hennebry and Preibisch 2012). ...
... The alienation of workers from their fellow workers and the farmers occurs in relation to the alienation of workers from their productive activity and their product. The interconnected processes of production and reproduction in which workers not only reproduce themselves as workers by producing a product, but also reproduce their social relations with other workers and with the farmers are necessarily antagonistic because of competing interests between workers and between workers and the farmers (Bridi 2015;Choudry and Thomas 2013;Coe 2013). This results in the alienation of workers from each other and from the farmers as demonstrated by these statements. ...
In his book, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Harvey (2014: 220 italics in original) identified the alienation of workers among the most “dangerous, if not potentially fatal, contradictions” of capitalism that generates a sense of powerlessness and self-estrangement. In this article, I examine the alienation of migrant workers participating in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). I argue that conditions internal to the production process (the interaction between workers and their productive activities, the product of their labor, and the character of their social interactions) and external conditions associated with temporary migration (the institutional arrangements that guide the SAWP, deregulated labor regimes, and the interlocking spaces that link the movements of people) alienate workers. My analysis is based on original empirical evidence from in-depth interviews with Mexican and Jamaican workers and farmers in Ontario, Canada. My findings show that migrant workers in tobacco farming are alienated from the productive activities in which they are involved, the product that they produce, and their fellow workers and employers. Moreover, temporary migration, precarious work, and the intermediation in labor markets further intensify their alienation experiences.
... Les conventions collectives et les normes légales du travail furent en effet articulées autour d'une classe ouvrière relativement homogène de la période industrielle fordiste-keynésienne (Castel, 1995 ;Ulysse, Lesemann et Pires de Sousa, 2013). Les formes syndicales traditionnelles de mobilisation se retrouvent donc partiellement inopérantes pour intégrer une main-d'oeuvre fragmentée dans des régimes de travail qui dérogent à la définition du salariat (Noiseux, 2013), réalité qui affecte nombre de travailleuses et travailleurs immigrants (Choudry et Thomas, 2013 ;Kim, 2015). ...
... Premièrement, au regard de l'ancrage territorial du CTI à Montréal, nous observons l'importance pour une main-d'oeuvre immigrante de disposer d'un espace où créer des occasions de rencontre et d'échange, permettant de dépasser les frontières érigées par les statuts juridiques (Dean et Reynolds, 2010 ;Choudry et Thomas, 2013). D'une part, les personnes y trouvent les ressources humaines et matérielles nécessaires pour répondre à des problèmes individuels liés à leur situation de travail ou d'immigration. ...
L’article explore les enjeux de deux campagnes de mobilisation réalisées au Centre des travailleuses et travailleurs immigrants (CTI), auprès de personnes (1) immigrantes permanentes insérées en agence de placement et (2) migrantes temporaires. À partir de données collectées par participation observante et complétées par des entretiens semi-directifs, nous restituons une chronologie des deux actions collectives dont nous analysons les défis et les stratégies. Les résultats montrent que ces deux mobilisations constituent des réponses alternatives et complémentaires à des syndicats inopérants pour rejoindre la main-d’oeuvre précaire immigrante. Premièrement, le CTI offre les ressources humaines et matérielles nécessaires pour le développement du leadership des personnes qui deviennent sujet de droit et acteur de leur lutte. Cette dimension citoyenne semble d’ailleurs tout aussi importante pour les travailleurs que l’amélioration de leurs conditions matérielles de travail. De plus, les deux campagnes montrent une complémentarité entre la défense individuelle et collective de la main-d’oeuvre. D’autre part, les collaborations menées avec un syndicat révèlent un rapprochement stratégique entre deux organisations dont les ressources et les expertises sont complémentaires, renforçant aussi la légitimité du CTI. Cependant, l’engagement communautaire du syndicat reste marginal et produit des effets limités quant aux résultats des campagnes et à la possibilité de transformer profondément ses pratiques. Enfin, l’informalité des rapports de travail qui concernent les deux catégories d’immigrants, oblige à composer avec des moyens tout aussi informels pour appuyer leur organisation, rendant nécessaire le réseautage communautaire, religieux et culturel.
