migrant workers essay

Migrant workers still at great risk despite key role in global economy

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The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the key role that migrant workers play in the global economy, as well as the “terrible risks” that they are forced to take, to find work.

According to the new International Organization for Migration ( IOM ) Global Migration Indicators (GMI) 2021 report, launched on Thursday, over the past decade migrants in the worldwide labour force have tripled.

IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) also flagged that remittances sent home to lower and middle-income countries (LMICs) have outpaced foreign aid.

The analysis featured on the Global Migration Data Portal , provides snapshots of the latest statistics and trends, including the impacts of COVID-19 on mobility.

For example, remittances made up more than 25 per cent of total GDP last year in El Salvador, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Tonga.

“The availability of timely and reliable data can help us maximize the potential of migration for development ”, said Ugochi Daniels, IOM Deputy Director General for Operations.

Demand rising

Migration trends at a glance.

More people than ever live in a country they were not born in.

More than one billion people are on the move.

Many migrate out of necessity.

One in 30 people is a migrant.

One in 95 is forcibly

As exemplified by the many roles of migrants considered ‘essential’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, the report highlights an increase in demand for their labour.

Foreign doctors account for 33 per cent of the United Kingdom’s physicians, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and there is an overall reliance on foreign healthcare workers in Europe and the United States.

Surge in overseas workers

There are nearly 170 million foreign workers globally, according to the latest IMO estimates – more than triple the 53 million registered in 2010.

And foreign-born workers play a growing role in the labour force, making up an estimated five per cent of today’s global workforce.

“As we celebrate International Migrants Day this week, this report stands as a clear reminder of the role migrants play in the development of their communities worldwide”, said Frank Laczko, GMDAC Director.

“But while the global economy continues to rely heavily on migrant workers, people continue to face terrible risks when they cannot access legal pathways in their search for better opportunities.”

Migrant safety

While migration policies are difficult to measure, the data available show a trend toward limiting safe, legal migration options .

World Health Organization (WHO)

While 81 per cent of the countries participating in IOM ’s  Migration Governance Indicators  (MGI) have at least one government body dedicated to border control, just 38 per cent have a defined national migration strategy, with only 31 per cent aligning it with a national economic development strategy.  

“This reports highlights…the invaluable contributions migrants have in our communities and economies, and the need for concrete action to increase legal channels”, Ms. Daniels said.

Setting global standards

Also on Thursday, the World Health Organization ( WHO ) published the agency’s new  Global Competency Standards for refugee and migrant health services  to strengthen countries’ ability to provide services to refugees and migrants by defining markers to be incorporated into health workers’ education and practices.

“While facing similar health risks to their host communities, refugees and migrants may have specific health needs and are often vulnerable to adverse health outcomes due to their mobility, living and working conditions”, said Santino Severoni, Director of the WHO Health and Migration Programme.

The health workforce has a vital role in providing inclusive services that are respectful of cultural, religious, and linguistic needs, said the UN health agency.

“Refugees and migrants face obstacles in accessing people-centred and culturally sensitive health services in both countries of transit and destination. These can include…restricted use of health services, all of which shape their interactions with the host country’s health system”, said the WHO Director.

The document is accompanied by a Curriculum Guide to support its operationalization.

The competencies can be tailored to various environments and take into consideration the requirements and constraints of local health systems as well as the characteristics of diverse refugee and migrant populations.

“2021 is the International Year of Health and Care Workers ”, reminded Jim Campbell, Director of WHO’s Health Workforce Department.

“The same workers must be supported with a competency-based education, as outlined in the Standards…to take us a step closer towards universal health coverage for all populations, including for refugees and migrants”.

• migrant workers

Overseas Filipino Workers: The Modern-Day Heroes of the Philippines

Bayani is the Tagalog term for “hero.” In the Philippines, a bayani is someone who is courageous, humble, and selfless. They pursue causes that are greater than themselves, such as those impacting a community, a nation, or the environment. Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) is a term referring to Filipino migrant workers, individuals who have left their homes to work abroad and provide comfortable lives for their families. Referring to these workers, former President Corazon Aquino coined the phrase ‘Bagong-Bayani’ in 1988. OFWs are the country’s modern-day heroes because they not only boost the Philippines’ economy through remittances but are figures of resilience. OFWs endure homesickness, personal sacrifices, and horrible working conditions in order to support their families back home.

By the Numbers

The Philippine Statistic Authority estimates that about 1.83 million OFWs worked abroad from April to September 2021. The same data reveal that about “four in every ten” OFWs work low-status or ‘ elementary ’ jobs, such as street vendors, construction and factory workers, cleaners, domestic helpers, and agriculture laborers. A majority of OFWs work in Asia, specifically Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Singapore, and Qatar.

Because of their major contribution to the growth and development of the Philippine economy, OFWs are revered as the nation's economic heroes. According to data released by the Central Bank of the Philippines, remittances from OFWs reached a record high in December of last year: from the previous all-time high of US$34.88 billion, it rose by 3.6 percent to a record high US$36.14 billion in 2022.

“OFW remittances, at new record highs on a monthly basis, are a bright spot for the Philippine economy in terms of spurring consumer spending, which accounts for at least 75 percent of the economy, and in turn, support faster economic growth,” Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief economist Michael Ricafort said .

Furthermore, most OFWs are Filipina women. The numbers clearly show that women dominate the workforce, accounting for approximately 60 percent of OFWs. According to data from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, at least 18,002, or 75.05 percent of the 23,986 cases of abuse and other incidents involving workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council that were reported last year included female OFWs. On the other hand, male OFWs were involved in only 5,984 cases, or 24.95 percent of all cases.

These women are disproportionately more likely to suffer from terrible working conditions, as they are often subjected to abuse, excessive work, little pay, rape, or worse, being killed by their foreign employers. The International Labour Office published a working paper titled Philippines: Good Practices for the Protection of Filipino Women Migrant Workers in Vulnerable Jobs explaining that “Gender-based discrimination intersects with discrimination based on other forms of  ‘otherness’ – such as non-national status, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status – placing women migrants in situations of double, triple or even fourfold discrimination, disadvantage or vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.”

In 2020, there were 23,714 documented cases of contract violations involving the maltreatment of OFWs, according to data provided by the Philippine Overseas Labor Offices, and approximately 5,000 of these cases were reported from Middle Eastern countries. According to the Philippine Information Agency, Filipina women who work in the Middle East are subjected to the “ kafala ” system, which ties foreign workers to their employers. Under this framework, employers could easily lock domestic workers inside their houses and seize their phones, passports, and visas until the expiration of their contracts.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a comprehensive report titled “ ‘I Already Bought You’ Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates,” which explains real-world examples of how the UAE’s kafala system of visa sponsorship binds migrant employees to their employers and how the exclusion of domestic workers from labor law protections exposes them to abuse.

The report included interviews with 99 female domestic workers in the UAE between November and December 2013. 22 of the 99 domestic helpers questioned by HRW claimed to have experienced physical abuse at the hands of their sponsors.

