Special issue on “Rights-based governance and decent work for migrants: a global perspective”

  Nicola Piper, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK;

  Elspeth H. Guild, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

  The aim of this special issue, which is about the theme of emerging global migration governance and public policy in relation to labour migration, is to bring a new and critical perspective to global migration studies. The majority of international migration is related to labour either directly (people moving in search of work) or indirectly (refugees who seek protection but need also to work). In 2018, the United Nations (UN) brought together the international community to adopt two new instruments setting out a plan for the 21st century on the treatment of migrants and refugees. These two instruments, the Global Compact for Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (the Marrakesh Compact), received overwhelming support among states in the General Assembly (President Trump’s USA being a rare example of disaccord). The objective of the two instruments is to establish as a primary objective in the management of refugee movements and migration the common responsibility of states to ensure dignity for those on the move and human rights protection under the conditions of rule of law. The key international organisations engaging with migration, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), all contributed centrally to the negotiation of the two instruments and have taken leading roles in their implementation by states. As the contributions to this issue demonstrate however, international organisations and states are not the only actors in this multi-layered, multi-sited policy field. Its multi-actor character requires cooperation and coordination across policy fields and levels of policymaking (national, regional, global) but at times also involves clashes and discord, for example in relation to meeting specific objectives or the use of certain types of strategies.

1. The international governance of refugee work: reflections on the Jordan compact 

    Jennifer Gordon, Fordham University School of Law, New York, USA

For the past 70 years, separate international regimes have governed the economic lives of refugees and labor migrants. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) oversees all aspects of refugee resettlement, including livelihoods, while the International Labor Organization (ILO) is charged with addressing the labor rights of migrants. This division has become increasingly problematic as international actors have sought to move refugees into employment arenas from which they have been largely excluded since the end of WWII. This article uses a case study of the 2016 EU-Jordan Compact to illustrate the risks inherent in positioning refugees as workers in the absence of a commitment to a rights-based approach. The Compact was negotiated between the European Commission, the World Bank, and the Government of Jordan, in consultation with the UNHCR; the ILO played no role in crafting the agreement. It sought to place 150,000 Syrians in Jordanian garment export manufacturing jobs, replacing an existing migrant workforce in an industry notorious for low pay and poor conditions. This effort quickly foundered. Instead, large numbers of Syrian refugees have been channeled into informal employment in construction and agriculture in Jordan, where they and migrant co-workers face pervasive violations of labor standards. Without decent work as a central goal, the Compact ultimately concentrated some of the world’s most vulnerable workers in some of its least desirable jobs. To protect refugees and others alongside whom they labor, the article argues, refugee employment initiatives must be accompanied by attention to decent work from the outset. At the international level, this should include a critical role for the ILO, in recognition of its extensive expertise with the establishment and enforcement of labor standards for all workers.

2. Global partnerships in governing labour migration: the uneasy relationship between the ILO and IOM in the promotion of decent work for migrants 

    Nicola Piper, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK;

    Laura Foley , Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

This paper examines the multi-actor and multi-sited character of global labour migration governance as a sphere in which various organisations seek influence on the direction of global policy via various methods. We focus on the relational dynamics between the two key organisations which engage in the governance of labour migration, yet which have fundamentally different mandates and modes for governing: the ILO and the IOM. This paper contributes to the existing literature on global migration governance and the role of international organisations by applying the concept of ‘global partnerships’ to our examination of the relationship between those two key international organisations in the field of migration. We characterise the evolving ILO–IOM global partnership as an uneasy alliance along a “competition/clash-cooperation spectrum” and argue that, in order to manage the competing-cooperating dynamics, a type of strategic ILO–IOM partnership has emerged, an alliance which has also been driven by the blurring of public and private realms in new global migration governing forms and formats. The ultimate question raised by these developments is whether this global partnership will promote or obstruct the advancement of the decent work policy agenda for migrant workers.

3. Decent work for migrants? Examining the impacts of the UK frameworks of gangmasters legislation and modern slavery on working standards for irregularly present migrants 

    Elspeth Guild, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK;

    Anita Magdalena Barylska, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

With the societal cracks resulting from decade-long neoliberal policies becoming increasingly visible in many countries, capitalism as the most suitable institutional system to produce material wealth, environmental sustainability and social stability has come under growing attack. This contribution examines what the growing army of recent heterodox scholars in economics and business have to say on what one could call ‘inclusive capitalism’. This concerns both the flaws in current capitalist systems and the behavioral assumptions that underpin it, as well as the possible institutional fixes they propose. I first sketch the background of the crisis surrounding capitalism, delve into its conceptual foundations and offer a working definition. I subsequently examine what social and environmental inclusion refer to and use Kate Raworth’s conceptualization of the doughnut economy as a point of departure to explore what ‘inclusive capitalism’ may imply. I also identify requirements for its implementation in institutional practices. It appears that ‘purpose’ rather than utility maximization or profit maximization is what novel economists and business scholars perceive as the key driver in ‘stakeholder-oriented capitalism’ or the ‘economics of mutuality’. Their claim is that at the end of the day this is not only a moral imperative for companies but also more beneficial for them in terms of long-term profitability. Moreover, they see a far more important role for government in shaping markets and leading the way into a more inclusive future than it is currently fulfilling. I argue that it is time for scholars in the field of public policy to take heed of these new theoretical developments in neighboring disciplines and respond to them.

