Migrant worker: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Langechildren2.jpg|thumb|Migrant workers in [[California]], 1935]] |
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{{legal status}} |
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The term '''migrant worker''' has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world{{citation}}. The [[United Nations]]' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country. The term can also be used to describe someone who [[Human migration|migrates]] within a country, possibly their own, in order to pursue work such as [[Temporary work|seasonal work]]. |
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==United Nations' definition== |
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The "[[United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families]]"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/45/a45r158.htm|title=United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families|publisher=[[United Nations]]|accessdate=2006-11-30}}</ref> defines migrant worker as follows: |
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{{cquote|The term "migrant worker" refers to a person who is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.}} |
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The Convention has been ratified by [[Mexico]], [[Brazil]], and the [[Philippines]] (amongst many other nations that supply foreign labour) but it has not been ratified by the United States, [[Germany]], and [[Japan]] (amongst other nations that receive foreign labour). |
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==Worldwide perspectives== |
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===Canada=== |
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In [[Canada]], companies are beginning to recruit temporary foreign workers under [[Service Canada]]'s recent expansion of an immigration program for migrant workers. |
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===China=== |
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Migrant workers from [[China]]'s impoverished regions search for work in the more prosperous coastal regions. According to [[Government of the People's Republic of China|Chinese government]] statistics, the current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million, approximately 9% of the population. China’s urban migrants sent home the equivalent of US$65.4 billion in 2005.<ref name=china>{{cite web| last=Zhenghua | first=Wang | title=Convicted migrant worker killer waits for final verdict | work=| publisher=''[[China Daily]]''| date=2005-09-21 | url=http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-09/21/content_479492.htm | accessdate=2009-05-21}}</ref> |
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===European Union=== |
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The recent [[Enlargement of the European Union|expansions]] of the [[European Union]] have provided opportunities for many people to migrate to other EU countries for work. For both the [[2004 enlargement of the European Union|2004]] and [[Accession of Romania to the European Union|2007]] enlargements, existing [[Member State of the European Union|states]] were given the rights to impose various transitional arrangements to limit access to their labour markets. Migrant workers in Germany are known as [[Gastarbeiter]]. |
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===United States=== <!-- linked from [[Marjory Stoneman Douglas]] --> |
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[[Image:A girl from Shawboro.jpg|thumb|left|Family of migrant workers in [[North Carolina]], c. 1940s]] |
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The term [[foreign worker]] is generally used in the [[United States]] to refer to someone fitting the international (UN) definition of a migrant worker while the term ''migrant worker'' is considered someone who regularly works away from home, if they have a home at all.<ref name="newp"/> |
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In the United States, migrant worker is commonly used to describe low-wage workers performing [[manual labor]] in the [[agriculture]] field; these are often illegal [[immigrant]]s who do not have valid work [[Visa (document)|visas]]. A more neutral term for this is [[undocumented migrant]]. The United States has enacted the [[Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act]] to remove the restraints on [[commerce]] caused by activities detrimental to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, to require farm labor contractors to register, and to assure necessary protections for migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, agricultural associations, and agricultural employers. |
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The term migrant worker sometimes may be used to describe any worker who moves from one seasonal job to another.<ref name="newp"/> This use is generally confined to lower-wage fields, perhaps because the term has been indelibly linked with low-wage [[farmworker]]s and [[Illegal immigration to the United States|illegal immigrants]].<ref name="newp">[http://www.newport.gov.uk/_dc/index.cfm?fuseaction=refugeesasylum.frequentquestions Newport City Refugees and Asylum Seekers<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> Examples of professions which could be called migrant workers, some of them quite lucrative, include: [[electrician]]s in the [[construction]] industry; other [[construction worker]]s who travel from one construction job to another, often in different cities; [[Wildfire suppression|wildland firefighters]] in the [[western United States]]; temporary [[Consultant|consulting]] work; and [[Interstate Highway System|Interstate]] [[truck driver]]s. |
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==Historical Perspectives== |
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===United States=== |
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Migrant workers in the United States have come from many different sources, and have been subject to different work experiences. Prior to restrictions against the slave trade, agriculture in the United States was largely dependent on [[slavery in the United States|slave labor]]; contrary to popular myth, slavery, while more prominent in the Southern [[plantation economy|plantation system]], was used in both the North and South as a way of supplying labor to agriculture.<ref>Wright, Gavin. "Slavery and American Agriculture History" in Agricultural History vol 77 no 4 (Autumn, 2003) pp, 527-552</ref> However, over the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries, when the slave trade was banned and slaves emancipated, foreign workers began to be imported to fill the demand for cheap labor.<ref>"Nijeholt, G. Thomas-Lycklama, "On the Road for Work: Migratory Workers on the East Coast of the United States" (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishing, 1980),p. 22.</ref> |