“They slap me in the face and kick me. They have a stick for you. If I make a small mistake they would hit parts of my body—back legs, back, and head. Sir would slap or punch me in the face. If they come back from the mall and I am not finished they would beat me,” Shelly A., a 30-year-old Filipina worker said. “They would say, ‘If you had done work then we won’t hit you.’ ”

Injustices in Kuwait

Currently, there are over 268,000 OFWs who live and work in Kuwait with 88 percent of them working as domestic helpers and 73 percent of them being female. According to the Philippine Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), there were over 24,000 cases of abuse and violation against OFWs in 2022—a significant rise from 6,500 in 2016.

It is a significant sacrifice to work abroad. Being physically and emotionally thousands of miles away from one’s family for an indefinite period is challenging, isolating, and suffocating. Rowena, a 54-year-old Filipina worker in Bahrain found herself feeling “trapped” due to canceled flights to the Philippines because of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as being underpaid by her employer. “I don’t want to make trouble. I want to go home,” Rowena said .

Beyond this, many OFWs also work abroad without knowledge of the future or the dangers they may encounter in a foreign country. Even worse, a harsh truth of working abroad is that a number of OFWs return home as dead bodies.

In January of 2023, Jullebee Ranara , a Filipina domestic helper living in Kuwait, confided in her family over the phone that she was terrified of her employer's 17-year-old son. The 35-year-old appeared to have vanished by the next day, which prompted her friends in the Gulf state to share their worries about her disappearance on social media.

Less than 24 hours later, on Jan. 21, 2023, her body was found dead, with burnt remains and a smashed skull found beside a desert near Al-Salmi Road.

Ranara was discovered to be pregnant after an autopsy, and DNA samples taken from the unborn child were confirmed to match the accused, who is the 17-year-old son of Ranara’s boss. After being apprehended, the 17-year-old perpetrator confessed to his crime.

Since 2018, there have been at least four murders of OFWs in Kuwait that have garnered national attention, including the case of 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis , whose body was kept secret in a freezer in an abandoned apartment for nearly two years. Her employers, a Syrian and a Lebanese couple, received death sentences for the murder of the victim.

In 2019, 47-year-old Constancia Lago Dayag was discovered dead after being sexually abused and beaten to death by her boss. The same year, 26-year-old Jeanelyn Villavende passed away from serious injuries inflicted by her boss, who was ultimately given a death sentence for the murder.

“These are only the high-profile ones,” Migrante International chairperson Joanna Concepcion told VICE World News. “There are other cases that are not visible. The public is not made aware of the real gravity of the rampant abuses faced by Filipino domestic helpers in Kuwait.”

Actions taken by the Philippine Government

A week after the discovery of Jullebee’s body, her remains were returned to her grieving family in Las Piñas, Philippines. Without delay, Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. attended Jullebee’s wake and promised to provide the deceased’s family with all aid possible.

“I just wanted to offer my sympathies to the family and to assure them that all the assistance that they might need for the family and for whatever else, that is my promise to them,” Marcos Jr. remarked . “Their child made that sacrifice to work abroad because she has dreams for her family here.”

Recently, the DMW issued a deployment ban on new and aspiring OFWs in Kuwait, following the increasing reports of work mistreatment, including the horrific murder of Ranara.

“In order to strengthen the protection of the rights of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Kuwait, particularly workers who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, action on the applications of first-time agency-hire domestic workers bound for Kuwait is temporarily deferred effective immediately,” the DMWs said in a statement on Feb. 8, 2023.

Senator and Committee on Migrant Workers Chairperson Raffy Tulfo proposed a total deployment ban in Kuwait. “We can enter into bilateral agreements but our terms should be clear and unequivocal. If there are violators to such agreements, we have to prioritize the welfare of our overseas Filipino workers and act at the soonest possible time. Make these violators accountable and liable without concession and pursuant to our laws and international conventions,” Tulfo said in a senate inquiry.

The DMW was also tasked with working with the Department of Foreign Affairs to communicate to the Kuwaiti government the "sentiments and concerns" of the Filipino people regarding all recurrent incidents of physical and financial abuse, failure to pay monetary benefits, as well as murder committed against OFWs after the deployment ban went into effect.

The deployment ban was not well received by migrant advocacy groups, who claimed it would not provide a permanent solution to the issues surrounding labor migration. They claimed that placing bans for an extended period of time would encourage OFWs to turn to illicit means and consequently put themselves at risk for human trafficking in their desperation to find jobs abroad.

“What about the already-deployed Filipinos? Are there any steps being taken to protect them and make sure they do not suffer the same fate as Julleebee and the others?” Concepcion said to Maritime Fairtrade News. “These problems cannot be resolved with a deployment ban. The Philippine government has imposed bans many times before, but lifted them soon after when the particular cases of abuse or murder had been resolved by the courts and the perpetrators punished by death penalty or long-term imprisonment. When the deployment restarts, the abuses also start all over again.”

Much Needed Reform

OFWs often serve as the backbone of their families back home. Based on the results of a survey published by the Social Weather Stations , they found that 7 percent of Filipino households have an OFW who helps support the family. In addition, seventy-five percent of households frequently receive money from their OFW family members.

It would be difficult and inconsiderate to discourage or ban OFWs from going abroad for work. To promote a better quality of life for OFWs, the Philippine government must enact concrete policies aimed at protecting the welfare of Filipino workers. Advocacy groups, such as Migrante International are urging for reforms, including the abolition of the kafala system, which has resulted in complete employer control over domestic workers and OFWs.

For Concepcion, the country’s over-reliance on OFWs remittances is equivalent to the perpetuation of the violation and murder of Filipino workers. She believes that a viable solution to this issue involves ending the government’s labor export program and creating decent jobs domestically through meaningful land reform and national industrialization.

“The government’s determination to continue its labor export policy is totally misguided. What it should do is implement immediate measures to protect our domestic workers and OFWs abroad and long-term measures to generate decent jobs in the Philippines,” Concepcion said . “We need to end the government’s Labor Export Program and instead ensure that more jobs are created at home. Filipinos won’t have to leave the country and their families to risk their lives abroad if they have gainful and secure employment here.”

It is clear that OFWs live up to the definition of a bayani and are now considered heroes of the Philippines. However, under the shiny title of ‘bagong bayani’ lies a dark and unfortunate reality. Numerous Filipino workers suffer from various injustices including being overworked, underpaid, abused, raped, and even worse, murdered. The only way OFWs can truly be safeguarded is if the Philippine government enforces concrete and actionable policies. With this, OFWs could avoid the potential death sentence of working abroad and have the chance to be treated as they deserve to be: as modern-day heroes.

Laurinne Jamie Eugenio

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Migrant workers’ ‘Rights-Talk’: An immense promise facing high social and organizational barriers

Samentha Goethals

2 December 2020 Last update: 08/12/20 19:45

The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have […] come to be widely touted as the era of human rights – a sentiment that captures both the preponderance of rights-talk and the immense promise that it invariably carries. (Elizabeth Anker, 2012).

The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) require that business know and show that they respect human rights. They can do so by conducting human rights due diligence and by translating and embedding human rights throughout their organization. This process requires that businesses engage with individuals and groups affected by their activities. And yet, the whole process has been criticised for being too top-down and lacking the strong participatory element of human rights-based approaches. Leaders and senior management are positioned at the helm of the organizational acculturation process of human rights responsibility in business. Although considered core targets of companies’ human rights policies, employees and workers tend to be held as passive recipients rather than active participants in this process. This ignores the role they play in the everyday (ethical) life of organizations and the fact that they live in and know the communities and societies surrounding operations. This matters for business and human rights (BHR) practice. If employees and workers are not involved in the process of defining rights issues, how can companies know and show that they respect human rights in and around their organizations? More to the point, we should be asking: how do vulnerable sections of the workforce, such as migrant workers, understand and engage with human rights?