... In such contexts, workers are often exploited and exposed to a lack of protection and forced to work in poor and unsafe working conditions (Standing, 2011). The conceptual tool of vulnerability explains the exploitation of marginalized workers with migrant workers forming part of this 'precariat' (Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Sohani, 2015). For example, in Vershinina et al. (2018)'s study of illegal Ukrainian migrant workers in London's construction sector, the authors outline the key tenets of workers' vulnerability including issues such as wage theft, wage withholding, lower wages than the formal national minimal wage, accidents and illness and deskilling. ...
In this chapter, Nonna Kushnirovich provides a typology of ethnic economics and an evaluation of its role for immigrant and ethnic minorities. She formulates the concepts of ethnic economics and ethnic economy and explains the difference between them. The chapter discusses the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in ethnic economics. Utilizing ethnic networks provides competitive benefits to immigrant and ethnic minorities, helping them to find jobs, access information, gain promotion to managerial positions, mobilize capital, acquire clients and suppliers, and facilitate sales. However, co-ethnic dealing can also inhibit those involved in ethnic economics, and constrain market penetration and company growth.
... To date, the scarce research on the mobilization of seasonal workers in agricultural enclaves has been addressed in the rural studies field, where some analytical work has been done on traditional and new social and peasant movements (Woods, 2008). This approach has been more abundant among scholars from North American and Southern European countries, where we have witnessed significant growth of these agro-industrial enclaves and the massive incorporation of migrant workers (Corrado, 2011;Caruso, 2011;Choudry and Thomas, 2013;Avallone, 2017;Cohen and Hjalmarson, 2018;Rye and Scott, 2018). These contributions have dwelt on various struggles and dimensions of the collective action of seasonal agricultural migrants, highlighting the extent of the obstacles and constrictions they encounter in their mobilization derived not only from their irregularity, but from other factors such as their status as temporary workers (Caruso, 2017), the segregation and dispersion of their accommodations or their social isolation (Perrota, 2015). ...
La crisis sanitaria ha producido la visibilización de muchos de los problemas estructurales y endémicos de los que ha adolecido el trabajo inmigrante en el sector agrícola en España durante las dos últimas dos décadas: el alto volumen de extranjeros en situación irregular, los míseros asentamientos informales y las formas de infravivienda en los que se ven obligados a “residir” y la extrema vulnerabilidad física y social de los trabajadores que sostienen el sector, incluidos los que se emplean a través de programas de contratación en origen. Estos problemas estructurales han sido, sin embargo, tradicionalmente ignorados por la administración, en una política de la indiferencia, que se ha centrado en la gestión de la movilidad frente a la gestión de la presencia. Sin embargo, durante la pandemia la aparición de una narrativa sobre su esencialidad, incorporada incluso en el discurso político, junto a la visibilización de sus condiciones laborales y de vida, se han configurado como elementos catalizadores que han generado, impulsado o consolidado una serie de demandas y de luchas articuladas en torno a lo que podemos denominar el derecho a una vida digna. Estas luchas han sido resultado de tres tipos de tensiones que se manifestaron de forma particularmente expresiva con la irrupción de la covid-19: la tensión entre esencialidad y desechabilidad, entre temporalidad y permanencia y entre una ciudadanía activa y pasiva.
... Several studies situate the SAWP as part of a project of racial state formation, challenging Canada's professed commitment to multiculturalism. 12 For decades, scholars and activists have argued that migrant farmworkers constitute a bonded labour force, 13 and citing their lack of personal freedoms in Canada, many workers consider the programme 'slavery without the whip'. 14 This piece situates the exploitation of Caribbean SAWP workers against a backdrop of long-standing anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. ...
