Rights and Protection of Migrant Workers

Migrant Rights Video

Introduction

• The desire for the market-economies to move towards an increasingly flexible and impermanent workforce - Increased influx of migrant workers in the United States and Canada
• "Renaissance" of Sweatshop workers.

Untitled Slide

• Increased migrant numbers have not been accompanied by statutes or laws to ensure the effective safeguarding of migrant worker rights.

Untitled Slide

• Existence of employer-driven system of the low-wage migrant economy.
• Vicious cycle of systematic insecurity

Faraday (2012) Objectives:

• Right-Based Frameworks
• Mapping protection and Labor Migration Cycle
• Current Problems
• Solutions

Rights Based Frameworks

• "Detailed legal and policy regimes that regulate migrant workers’ employment and social rights" (Faraday 2012)

RIGHTS-BASED FRAMEWORKS (contd.)

• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Ontario Human Rights Code
• International Standards for Decent Work (Faraday, 2012)

"Labor is not a
commodity and migrant workers must be treated as whole human persons,
who have a social context and who are members who contribute to both the
communities in which they work and from which they have migrated." (Faraday, 2012)

How to measure worker security?

• Human Rights
• Rights at work
• Social inclusion
• Social Security
• Effective Rights Enforcement

Current Problems

• Do the existing legal regimes enable migrant workers to have a real experience of rights? (Faraday, 2012)

Current Problems (Contd.)

• Are policies adequately supporting migrant workers or are they creating systemic gaps between “formal promises and the practical exercise of rights”? (Faraday, 2012)

Current Problems (Contd.)

• Right-based framework does not adequately affect policy development

Solutions

• Increased Migrant numbers have not been accompanied by statutes or laws to ensure the effective safeguarding of migrant worker rights

Gordon (2005) Objectives:

• Highlight Changes in Immigration
• Discussion of Workplace Project
• Identify difficulty with legal channels
• Propose alternatives to conventions (Workplace Project)

Changes in Immigration

• Increased inflow - Exploitation of migrants
• Causal factors - Remittance Dependency, Improved Livelihoods

Workplace Project

• Workplace project - Framework of reference - Gives migrants a voice.
• Creation of inclusive environment
• Challenges traditional approach - Unionization

"Formal rights have limited meaning when the workers are not protected by them" (Gordon, 2005)

Issues with Legal channels

• Information Asymmetry
• Unequal access to migrant workers
• Complex Bureaucratic processes

Emphasize need for:

• More Holistic Approach
• Need for multidimensional approach
• Dynamic information flows within migrant networks

Conclusion

Conclusion