Migrant workers and the UNGPs in times of austerity and pre-Brexit

To answer these questions, I set out to explore what human rights meant across organizational levels in the British hospitality sector after the UNGPs’ launch in 2011 and before the EU referendum in 2016.

The hospitality sector relies heavily on migrant workers, whom the UNGPs include as part of the vulnerable groups that require special attention from States and business. Looking back, the period was a case study for BHR in the context of heightened anti-immigration sentiment and economic austerity.

Migrant workers’ vulnerability partly derives from political and legal rules that create situations of inequality between them and citizens, and between foreign workers themselves, based on their perceived utility in the labour market. Among others, government policies that restrict freedom of movement and ability to freely choose and leave employment as well as those that limit access to welfare, compound this vulnerability. These engage Pillar 1 of the UNGPs, as States must ensure that laws and policies protect the rights of individuals, including migrant workers, and that they are coherent to enable companies to respect human rights.

Following the corporate responsibility to respect human rights (UNGPs Pillar 2) would require that companies address the discriminatory social attitudes that pervade the workplace and lead to stereotyping and segmentation of the workforce based on perceived work ethic. All these dynamics and practices are common in the British hospitality sector. Between 2011 and 2015, at the time of research, austerity was also the driving motto. It exacerbated the urge to cut costs and led to increased reliance on outsourcing labour and zero-hours contracts in the sector to meet the sector’s on-demand labour needs. Such practices displace responsibility onto recruitment agencies or individual workers themselves and are known to amplify socio-economic precarity. In such a context, how did migrant workers understand human rights and how did/could they use them?

The need for an inclusive human rights methodology

With its denotative legalistic frame of reference, the BHR methodological toolbox is limited for investigation into the translation and meaning of human rights in business. Rights-talk, a common concept in legal anthropology and socio-legal studies, also used in business ethics, provides the necessary inclusive lens. Scholars such as Richard A. Wilson have demonstrated that rights-talk invites us to listen to and investigate ‘how people speak about those [human rights] norms, or aspire to expand or interpret them in new ways’. Using rights-talk as an analytical tool thus enables research into the connotative articulations of human rights that are closer to people’s everyday experience.

In the field of BHR, it calls out attention to two key issues, agency and structures. That is, firstly, the way migrant workers and other vulnerable groups use rights-talk to assert their expectations, raise concerns, seek remedy and claim their rights. Secondly, to the various legal, political, social and organizational factors (structures) that can shape individuals’ awareness of human rights and their ability to use them.

Migrant workers’ rights-talk in the British hospitality sector

Exploring migrant workers’ rights-talk is insightful about the meaningfulness of human rights in the British hospitality industry. It also raises important questions with regards to power and knowledge of human rights which have deep implications for BHR in contexts of heightened anti-immigration sentiments and policies. Here are three takeaways from the article that invite further research:

• Participants used rights-talk aware of its emancipatory promise

Rights-talk can help individuals challenge existing assumptions about power and relationships as they come to see and define as harms and possible rights-claims what may otherwise be considered a normal situation in the context in which they live and work. Human rights notions including inequality, dignity, respect, discrimination, and democracy may be invoked to describe and expose the adverse impacts of pervasive inequality in both work and social relationships.

Thus, creating spaces where employees’ rights-talk and local knowledge are recognized and translated-up could provide a useful reflexive lens in organizations in contexts where legal standards are weak or undercut migrant workers’ rights. Including such knowledge could lead to deep changes in organizational practices, contractual arrangements, individual conduct, and the company’s culture. For example, ensuring that all organizational actors are treated as equal, with respect, dignity and care, regardless of the minimum required for legal compliance.

• Participants lacked confidence to use legal rights-talk

Migrant workers, however, may be unaware of and unfamiliar with formal legal rights-talk including human rights rules and regulations and relevant policies in their company, where available. The lack of knowledge of legal human rights among migrant employees indicates an obvious limit in their ability to call on rights-talk’s denotative power to see their rights-claims translated-up, legitimized and remedied under specific rules.

This highlights migrant workers’ needs for rights education and for the support of union representatives, human rights advocates or lawyers. This is especially important in sectors such as the hospitality industry, where unionization is low and migrant workers are poorly represented.

• Social and organizational barriers to rights-talk

Several disincentives appeared to inhibit the development of human rights consciousness and related action among the participants. The protection that different categories of workers and migrants enjoy in society and at work may be undercut by legal and immigration policy restrictions of civic, employment, and other social rights. These restrictions also often undermine individuals’ capacity to articulate their concerns and be heard. Some categories of workers and migrants may thus be positioned, and relatedly come to see themselves, as individuals lacking civic virtue and moral status, who are less deserving of the rights they can claim in society and in the workplace.

This is especially critical in times of rising anti-immigration attitudes and policies that further curtail the rights of migrant workers. In such settings, migrant workers may feel that their options are limited, that their claims are not legitimate and will not be considered. Knowing and showing that they respect human rights in such contexts demands heightened due diligence from companies and management. This entails openness and ability to hear and respond to claims that may not be framed in formal human rights-talk. It also requires that companies and management go beyond respect and take a stand to protect the rights and dignity of migrant workers by treating them equally and fairly. Yet again, this requires that not only employees and workers but also management are educated on human rights and have the space and courage to take a moral stand that could challenge organizational priorities.

Rights-talk in business going forward

These insights point to the emancipatory meaning of rights-talk for migrant workers and their ability to engage with human rights. But they also highlight significant social and organizational barriers that in the climate of austerity preceding Brexit appeared to hinder the emergence of right-consciousness and individuals’ capacity to claim their rights and seek remedy in a foreign country where they did not necessarily feel ‘rightfully’ welcome.

It is a great personal honour that my article was awarded the Business and Human Rights Journal’s 2019 Best Scholarly Article Award. This signals the need for further research into the dynamic meaning and role of human rights in business from the perspectives of all organizational actors. It also calls for on-going research into the responsibility of business for migrant workers in changing contexts where their rights and freedoms are increasingly curtailed.

The article  Exploring Migrant Employees’ ‘Rights-Talk’ in the British Hospitality Sector  was awarded the prize for  Best Scholarly Article for 2019 by the Business and Human Rights Journal .  You can read the full article  here .

Dr. Samentha Goethals is an Assistant Professor in Human rights and Business at SKEMA Business School, France.