Despite perfunctory characterisation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘triple win’, scholars and activists have long admonished its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. This article contends that the SAWP is predicated upon naturalised, deeply engrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic fieldwork in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, it reveals the extent to which anti-Black racism permeates, organises and frustrates workers’ lives on farms and in local communities. It situates such experiences, which workers characterise as ‘prison life’, in the context of anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. This ethnography of Caribbean migrants not only adds perspective to scholarship hitherto focused on the experiences of Latino workers, but it also reinforces critical work on anti-Black racism in contemporary Canada.
... She argues these relationships are emblematic of how citizenship organizes low-wage labour at a global scale through national citizenship hierarchies, on the one hand, while on the other, citizenship is continually reshaped and contested through advocacy and struggles over rights (see also Stasiulis and Bakan 2005). Civil society-migrant alliances, their research argues, are examples of re-scaled citizenship 'from below' which support and expand migrant farmworkers' capacity to claim existing and new rights (Basok 2004;Choudry and Thomas 2013;Gabriel and Macdonald 2011;Preibisch 2007). As others, including Preibisch, describe, migrants cannot access many of the rights to which they are in fact entitled precisely because migrants often do not have the resources to claim and exercise them. ...
This article explores bicycling practices among migrant farmworkers in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Migrant farmworkers are legally authorized to work in Canada for designated farm operations for up to eight months a year. Migrants lack access to cars in rural regions where motorized travel predominates. Consequently, bicycling is an essential yet inadequate and unsafe means of transportation for migrants, part of everyday geographies of what Tim Cresswell calls ‘shadow citizenship’. I use shadow citizenship to refer to the overlapping regulatory and geographical exclusions from mobility rights that create risk and stigma for migrants in Canadian communities. Migrants have become subjects of bike safety education in rural communities. I argue that bike safety regulates and orders migrants’ bicycling conduct rather than addressing the roots of unsafe bicycling conditions. Overall, the article complicates the conventional view of bicycling as a universally healthy and progressive travel mode. Racial and economic forms of exploitation as well as socio-spatial exclusions inflect actually existing bicycling geographies.
... Many different organizations and projects are loudly advocating the importance of respecting the rights of migrant caregivers and of transforming their working conditions and immigration requirements (Koo and Hanley 2016). The frontline work of informing migrant workers and encouraging them to advocate for their rights is often carried out by personal social networks and religious or ethnic associations active in the community (Choudry et al. 2009;Choudry and Thomas 2013). With the 2014 creation of the Caregiver Program (CP), which, notably, removed the "live-in" obligation, migrant workers and their community advocates are left with many questions about how these changes can be expected to improve the difficult employment and family challenges faced by the individuals (still predominately women) who migrate to do caregiving work in Canada. ...
Domestic and caregiving work have been part of the Canadian fabric since our colonial founding and have long represented one of the most easily accessible routes for migration open to women. Until very recently the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) operated as the primary program in Canada
facilitating this labour migration. While the LCP has been replaced by the Caregiver Program (CP), it has yet to be determined how these changes will impact migrant caregivers. We suggest that many lessons can be drawn from our knowledge of migrant caregivers’ experiences under the LCP
that can help us understand the dynamics of new immigration policies. Using the global care chain framework, we consider here whether Canada’s caregiver migration policy demonstrates a concern for the wellbeing of migrant caregivers as workers, as family members and as citizens. Our analysis suggests that the CP does not adequately address the concerns raised through the global care chain critique. Rather, the CP continues and deepens the trend of using immigration policy to hold people in substandard employment, with very little care for migrant caregivers whether in terms of
their labour rights, their family relationships or their sense of belonging and citizenship.
... Kassing (2000a) also stated higher levels of workplace freedom of speech led to more articulated dissent and less latent dissent. More articulated dissent is related to a more democratic discourse and it is economically beneficial to the organization, as the employees perceive the organization more positively (Gorden & Infante, 1991;Kassing, 2000aKassing, , 2009Choudry & Thomas, 2013;Kassing et al., 2013). Kassing (2006) also argued more cases of latent dissent reflect lower levels of workplace freedom of speech. ...