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There were many sources for cheap labor. Workers from [[chinese american history|China]] were the first group to be brought to the United States in large numbers; however, the federal government curtailed immigration from China with the [[Chinese Exclusion Act]] of 1882.<ref>Ibid., p. 22.</ref> At the turn of the Twentieth century, workers from Mexico and the [[Filipino American|Philippines]] began to enter the United States to work as cheap agricultural laborers. Other sources of cheap agricultural labor during this time were found in unskilled European immigrants, whom, unlike Chinese, Mexican or Filipino laborers, were not brought to the United States to work specifically as cheap laborers, but were hired to work in agriculture nonetheless.<ref>Ibid., p. 23.</ref> Many European migrants who worked as agricultural laborers did so with the goal of eventually purchasing their own farm in the United States; however, due to the difficulty farm hands faced in accumulating capital, this goal was often not reached.<ref>Schob, David E. "Hired Hands and Plowboys: Farm Labor in the Midwest," 1815-60 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1975),p. 270-271.</ref> |
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The experiences of migrant laborers in agriculture during this period varied. Workers from [[English American|England]] experienced little difficulty, as they shared a common language and protestant religion with many Americans, and thus faced little prejudice and assimilated into American society easily; on the other hand, workers from catholic countries such as [[Irish American|Ireland]] and [[German American|Germany]] were subject to a number of prejudices.<ref>Ibid., p.253</ref> Employers viewed Mexican workers, who continued to be brought into the United States on a temporary basis during the 20th century, desirably, as they generally did not strike or demand higher wages, and were thus seen by managers as being satisfied with the conditions they worked under. However, the use of Mexican migrant laborers declined during the [[Great Depression]], when internal migrant workers from [[Dust Bowl]] states moved west to [[California]], taking jobs normally filled by Mexican migrants.<ref>Nijeholt 1980, p. 24</ref> |
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Migrant labor in the 30 years after the [[Second World War]] was characterized by the movement of laborers from the southern United States, Latin America and the Caribbean northwards for seasonal work.<ref>Ibid., p.30</ref> While migrant workers within the United States did have the option of finding agricultural work through government agencies, such as the [[Farm Labor Agency]], recruitment was often done informally, with crew leaders hiring workers with the allure of high wages and free trips north.<ref>Friedland, William H. and Dorothy Nelkin, "Migrant Agricultural Workers in America’s Northeast" (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971),p. 19.</ref> On the other hand, foreign workers were hired through government programs, under contracts negotiated by prospective employers; as a result, employers were given complete control over migrant workers, which meant that migrant workers who complained about their working conditions or the terms of their contracts could be threatened with deportation.<ref>ibid., pp. 29-35</ref> Ethnographic accounts of migrant laborers in the northeastern United States have revealed that migrant workers in the post-war period often lived and worked under very poor conditions; workers were entirely dependent on their crew leader to supply them with goods, which often compounded the debt they already owed the crew leader from the trip north.<ref>Friedland and Nelkin 1971, p. 52</ref> Furthermore, housing conditions were often abysmal, with many people sharing cramped and poorly maintained facilities.<ref>Ibid., p. 35.</ref> |
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During this period, a large number of foreign migrant workers entered the United States [[Illegal immigration to the United States|illegally]]. During the Second World War, Mexican migrant workers could legally work in agriculture in the United States under the [[Bracero program|Bracero]] guest worker program; however, the termination of this program marked the beginning of large-scale illegal immigration into the United States.<ref>Espenshade, Thomas J. “Unauthorized Immigration to the United States,” in Annual Review of Sociology vol. 21 (1995),p. 198</ref> Illegal Mexican migrant workers have to come to be seen as an important source of cheap labor in the southwestern United States; attempts to increase enforcement against illegal migrants has been met with hostility from growers who depend on illegal immigrants as cheap laborers.<ref>Gordon H. Hanson, “Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States,” in Journal of Economic Literature vol 44, no 4 (Dec, 2006),p. 917</ref> Furthermore, the United States government has granted amnesty to illegal Mexican migrants based on their work in agriculture: under the [[Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986|US Immigrant Reform and Control Act (1986)]], illegal immigrants that could demonstrate 60 days of employment in agriculture since 1985 were awarded permanent residence.<ref>ibid.,p. 878</ref> |
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==See also== |
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* [[Cesar Chavez]], migrant worker organizer in the United States |
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* [[Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning]], also known as the 3Ds in Japan |
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* ''[[Harvest of Shame]]'', a 1960 television documentary presented by broadcast journalist [[Edward R. Murrow]] |
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* [[Migrant domestic workers]] |
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* [[Send Money Home]] |
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==References== |
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{{reflist}} |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.corporateaccountability.org/press_releases/2009/may18migrantreport.htm CCA/ Migrant Worker Deaths ] |
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{{wiktionary}} |
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* [http://www.migrant-rights.org/ Migrant workers in the gulf and the Middle East ] |
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[[Category:Immigration]] |
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[[Category:Human migration]] |
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[[Category:Employment classifications]] |
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[[ja:民工]] |
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[[he:מהגר עבודה]] |
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[[zh:农民工]] |
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[[ru:Трудящийся-мигрант]] |
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Revision as of 18:34, 25 October 2010
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