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Labour Migrants During the Pandemic: A Comparative Perspective

• Perspective
• Published: 19 October 2020
• Volume 63 , pages 885–900, ( 2020 )

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• Arjan de Haan 1  

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The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying policies of confinement or lockdown have been amply demonstrated and are possibly reinforcing economic, social and gender inequalities. Because of the nature of the measures that governments took in response to the health crisis, migrants—including the millions of labour migrants in Indian cities—have been placed in a particularly vulnerable situation. This essay provides a comparative and historical perspective of the conditions of migrant workers, arguing that the disadvantages migrants face are entrenched in economic and social structures, unearthed in this pandemic, and that alongside immediate social protection measures, policies need to address the deep-rooted barriers that keep migrants vulnerable.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying policies of confinement or lockdown have been amply demonstrated and are likely reinforcing inequalities. Economic inequalities are reinforced as the better-off are better able to protect themselves, either secure in their jobs, or by having the resources to support themselves during a downturn. Gender inequalities are reinforced as women tend to be in more vulnerable jobs and are exposed to health risks. Social and identity (race, caste, nationality) inequalities often intersect with socio-economic inequalities.

Because of the nature of the measures governments around the world took in response to the health crisis, mobile populations have been placed in particularly vulnerable situations. Across the world, refugees are amongst the most vulnerable, their living conditions make containing the virus extra challenging, and stigmatisation likely increases. Labour migrants, similarly, often have poor living and working conditions, are exposed to health risks at work, have no social security or insurance to fall back on, and are often stigmatised.

Labour migrants’ vulnerability manifested itself in extreme ways in India, when the government announced a lockdown, and big cities’ labour migrants found themselves in the void of having lost their job, sometimes their housing, and in large numbers of cases having lost their income, and therefore with no alternative but to return to their home villages. Their plight has been well described in the media, by civil society organizations filling the gaps government agencies should be playing, and the efforts of groups of researchers.

This essay provides a comparative perspective of the conditions of migrant workers. Footnote 1 I will summarise international experience—documented through investigative journalism and rapid research—that shows the vulnerability of migrants and gaps in policy frameworks globally. Further, it is important to understand how the conditions that migrants in India live in are not of recent origin, and the result of a structural condition of continued circulation between home villages that do not provide the necessary livelihoods and cities that need migrants but do not create the conditions for them to settle—they remain, as I slightly awkwardly called them in my publication on migrant workers in Calcutta ‘unsettled settlers’ (de Haan 1994 ).

This essay illustrates this with a comparison with other crises, including the economic crisis following 1929 where migrant workers disappeared like ‘snow for the sun’ (but without the health consequences migrants now are facing). I will argue that both research and theories, and policies have had a deep tendency to ignore and neglect the existence of this mobile population (de Haan 1999 ): both, for different reasons, have a deep sedentary bias. Academic studies have continued to see migration as a transitory phenomenon, often in line with what is seen as a classic process of industrialisation that England experienced. For policymakers, migration has remained largely invisible: data capture circulatory migration very poorly, rural development policies often have the aim to reduce migration, and—perhaps most important—many of the public policies tend to be residence-based.

This perspective is offered to contribute to consideration of policies, particularly post-pandemic. If indeed the neglect of migrants is of a systemic nature, policy reforms need to address the roots of these. It would require a rethink of the place migrants play in India’s society, to ensure data fully acknowledge the complex but sustained patterns of mobility that exist and to enquire how public policies need to be rebuilt on the basis of that reality.

2 Inequalities Magnified: A Global Perspective

As the COVOD-19 pandemic started to evolve, there was an initial impression that the virus was an ‘equaliser’. Originating in Wuhan, China, its global spread affected global travellers and heavily impacted relatively affluent areas in Europe and the USA. Unprecedented policy responses were put in place that brought the spread of the virus under control in most OECD countries, while it continued to expand globally, including in India. Footnote 2

But thoughts of the virus being the ‘great equaliser’, as the New York governor Cuomo, for example, called it, have rapidly dissipated. In the USA, ‘ [l]ong-standing systemic health and social inequities have put some members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19 or experiencing severe illness, regardless of age’ (CDC 2020 ). In Ontario, Canada, ‘[s]ocial determinants of health … such as gender, socio-economic position, race/ethnicity, occupation, Indigeneity, homelessness and incarceration, play an important role in risk of COVID-19 infection, particularly when they limit ability to maintain physical distancing’ (Public Health Ontario 2020 ). In Toronto, racialized people accounted for 83 per cent of COVID-19 cases, despite forming only 52 per cent of the population. Footnote 3 Geographically, while the pandemic initially spread in nations’ urban and well-connected centres, it has continued to spread to geographically more remote places and, particularly in developing countries, to areas with weak health sector capacities (and possibly also higher under-reporting).

The links between inequalities and the impact of COVID-19 run in both directions (Sachs 2020 ). Higher inequality tends to be associated with worse overall health conditions, increasing vulnerability to COVID-19 deaths. Inequalities can be associated with lower social cohesion and trust, and political polarisation, which can reduce governments’ capacities to adopt measures needed to address the pandemic. Inequalities in the world of work—often associated with social identity, as discussed by Deshpande and Ramachandran ( 2020 ) for India—enhance the vulnerability of large numbers of workers. Manual workers, and owners of small businesses, are more likely to lose jobs or working hours, and thus income, and often have limited social security. Informal sector workers and women disproportionally are particularly vulnerable (WIEGO 2020 ). Those staying in work without being able to distance are exposed to infections: front-line health workers, domestic workers (GlobalVoices 2020 ), workers in food industries, vendors, and in tourism (Dempster and Zimmer 2020 ), with social and gender disadvantages usually compounding labour market ones.

Labour migrants face a multitude of disadvantages during the pandemic, which in turn may contribute to spreading the pandemic. Footnote 4 First, the movement essential for their livelihoods in itself can pose a risk in terms of spread of infectious diseases, even if the initial COVID-19 spread did not primarily affect labour migrants. Footnote 5 Many were stranded as economic activities and travel shut down, and international labour migrants were hit by the restrictions government around the world put in place. Footnote 6 The restrictions in many cases have enhanced risks particularly for vulnerable groups including children (UNICEF 2020 ). There have been reports about mistreatment by smugglers (Rodriguez 2020 ). In the case of China, job loss as a result of the pandemic reinforced pre-existing inequalities along the household registration system (Che et al. 2020 ).

Second, the type of work migrants typically engage in, and their living conditions, makes them relatively vulnerable. The places migrants return to typically are under-served by health services. Absence of social protection measures makes it less easy for them to implement social distancing. As described by Choudhari ( 2020 ), mental health challenges may compound these disadvantages. Investigative journalism shows that migrant farm workers in Canada’s agricultural sector are vulnerable to, and unprotected against the consequences of the pandemic (CBC 2020 ; Financial Post 2020 ), with migration status potentially limiting access to health care (Doyle 2020 ).

Third, the pandemic can reinforce stigma, both in host locations and when migrants return (for fear of carriers of diseases), and surveillance (Castillo 2020 ). There are reports from across the word of new or intensified discriminatory treatment, Footnote 7 non-payment, for example, for domestic workers that stayed in their job (GlobalVoices 2020 ) and xenophobia (Douglas et al. 2020 ; IOM 2020b ) (Douglas et al. 2020 ), for example, in varying contexts of Gulf States (Migrants-rights.org 2020 ), Canada (Hennebry et al. 2020 ), India (Ramasubramanyam 2020 ; Bajoria 2020 ), vis-à-vis African students in China (BBC 2020 ), and in Pakistan directed at Shia minorities (Mirza 2020 ).