This study is a test of the relationship between organizational dissent and the perception of workplace freedom of speech in Singapore. Through a quantitative analysis of 384 individuals in Singapore, the following was found: articulated dissent and latent dissent are positively correlated with workplace freedom of speech. Additionally, MANCOVA analyses revealed nation of birth exerted considerable influence on articulated dissent, and latent dissent, but not on workplace freedom of speech. The results provide evidence of how nation of birth is related to an individual’s willingness to express dissent. Theoretical and practical implications for research into organizational behavior are discussed.
... The most recent literature seems to also indicate that important changes are taking place that might highly increase unions' potential to become effective advocates of migrants' rights. Schmidt (2006) and Fitzgerald and Hardy (2010) list various ways in which national labour unions have changed their mode of operation in order to be more efficient in organizing temporary migrants: cooperation with unions in the country of origin (see also Meardi 2012); creation of regional or global migrant workers unions (Gordon and Turner 2000, Waddington 2000, Cotton and Gumbrell-McCormick 2012; portability of trade union membership across borders or mutual recognition of affiliations between national trade unions (Ford 2013, p. 263, Rosewarne 2013; establishment of branches in the sending countries (Gordon 2007, p. 575); establishment of, or cooperation with, migrant worker centres that provide information, legal assistance and support to temporary migrant workers (Fine 2007, Choudry andThomas 2013); and integration of migrants into national labour unions, sometimes involving derogations to strict equality among unionized workers, in order to make special provisions for temporary migrants. ...
Theorists have recently argued that in order to protect migrants from vulnerability and domination, host countries should grant voting rights to all residents, including those who are present on the territory on a temporary visa. Although we endorse the inclusive and egalitarian rationale of this approach, we argue that it is based on the presumption that all migrants aim at permanent inclusion and is therefore inadequate in the case of those who are engaged in ‘temporary migration projects’. We suggest that in order to provide these migrants with a form of political voice that fits their life plans, we need to look at different institutional tools than conventional voting rights, and we point to trade unions and migrant organizations as promising alternatives. We also show that, contrary to what may be thought of other forms of temporary mobility, temporary migration projects and the institutional solutions we propose in order to address the needs of the migrants involved are not disruptive of liberal-democratic institutions.
Immigration is a persistent and complex phenomenon intertwined with geographical, political, societal, and economic challenges. The number of international migrants has been continually increasing over the past five decades. The contributors to this volume dedicated to Professor Rebeca Raijman address various types of migrants like economic or labour migrants, forced migration and ethnic migrants. Implementing both qualitative and quantitative data and analyses, they provide insight on why individuals decide to migrate, how their decisions affect their own lives and the lives of their offspring, and how immigrants affect the receiving societies they arrive in.
Social movement organisations and unions can be spaces of transformative learning in which organisers research, debate, create, and put into action frameworks for social change. In this article, I engage with themes from Aziz Choudry’s writings to explore learning and knowledge-making within and through the United Caucuses of Rank-and-File Educators (UCORE) network. This network has brought together organisers from nearly thirty social justice caucuses from across the United States, fuelling the development of contemporary educator movements. Drawing on over five years of research as a movement ethnographer, I argue that informal and non-formal processes of learning and knowledge production drive the growth of the UCORE network and, with it, broader educator movements.
Cet article explore le rôle des agences d’emploi temporaire à Montréal dans l’exploitation de la main-d’oeuvre immigrante et la relation de ces agences avec le racisme systémique au Québec. L’hypothèse qui guide cet article est que la dérégulation des agences et les vulnérabilités produites par les statuts migratoires des travailleurs sont des facteurs qui font du travail intérimaire une composante du racisme systémique sur le marché du travail québécois. Nous cherchons ici à analyser si le régime de travail intérimaire s’articule avec la discrimination fondée sur le statut d’immigration et le racisme systémique. Dans cet article, j’aborde d’abord ce qu’est le travail intérimaire et ses effets sur les conditions de travail en soulignant l’importance de l’utilisation de la main-d’oeuvre immigrante. Par la suite, je revisite les schémas historiques de discrimination raciale au Canada et au Québec, puis je présente et analyse certaines expériences d’abus et de discrimination en milieu de travail ainsi que certaines pratiques d’agence dans la gestion des vulnérabilités des immigrants. Ces analyses sont tirées d’entrevues avec 42 travailleurs immigrants ainsi que d’entretiens avec des organisateurs du Centre des travailleurs et travailleuses immigrants (CTI) et de l’Association des travailleurs et travailleuses d’agences de placement de Montréal (ATTAP).