4. Brokered discrimination for a fee: the incompatibility of domestic work placement agencies with rights-based global governance of migration

    Katharine Jones, Coventry University, Coventry, UK  

In the past decade tackling ‘abusive recruitment’ has catapulted to the top of international migration governance agendas, largely in the slipstream of anti-trafficking advocacy. In this context, the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) aims to ‘facilitate fair and ethical recruitment’ while ‘safeguarding the conditions that ensure decent work’. However, recruiters’ responsibility for systemic and discriminatory racialised and gendered employment patterns remain largely ignored by policymakers, despite non-discrimination being a fundamental labour right. This paper responds by drawing on a qualitative research study conducted with migrant domestic worker placement agencies in Jordan, Lebanon, and Bangladesh between 2013 and 2015. The paper shows that agencies in Amman and Beirut deliberately recruited and supplied Bangladeshi women as the cheapest available domestic workers. I argue that such structural discrimination impacted on Bangladeshi women’s position in the labour market, including on their pay and ability to organise. The paper concludes that without tackling this issue, private sector recruitment will remain a substantial obstacle to the advancement of a rights-based and socially fair approach to the global regulation of worker migration.

5. The cycle of commodification: migrant labour, welfare, and the market in global China and Vietnam

    Jake Lin, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany；

    Minh T. N. Nguyen, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany

China and Vietnam have experienced waves of labour and welfare reform since both countries shifted to market socialism, pursuing a development model that depends on the labour of millions of rural–urban migrants in global factories. Their similar development trajectories are productive for theorizing the relationship between labour and welfare. This article conceptualises the two countries’ distinctive regime of migrant labour welfare as integral to a cycle of commodification that encompasses the overlapping processes of commodification, de-commodification and re-commodification of labour. After decades of collectivized labour under state socialism, the cycle begins with the commodification of labour through market reforms that led to mass rural–urban migration and the rise of the global factory alongside the dismantling of the former socialist welfare system. It was then followed by de-commodification attempts aimed at providing forms of social protection that offset the labour precarity caused by decades of labour market liberalisation. Despite the emergence of new universal welfare programs, the market has increasingly intruded into social protection, especially through financialized products targeted at the labouring masses who must compensate for the failings of public welfare programs. As such, these welfare regimes are undergoing a process of re-commodification in which the protection of labour is re-embedded into the market as a commodity to be consumed by the migrant workers with their meagre wages. The “cycle of commodification” offers an analytical framework to understand welfare regimes as a social and political field that keeps evolving in response to the changing global valuation of labour.  

6. From recognising health rights to realising labour protections? Sex work, ILOAIDS and the Decent Work Agenda in Ghana

    Ellie Gore, CThe University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

This paper examines recent evolutions in global development policy that link decent work, HIV and sex work—particularly through the ILO Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work—and considers the implications for migrant sex workers in Ghana. Drawing on original primary data gathered in 2020, namely interviews with grassroots NGOs based in Accra, the paper explores the conditions for and barriers to expanding rights-based sexual health frameworks to include the promotion and protection of sex workers’ labour rights. The paper finds that civil society actors face multiple barriers to expanding sexual health frameworks, which include Ghana’s prevailing socio-legal regime of prohibition and stigmatisation, the overwhelming focus of development funding on HIV, and the failure of existing policy efforts to address the political–economic determinants of migrant women’s experiences of labour exploitation in the sex sector. Theoretically, the paper contributes to the interdisciplinary literatures on commercial sex, gender, migration, and development policy by advancing a feminist political economy analysis of the constraints and opportunities for civil society actors seeking to advance sex workers’ rights within and beyond sexual health.

7. Challenging the financial inclusion-decent work nexus: evidence from Cambodia’s over-indebted internal migrants

    Nithya Natarajan, King’s College, London, UK;

    Katherine Brickell, University of London, London, UK;

    Vincent Guermond, University of London, London, UK;

    Sabina Lawreniuk, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK;

    Laurie Parsons, University of London, London, UK

In this paper, we question the promotion of financial inclusion, and microfinance specifically, as a means to achieve ‘Decent Work’ (DW) under the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) programme. Drawing upon original research findings from two types of internal migrants in Cambodia, we make a twin contention: first, that excessive levels of microfinance borrowing by garment workers are part-outcome of the failings of the DW programme to engender ‘decent enough work’, and second, that microfinance borrowing is actually eroding rather than contributing to the prospect of decent work for debt-bonded brickmakers in the country. The data presented on two of the largest sectors contributing to Cambodia’s growth in recent decades, enable the paper to show how microfinance and labour precarity are intertwined through the over-indebtedness of workers in both cases. The paper ultimately looks to caution the ILO on its current promotion of financial inclusion and microfinance in particular, stressing the need for significant sectoral reforms before this form of credit can be considered to align with the core principles of the DW programme.

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