3 Labour Migrants in India

The vulnerability of labour migrants manifested itself in extreme ways in India, with disadvantages of work, identity and migratory status reinforcing each other. Footnote 8 Their plight has been well described in media, by civil society organizations and researchers like the Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN 2020a , b , c ). When the government announced the lockdown, labour migrants in cities found themselves in the void of having lost their job, sometimes their housing, and in large numbers of cases their income. Many of them had no alternative but to return to their home villages, Footnote 9 and as transport was cancelled as part of the lockdown, often on foot, exposed to hunger, and risks of infection, harassment, and poor conditions of forced quarantine. Migrant workers that stayed in cities often found working conditions worsen. Footnote 10 Many migrants who had returned feel forced to return to cities as they run out of savings (Patnaik 2020 ).

As far as I am aware, there are no reliable numbers of the labour migrants that moved back, though there are some estimates of how many people moved by train: estimates have varied between 5 and 40 million. In fact, numbers of internal migrants generally are uncertain (Srivastava and Sutradhar 2016 ; Srivastava 2020a ; GoI 2017 ), with the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act of 1979 remaining to a great extent a dysfunctional framework (Sivaram 2020 ). Estimates put total numbers of internal migrant workers at about 100 million (against a Census estimate of some 45 million inter- and intrastate migrant workers Footnote 11 ), mostly originating from poorer districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, etc., and a relatively small proportion of these workers being from Nepal and Bangladesh. In particular, estimates of, and knowledge about circular and seasonal migration have remained uncertain. Footnote 12 Female labour migration also is likely under-recorded (Shanthi 2006 ), adding significantly to the overall gaps in knowledge on migration. Moreover, academic studies commonly underestimate the role of labour mobility. Footnote 13 Theories and models of migration tend to neglect the complexity of patterns of mobility, again enhancing the gaps in knowledge about the extent and impact of population mobility, often particularly important with respect to more marginalised groups.

The lack of clear data appears to reflect, and possibly reinforces, the ambivalent treatment of migrants in official discourse (Deshingkar 2017 ). As in other countries, such as China during its years of miracle economic growth and institutionalised in its hukou system, and mirroring ambivalent views globally about the place of immigrant, migrants and labour mobility in particular have never been fully accepted as part of India’s policy. Urban policies demonstrate common apathy and often discrimination towards migrants. Footnote 14 Inter-state migrants are at risk of losing access to public social provisions, such as PDS, and even health care that are tied to permanent residence, and often do not have access to housing schemes in cities.

The apathy towards labour migration is often reflected in rural policies as well, with a common focus on reducing migration in development and anti-poverty programs (and in much international development policy). Footnote 15 NREGA’s objectives include reducing labour migration through the provision of locally available work in rural areas, similar to the earlier Maharashtra employment scheme (Datta 2019 : 39–40; Solinski 2012 ).

4 Mobility Neglected: An Historical Perspective

The stories of migrants moving back to their villages of origin have parallels in earlier crises. Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the bubonic plague in 1994 led to large-scale departure of migrants (though without them being stranded, as trains were made available), skilled and manual workers, from Surat, leading to a labour shortage when factories reopened.

Economic downturns have had similar impacts on migrant workers. In Calcutta’s jute industry, in 1931 following the 1929 economic crisis, many jobs were cut (de Haan 1994 ). As the British colonial Labour Commissioner R. N. Gilchrist ( 1932 ) wrote, workers moved back to the rural areas en masse, without signs of protest: they disappeared as ‘snow for the sun’. As during the 2020 pandemic, the timing and season of the return was significant, as the return happened during the month that workers usually would return for their annual visit to their homes (see further discussion below).

As in 2020, in 1931 the return of workers to their ‘native villages’ did not come as a surprise. In fact, it was a common occurrence, as patterns of migration were—and have continued to be—circular. Earlier long-distance migration streams, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—for example from parts of Bihar to Rangpur, Mymensingh and the Sunderbans in eastern Bengal, and Burma, for agricultural and other manual work, including for railway construction (Yang 1989 )—tended to be circular, as occupations were seasonal and temporary. This circular pattern continued to predominate for industrial labour: while industrial work such as in the jute industry was much more continuous, many of the workers continued to remain migrants, maintaining close links with their villages of origin.

This predominance of circular (rural-to-urban) migration has been subject to a range of interpretations that often defined the phenomenon as an exception. On the one hand, colonial authorities and factory management attributed the pattern to workers’ unwillingness to settle, and lack of commitment to modern industries, with high rates of labour turnover. They noted labour shortages, particularly during summer months, the time of harvest and or marriages. This was often highlighted as requiring informal middlemen (’sardars’) for recruitment of workers and a common system of replacement (‘badli’) workers. The personalistic and informal nature of recruitment was closely associated with a segmentation of migration streams, a pattern that has continued to define India’s labour market and migration. Footnote 16

Critical studies, on the other hand, including the work by Breman ( 1985 , 2019 ; see also his contribution to this volume) that have highlighted extreme exploitation in migrant work have argued that it was in the interest of capitalism to keep the workforce migratory, constituting a near-endless labour surplus (partly caused by the destruction of traditional artisanal production under colonialism), that employers and authorities did not invest in the living conditions that would allow workers and their families to settle, Footnote 17 and that informal and segmented recruitment helped keep costs of labour low. During strikes or lockouts, also, workers would often return home; many trade union organisers in the jute industry shared the concerns of the employers about the lack of commitment of the migrant worker to the industry and urban area. Footnote 18

Most of India’s migrant labourers have been men, and this too has been explained either by reference to workers traditional customs or preferences, or managers’ strategies and their lack of investment in living conditions surrounding factories. In my own view, single-factor explanations are insufficient to explain the diversity of migration patterns within one industry or area of destination, nor the historical trends towards a single male earner. Footnote 19

Explanations for this pattern of rural–urban migration, in my view, need to take into account the complexity of interaction between rural and urban societies, contrasting the ‘classic’ historical interpretation of the formation of an industrial and urban working class (de Haan and Rogaly 2002 ). Availability of seasonal work, of course, provides temporary opportunities outside villages that themselves provide insufficient employment. But even when work was more permanent, migrants have continued to maintain a link with their villages. Footnote 20

The importance of this continued pattern was clearly expressed in the words of the industrial workers in the jute industry I interviewed. ‘What to do? My house is there!’. Many said that they go when there was a ‘need’ or ‘work’: marriage, an emergency, taking care of the land, settling land disputes, education of the children, or simply visiting family was a key reason for going to the village, for 1 or 2 months per year, quite often longer and frequently beyond the allowed period of leave.

From the perspective of rural development, similarly, it is critical to take into account this continued interaction of rural and urban economic activity. Research on out-migration from Bihar Footnote 21 shows the long history of out-migration, as well as the fact that this has involved most socio-economic strata, including, for example, sons of larger landowners (as described by Das 1986 ). From a functionalist perspective, this continued out-migration, while caused by poverty in many parts of Bihar, also helped to maintain its socio-economic structure, with remittances supporting the structure of landownership. Unlike for international migrants—who typically have come from less poor areas in India—the income from rural–urban unskilled labour migration generally did not allow for significant investment in agricultural or other rural production, but functioned as a safety valve, economically as well as socially.