This chapter addresses learning and nonformal education in the course of organizing migrant and immigrant (im/migrant) temporary agency workers through the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) and the Temporary Agency Workers Association (TAWA) in Montreal. The IWC/TAWA organizing approach with agency workers is based on community organizing, activist knowledge production, popular education, and leadership development. Activist education work has helped to foster sustained organizing and campaigns against exploitation by temp agencies in Quebec. This has led to important gains like a recently adopted law that includes several provisions to regulate agencies. We build on critical ethnographic activist research, radical adult education literature concerning social movements, and apply Freire's concepts of limit situations and untested feasibility to TAWA/IWC organizing approaches. We argue that precarious work entails both vulnerability and resistance, and suggest that researchers should attend to the role of activist education, learning, and knowledge production to better understand social and economic justice struggles.
The primary purpose of this article is to investigate the labour supply chain of Indian technical immigrants in the United States. The two important findings that emerge are as follows: First, the study unearths a latent phenomenon of broker‐induced precarity that results from the labour supply chain and explores how aspirational jobs are becoming precarious ones. Second, the study provides a foundation for devising policies and interventions to make the process of the labour supply chain less detrimental to the Indian technical immigrants. This article draws on a seven‐month‐long field‐based qualitative study and ensures a meticulous triangulation of the findings through an analysis of archival data and actual artefacts related to manpower movement across the labour supply chain.
Many children and adolescents have fully embraced the digital world, posting blogs, accessing social networking websites, watching videos, and sending instant messages as typical activities of their daily lives. The digital world has afforded a variety of opportunities for children and adolescents, although this world is not without risks, including sexual predation, online grooming, identity theft, accessing fake information, and the accidental viewing of gory and violent content. Another risk associated with children's and adolescents' digital technology use is cyberbullying. The aim of this chapter is to review research from around the world on cyberbullying to examine the nature, extent, causes, and consequences associated with children's and adolescents' involvement in these behaviors. The studies reviewed in this chapter include cross-sectional, longitudinal, cross-sequential, mixedmethods, qualitative, and quantitative research designs. Research is drawn from various disciplines, including psychology, sociology, media and communication studies, education, social work, and computer science. The chapter concludes with a discussion of recommendations and a call for cyberbullying to be considered a global concern.
The author offers a conceptual investigation of the tension between openness and protection in well-developed welfare states. Because of a combination of demographic tendencies and labor market shortages, a growing number of European welfare states is currently exploring market-led immigration policies. However, the level of protection these welfare states offer seems hard to reconcile with the low threshold markets that are needed to incorporate newcomers. The author argues that the “solution”lies not so much in a clear political choice for either but rather in the coordinated institutionalization of differentiated citizenship rights. The author illustrates this case with examples taken from the Dutch context, claiming further that the particular combination of corporatist welfare arrangements and the tradition of lenient enforcement in the Netherlands provides a “natural”habitat for the kind of regime pluralism that differentiated citizenship requires.
