Lecture ?, March 12: International Labour Migration

• Migrant scholarship has a growing critical scope pf mobility

• Overarching question of lecture: CONT

Terminological Gap: Migrants

Who is a migrant?

• No clear international definition

• Some come bc of opportunities & some bc of crisis

• Problematic to view migrants as undeserving yet is a very common view

• Migrant workers are common in rural Quebec

• In COVID gov didnt restrict migrant workers from Canada bc they are seen as neccessary, and convenient bc you can fire them at any time

• Some see migrants as a burden, criminals, illegal but at the same time as essencial workers that we rely on, very contradictory

• In USA more than half of farm workers are migrant workers

  Migration remained a neglected issue inside the UN. There was no specific agency of this issue “Précoud p20

Global Compact for Migration (2018)

“A milestone”

• In 2018, 164 states adopted Global Compacr for Safe CONT

Blind Spots: The Right of Price

Price of Rights

• What does price of rights imply here? Whose price? Wqhy is the discusison of migrant rights contested?

• Important bc displays no hierarchy of rights

• In practice weak bc no recieivng country wants to acknowledge rights of migrants

• A more realistic debate about the protection of migrant wokrers

• Why when and how countries restrict the rights of migrant workers

Blind spots

• Price of rights leads to tensions then a tradeoff

• Tradeoff is reduction of rights toward migrant workers. But if you reduce the number of migrant workers then govs will be more likely to give them rights

Ruh’s arg: The price of rights as a blindspot

• “Book highlights the danger of a blindspot in human rights based approach to migration.”

Stakeholders in the international labor migration regimes

• International law

• Labor sending

• Migrants

• Labor markets/middlemen

• Labor receiving —- eg. Canada. Goals: Solve for labour shortages, eg. elder care

Which stakeholders directly interact w these blindspots?

• An inherent tension: Universality of migrant workers rights

• Rights determined by immigration policies

  CONT

What are the main “costs” for the recieivng state

• Undermining economic benefits of temp. labor import policies

• A threat to the national concerns

Greater economic benefits at the cost of migrant worker’s rights

• The fiscal effects of immigration critically depend on whether and how migrants social rights are restricted (Ruhs)

Examples of migrant workers’ rights restrictions

• Denied right to free choice if employment

• Exclusion from national labor standards and law protection

• Exclusion from national labor standards and law protection

• Exclusion from permanent residency

• Prohibition of family reunification

• Exclusion from social benefits

Martin Ruh’s args

• Tradeoff btwn openness and rights

• Proposing pragmatic solution = limited set of rights

• Trade off btwn openness and rights: Openness: “Admission of workers”, Rights: “Proctection of rights

  Centrality of openness and rights in policy makers

• Primary

FINISH AT A PRAGMATIC SOLUTION

Power: Compulsory Return