This rural–urban interaction has by and large remained outside the view of development strategies, possibly regarded as merely a transitional or exceptional phenomenon. It is not well reflected in census or surveys, which have underestimated degrees of labour migration and its importance for development in both urban and rural areas. Policies have remained by and large silent and in neglect of this reality, or indeed—as mentioned above—have aimed to reduce that mobility.

It is important to reiterate that this neglect impacts different groups of migrants differently and that it is migrants in the informal sector that are particularly affected. It appears that the neglect of migrants’ conditions—under the pandemic and long term—is mirrored in a neglect of the so-called informal sector. As much as circular migration has remained a feature of India’s modernising economy, the size of the informal sector has remained the same, and policies to address these ineffective or absent.

The long-standing neglect of migration has contributed to policy gaps that so clearly surfaced with the COVID-19 lockdown. International reporting has suggested that the extent of suffering for migrant workers seemed to be particularly extensive in India. The pattern of circular migration that has contributed to the sudden large-scale movement is not unique to India; for example, similar movements of annual return are witnessed during China’s New Year, and there have been reports from West African cities of young migrants moving back to their villages to support harvesting. What appears pronounced is the neglect and negligence by official policy and employers: while public health concerns of course directed a cessation of movement, there were no or very limited attempt to safeguard the travel of those tens of millions of workers.

5 Inclusive Policies

It is important to highlight the initiatives that supported migrant workers in India, including civil society efforts (such as SWAN mentioned above and SEWA as described in Homenet 2020 ), Self Help Group initiatives (IFAD 2020 ), and Central Government support measures. Footnote 22 Bihar’s Chief Minister offered to cover the costs of stranded migrant workers elsewhere in India. Odisha’s Chief Minister offered to bring back migrants that were stuck in different parts of the country during lockdown; the government set up dedicated hospitals and health centres and announced a package of income and employment support for returning workers (Mishra 2020 ; The Indian Express 2020 ).

Kerala that stood out for its proactive response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic provided support to migrant workers that had lost employment (The Week 2020 ; The Economic Times 2020 ). It set up camps using, for example, schools and provided basic necessities and health-related information in various languages. Kerala’s response may have led to a relatively small proportion of migrant workers returning to their villages of origin (Nideesh 2020 ).

While these responses do play a role and have provided essential support to migrants, they are insufficient to address major inequalities and the risks associated with health and other shocks. The disadvantages migrants face—unearthed in this pandemic—are entrenched in economic and social structures. How can this be turned around? What policies are needed to address the deep-rooted barriers that keep migrants vulnerable? And does the current crisis provide an opportunity for such changes?

Critical, in my view, is the need to accept migration, and the specific patterns of migration and the contribution migrant workers make to local economies. Often, there is a greater—and important—concern for the well-being of migrants abroad, Footnote 23 and it is important that the vulnerability of internal migrants is equally recognised. With the benefit of hindsight, the way the Government was caught by surprise by the chaos caused by the lockdown—and the public health risks this may have caused—is part of a pattern of neglect of labour migration. Despite their essential function in the urban economy (and possible costs to the economy of labour shortages workers have left), seasonal and circular migrant workers do not have a fixed or accepted place in cities (Kundu 2009 ), with as mentioned many of their entitlements based in their villages of origin. Accounting for these migration patterns, and their impacts on household forms, in surveys (for example in the form of Kerala’s migration survey) and census is a critical first step.

A ‘regularisation’ of migrant workers ensures all citizens can access rights and entitlements independent of their current residence. Footnote 24 During the crisis, some countries and authorities limited the rights of migrants, Footnote 25 while others enhanced these. Bahrain declared an amnesty during 2020 for irregular workers in the country to get regularized without paying any fees or fines (Sorkar 2020 ). On the sending side, countries like Bangladesh that for many years have institutionalised support to international migrants—often supported by IOM—put in place schemes for returning workers including soft loans for training and starting economic activities (Sorkar 2020 ). The Philippines’ government in collaboration with non-state actors has been commended for its proactive role in repatriating, and welfare measures for migrants (albeit with significant gaps in implementation; Liao 2020 ).

Ensuring migrants have access to their right requires a range of reforms and new measures, most of which are not new. Footnote 26 Social protection measures need to become ‘portable’ (Srivastava 2020b ); subsidised food, for example, needs to be accessible independent of location. The ‘one nation one ration card’ initiative could be a critical step towards this goal, and there is a need and opportunity to apply existing technology to enable easier transfers of financial support (Shreedharan and Jose 2020 ). Where migrants move with families including children, education (CREATE 2008 ) and mid-day meals need to be accessible—similar to education initiatives under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the District Primary Education Programme (Majumder 2011 )—to them. Registration for welfare provisions needs to be simple.

Migrants should be able to avail the same political rights NRI’s have been given, to vote by ballot (Ghosh and Bandyopadhyay ( 2020 ); recent analysis by Gaikwand and Nellis ( 2020 ) shows low political participation by migrants, and hence a lower likelihood that politicians represent their interests. Health services—regular care as well as pandemic services—need to be accessible to migrants as much as local populations (Kusuma and Babu 2018 ; Nitika et al. 2014 ). Sustained advocacy for workers rights, such as by Aajeevika, SEWA, Footnote 27 and more recently new networks as mentioned above, as well as effective representation by trade unions is an essential element of ensuring migrants can realise their rights.

6 Conclusion

The marginalisation of migrant workers in India is deep-rooted, has a long historical background and continuity since the colonial period, and manifests itself in the absence of knowledge and data of how many migrant workers live and work outside their place of residence. Urban authorities and employers have continued to take the pattern of circular migration for granted, providing minimal facilities and security for its workers, reinforcing a lack of belonging and ability for migrants to settle with their families.

The unique shock that COVID-19 implied, but equally importantly the government’s response, lockdown and extremely limited support for the tens of millions of migrant workers, showed how deep this neglect is, and the potential costs for the migrants themselves but also the health system and the economy more broadly. Crises provide opportunities for ‘building back better’: in the case of migrant workers these consist of essential immediate social protection, but also, and likely much more challenging, addressing deep-rooted inequalities that keep workers in marginalized positions, and the invisibility of the migrants that once again were absorbed by their villages of origin.

This case of neglect of migrant workers during the pandemic in India was quite widely reported, at least during the early months of the pandemic. The rapid survey of sources on which this essay is built suggest that there has been much less reporting in other parts of the world; this may be a case of under-reporting, or an indication of particular and widespread vulnerability of migrants in India. Responses to shocks for international migrants have seen both new supportive measures, and further marginalisation and stigmatisation. It seems important to develop exploration of the varied responses and of the policies and advocacy that can address the deep-rooted disparities that migrant workers face.

The essay draws liberally on a range of sources, including investigative journalism and rapid research during the pandemic, peer-reviewed studies and my own earlier field research, and was written at a time that the daily numbers of infections in India are still increasing.

At the time of finishing the draft of this article, at the end of August 2020 the number of daily new cases in India had become larger than anywhere else in the world (Drèze 2020 ); the number of cases (and recorded deaths) relative to the population has remained well below the world’s average ( https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ; accessed 30 August 2020).

Toronto Public Health data, between mid-May and mid-July, quoted in the Globe and Mail , July 30, 2020 .