Focusing on the origins of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) in Canada during the 1940s, this study analyzes the evolution of a work-centred, "rank and file" model of unionism into a top-down model of economistic unionism centred on collective bargaining and the stabilization of labour-management relations in the workplace. In order to attain organizational security, UAW leaders turned to state elites. The main price of employer and state acceptance of such security was the union leaders' agreement to suppress worker "direct action." This tradeoff has helped to shape the current limits of trade union mobilization in Canada. /// Cette étude se concentre sur les origines du TUA (Travailleurs Unis de l'Automobile) au Canada pendant les années 1940 et analyse l'évolution d'un modèle de syndicalisme "s'appuyant sur la base" qui s'est transformé en un modèle pyramidal de syndicalisme de l'économie, centré sur la négociation collective et la stabilisation des relations industrielles sur le lieu de travail. Dans le but de parvenir à la sécurité organisationnelle, les dirigeants du TUA se sont tournés vers les élites d'État. Le prix principal à payer pour que les employeurs et l'État acceptent de donner une telle sécurité aux syndicats a été de faire promettre à leurs dirigeants d'interdire aux ouvriers de recourir à "l'action directe." Ce marché a aidé à marquer les limites actuelles imposées à la mobilisation des syndicats au Canada.
Dans cet article, on analyse le remplacement des travailleurs antillais par des Mexicains dans le Programme des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers du gouvernement du Canada, en mettant l'accent sur le rôle des interprétations racialisées dans la mise en œuvre de ce genre de programme. On y soutient qu'un mécanisme de racialisation étaie les discours des agriculteurs ontariens à la recherche de la main-d œuvre la plus laborieuse, fiable et flexible. Parfois même, les discours des agriculteurs affichent un racisme grossier, dépeignant les honimes antillais comme des Noirs hypersexués qui présentent un risque pour les Canadiennes, alors que, d'autres fois, ces préjugés raciaux sont formulées en termes de prédispositions physiques ou psychologiques à travailler à certaines récoltes.
This paper analyses the replacement of Caribbean workers by Mexicans in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, highlighting the role of racialized understandings in implementing foreign worker programs. It argues that a process of racialization underpins the discourses employed by Ontario growers in search of the most hardworking, reliable and flexible labour force. Sometimes grower discourses manifest a crude racism, casting Caribbean men as hypersexualized Black subjects who pose a risk to Canadian women, while other times these racialized assumptions are framed in terms of physical and/or psychic dispositions to the production of certain crops.
This paper explores the structures and practices of temporary migrant worker programs (TMWP) as they operate in Canadian agriculture. Acting within highly competitive, globalized markets, agri-food employers rely on the availability of migrant workers to achieve greater flexibility in their labor arrangements, drawing on employment practices beyond those possible with a domestic workforce. Most recently, changes to Canada’s two TMWP schemes have provided employers with greater scope to shape the social composition of their workforce. The paper analyzes these changes while exploring their implications for workplace regimes in agriculture.
Migration policies often fail to achieve their declared objectives or have unintended consequences. This article discusses three sets of reasons for this: factors arising from the social dynamics of the migratory process; factors linked to globalization and transnationalism; and factors within political systems. Effective policies are often hampered by the one-sided explanatory models used to explain migration, as well as by interest conflicts in both domestic and international politics. In many cases this leads to migration policies with contradictory objectives or hidden agendas. The article goes on to discuss some elements of a conceptual framework for improving policy formation and possible components of fairer and more effective migration policies at the national, regional and global levels.
Since 1945, immigration in the core industrial democracies has been increasing. The rise in immigration is a function of market forces (demand-pull and supply-push) and kinship networks, which reduce the transaction costs of moving from one society to another. These economic and sociological forces are the necessary conditions for migration to occur, but the sufficient conditions are legal and political. States must be willing to accept immigration and to grant rights to outsiders.
How then do states regulate migration in the face of economic forces that push them toward greater openness, while security concerns and powerful political forces push them toward closure? States are trapped in a “liberal” paradox — in order to maintain a competitive advantage, governments must keep their economies and societies open to trade, investment, and migration. But unlike goods, capital, and services, the movement of people involves greater political risks.
In both Europe and North America, rights are the key to regulating migration as states strive to fulfill three key functions: maintaining security; building trade and investment regimes; and regulating migration. The garrison state was linked with the trading state in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen the emergence of the migration state, where regulation of international migration is as important as providing for the security of the state and the economic well being of the citizenry.