See for overviews by the World Bank ( 2020b ), and guidance from the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner ( 2020 ). On the impact of refugees, see, for example, Dempster et al. ( 2020 ), ILO ( 2020a ).

There is some information about the extent to which the migrants’ exodus from Indian cities: a study by Aajeevika Bureau showed that none of the migrants that returned to Rajasthan in the first phase of lockdown in March were infected, and that there were cases of infections amongst migrants returning in May (SciDev.Net 2020 ).

IOM 2020a . Estimates in West Africa indicated that regional migration decreased by 50 per cent (IOM 2020c ).

OHCHR ( 2020 ); extreme conditions for African labour migrants in Saudi Arabia were reported by Brown and Zelalem ( 2020 ).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1glhO8wJrzLClRytfIzvV98wYqf7anS5s/view .

For Bihar, see, for example, Priyadarshini and Chaudhury ( 2020 ), in the edited volume on the migrant crisis by Ranabir Samaddar.

Sood and Nath ( 2020 ), Thomas and Jayaram ( 2020 ) and Mander and Verma ( 2020 ). Bailwal and Sah ( 2020 ) describe the conditions of some workers that stayed behind including increases in working hours, and the reasons for doing so (lack of work in home villages, outstanding payments from contractors).

https://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/d-series/d-3.html ; in total, the Census 2011 enumerated 456 million people as migrants, with 211 million of them (mostly women) having moved for marriage.

Deshingkar et al ( 2008 a). Similarly, estimates of remittances by internal migrants are uncertain (Export–Import Bank of India 2016 ).

For example, in Munshi and Rosenzweig ( 2009 , 2020 ); see Deshingkar ( 2017 ). I believe that expectations of rates of urbanisation and observations that rates remain low (e.g. World Bank 2015 , which refers to India’s ‘messy urbanization’) have typically neglected the importance of circular migration (see Lucci 2016 for discussion on similar gaps in Africa).

See Aggarwal et al. ( 2019 ); the index shows varying degrees of support for migration in India’s states.

In international debates, there has been a growth appreciation of international migration and remittances, but with a continuously strong policy strand that sees development as a way to reduce (international) migration; see Clemens ( 2020 ) for a rebuttal of that view, in a context of continued debate.

Described, for example, by Subramaniam ( 2018 ) for tea sellers in Mumbai.

See, for example, the collection by Samaddar ( 2016 ) for a set of recent studies on workers in Indian cities.

On continued constraints for union organisation caused by circular migration, see Ghosh and Bandyopadhyay ( 2020 ), Menon ( 2020 ).

The pattern of migration varied across regional and perhaps religious communities; but across communities, female migration did occur (de Haan 1994 ; Fernandes 1997 ; Sen 1992 ).

This has remained the case of international migrants as well, described, for example, for migrants from Punjan, and by Gardner ( 1995 ) for Sylhet, Bangladesh; see also Gardner and Osella ( 2003 ).

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See Srivastava ( 2020a : pp. 15–22), describing these as inadequate. The GoI (GoI 2017 ) working group describes a range of needed long-term measures. Following the crisis, the Central government increased support to MNREGA and food subsidies (the latter to 800 million people); The Wire (30 June 2020); Livelaw News Network ( 2020 ). In Rajasthan, the demand for work in MNREGA increased by some 20 per cent during April–July compared to the sae period in the previous year (Kumar 2020 ).

The international community too tend to prioritise attention to international migrants (and remittances), despite the much larger numbers of internal migrants (see, for example, World Bank 2020a or https://migrationdataportal.org/themes/migration-data-relevant-covid-19-pandemic that focuses on international migration while using the generic term migration).

The idea of regularisation during crisis was put forward by the UN (2020) and derives partly from efforts in Europe, Portugal and Italy in particular, providing, for example, health care to undocumented migrants, in fact implementing long-standing European commitments (Fanjul and Dempster ( 2020 ).

As widely described (e.g. Pierce and Bolter 2020 ), the US administration moved forward its policy reforms started in 2017 during the pandemic.

See, for example, Deshingkar et al ( 2008a ) for India; Leighton (undated) and UNHCR (undated) for international migrants, and Solomon and Sheldon ( 2018 ) on the Global Compact. See ILO ( 2020b ) for a discussion on social protection for migrants workers

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How the Dust Bowl Made Americans Refugees in Their Own Country

By: Patrick J. Kiger

Updated: August 11, 2023 | Original: January 4, 2019

Eight decades ago, hordes of migrants poured into California in search of a place to live and work. But those refugees weren’t from other countries. They were Americans and former inhabitants of the Great Plains and the Midwest who had lost their homes and livelihoods in the Dust Bowl .

Years of severe drought had ravaged millions of acres of farmland. Many migrants were enticed by flyers advertising jobs picking crops, according to the Library of Congress . And even though they were American-born, the Dust Bowl migrants still were viewed as intruders by many in California, who saw them as competing with longtime residents for work, which was hard to come by during the Great Depression . Others considered them parasites who would depend on government relief.

As many of the migrants languished in poverty in camps on the outskirts of California communities, some locals warned that the newcomers would spread disease and crime. They advocated harsh measures to keep migrants out or send them back home.

Migrants Fled Widespread Drought in Midwest

The Dust Bowl that forced many families on the road wasn’t just caused by winds lifting the topsoil. Severe drought was widespread in the mid-1930s, says James N. Gregory , a history professor at the University of Washington and author of the book American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California.

“Farm communities in the larger region were also hurt by falling cotton prices. All of this contributed to what has become known as the Dust Bowl migration,” Gregory says.

The exact number of Dust Bowl refugees remains a matter of controversy, but by some estimates, as many as 400,000 migrants headed west to California during the 1930s, according to Christy Gavin and Garth Milam, writing in California State University, Bakersfield’s Dust Bowl Migration Archives.

Dust Bowl migrants squeezed into trucks and jalopies —beat-up old cars—laden with their meager possessions and headed west, many taking the old U.S. Highway 66.

“Dad bought a truck to bring what we could,” recalled one former migrant, Byrd Monford Morgan, in a 1981 oral history interview . “There were fifteen people to ride out in this truck, in addition to what we could haul”—including the family’s kitchen table, sewing machines, sacks to use in picking cotton, and five-gallon cans packed with cookies baked by Morgan’s stepmother. Along the way, the family camped out by the side of the highway.

When the family got to California, they stopped at farms and asked if they needed workers, and picked everything from tomatoes to grapes, Morgan said.

More people from the drought-ravaged plains actually settled in the Los Angeles area than in the San Joaquin Valley and other agricultural areas in California, according to Gregory. But migrants made up a bigger percentage of the population in the state's rural areas, and it was there that journalists recorded the dire poverty and desperation that John Steinbeck described in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath .

Police Officers Tried to Block Migrants at the Border

As the migrants’ numbers swelled, efforts were made to thwart the migration. Police officers sometimes met migrants at the state line and told them to go away, because there was no work, in what was called the “bum blockade.” Officers stopped one mother with six children at a checkpoint and demanded that she pay $3 for a California driver’s license, though they relented when she said that she only had $3.40 to her name and needed that money to buy food for her family, according to a L.A. Times account .

Those who got into California often found themselves continually on the move from farm field to farm field in search of work. They lived in spartan quarters provided by agricultural growers or squatted in “Hooverville” shanties on the outskirts of towns, before the federal government started setting up migrant camps to accommodate them, according to the U.S. National Archives.

“Yes, we ramble and we roam, and the highway that’s our home,” folk singer Woody Guthrie sang in “ Dust Bowl Refugee. ”

Californians derided the newcomers as “hillbillies,” “fruit tramps” and other names, but “Okie”—a term applied to migrants regardless of what state they came from—was the one that seemed to stick, according to historian Michael L. Cooper’s account in Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s . One California businessman described the newcomers as “ignorant, filthy people,” who should not “think they’re as good as the next man.”

Some warned that the newcomers would sponge off the government, although relatively few of them actually sought benefits, as State Relief Administration director Harold Pomeroy explained in a 1937 Desert Sun article.

Migrants Were Feared as a Health Threat

A local official in Madera, California complained in 1938 that the migrants crowded into the camps presented a health threat, noting that “these conditions are not to be blamed o the growers, but on the people themselves, [for] having lived in squalor for many generations” back in their home states. One riverbank shantytown that was home to 1,500 migrants was burned to the ground by disease-fearing Californians in 1936.

Ironically, it would be a war— World War II —that would finally boost migrants’ fortunes. Many families left farm fields to move to Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay area, where they found work in shipyards and aircraft factories that were gearing up to supply the war effort.

By 1950, only about 25 percent of the original Dust Bowl migrants were still working the fields. As the the former migrants became more prosperous, they blended into the California population.

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Collection Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives

Migrant workers, photographer: dorothea lange.

Imperial Valley, California, February and March 1937 Resettlement Administration, Lot 345

Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1895 and studied photography in New York City before the First World War. In 1919, she moved to San Francisco, where she earned her living as a portrait photographer for more than a decade. During the Depression's early years Lange's interest in social issues grew and she began to photograph the city's dispossessed. A 1934 exhibition of these photographs introduced her to Paul Taylor, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, and in February 1935 the couple together documented migrant farm workers in Nipomo and the Imperial Valley for the California State Emergency Relief Administration.

Copies of the reports Lange and Taylor produced reached Roy Stryker, who offered Lange a job with the Resettlement Administration in August 1935. 1 Unlike the agency's other photographers, Lange did not move to Washington but used her Berkeley home as a base of operations. 2 She and Taylor were married that winter.

Lange returned to the Imperial Valley in early 1937 for the Resettlement Administration. The valley was in a state of crisis, and on February 16 Lange reported on the situation to Stryker:

I was forced to switch from Nipomo to the Imperial Valley because of the conditions there. They have always been notoriously bad as you know and what goes on in the Imperial is beyond belief. The Imperial Valley has a social structure all its own and partly because of its isolation in the state those in control get away with it. But this year's freeze practically wiped out the crop and what it didn't kill is delayed--in the meanwhile, because of the warm, no rain climate and possibilities for work the region is swamped with homeless moving families. The relief association offices are open day and night 24 hours. The people continue to pour in and there is no way to stop them and no work when they get there. 3

As many as six thousand migrants arrived in California from the Midwest every month, driven by unemployment, drought, and the loss of farm tenancy. In An American Exodus , which he co-authored with Lange, Taylor wrote that the Okies and Arkies had "been scattered like the shavings from a clean-cutting plane." Many drifted to the Imperial Valley after the completion of Boulder (Hoover) Dam in 1936, which guaranteed the valley a supply of water for irrigation. But the migrants, who competed with Mexicans and other immigrants for work, were offered "not land, but jobs on the land." 4 The land was held by relatively few owners. In 1935 one-third of the farm acreage in the six hundred square miles of the Imperial Valley consisted of operations in excess of five hundred acres; seventy-four individuals and companies controlled much of the cropland. 5

In his biography of Lange, Milton Meltzer includes a marvelous account of Lange's trip. He reports that shortages of funds had led Stryker to lay off the photographer in October 1936. After two months of anxiety for them both, Stryker was able to rehire Lange in late January 1937; the photographer and her friend Ron Partridge set out for the valley the day after Stryker approved the trip. Long, exhausting days of photography were followed by overnight stays in rickety tourist courts paid for by Lange's four-dollar-per-diem maintenance allowance. Partridge has described how Lange worked:

She would walk through the field and talk to people, asking simple questions--what are you picking? . . . How long have you been here? When do you eat lunch? . . . I'd like to photograph you, she'd say, and by now it would be "Sure, why not," and they would pose a little, but she would sort of ignore it, walk around until they forgot us and were back at work. 6

In the file, Lange's ninety-seven Imperial Valley photographs from 1937 are integrated with more than one hundred other images of California migrants she made that year. Some of her Imperial Valley photographs document conditions: the makeshift camps on the banks of irrigation ditches, the use of irrigation water for cooking and washing, the crowds at the relief offices, and, when work was available, the stoop labor. Her photography was not limited to Okies and Arkies for she also photographed the camps occupied by Mexican laborers, a Japanese-owned farm, and Filipinos picking lettuce.

The most poignant and moving photographs from Lange's trip convey a mood rather than describing circumstances or activities: the man hunkered at the edge of the field, the mother and child in the tent opening, and the trio of men, one of whom casts a defiant glance at the photographers. The photographs are character studies that render the textures of skin and clothing with an artist's eye and depict posture, gesture, and gaze with an ethnologist's. But their subjects are anonymous and the pictures become genre studies: "the pea picker" or the "jobless man on relief."

Lange's photographs were intended to bolster support for the establishment of migrant camps in the area by the Resettlement Administration. On 12 March, five days after she returned home, Lange wrote Stryker that her "negatives are loaded with ammunition." She added that the situation was "no longer a publicity campaign for migratory agricultural labor camps" but rather "a major migration of people and a rotten mess." 7

Much of Lange's correspondence with Stryker during this period concerns the distribution of prints of these photographs. She saw an immediate need for pictures by the agencies endeavoring to help the migrants and received permission to supply prints to the head of the state emergency relief office in the Imperial Valley and to the Resettlement Administration's regional office. 8 She also wanted to supply photographs to a variety of other organizations and, between 1937 and 1940 the pictures were used in a report to the U.S. Senate, in An American Exodus , for a Works Progress Administration exhibit in San Francisco, and by a number of newspapers and periodicals. 9

Both Stryker and Lange were keen to place a story about migrants in Life magazine, but disagreements about who would edit and submit material to the magazine muddled the process. In December 1936, Stryker found himself in a debate with his boss about whether the agency or the photographer should submit the story, and whether the agency should approve the final text and layout. 10 The same issue also emerges in the correspondence between Lange and Stryker. On 16 February 1937, as she set out for the valley, Lange wrote that she had contacted Life about the story and that she wanted to send them "some of this new Imperial stuff to choose from, if they decide to run the series." 11 Stryker replied that "LIFE is terribly interested in a migrant lay-out, but we are holding everything up now, awaiting the new migrant stuff you can send us." 12 Ten days later, Lange asked, "Do you want me to do this story for Life, or shall I send on the material with factual captions, place, date, etc. -- for assemblage elsewhere." 13

In the end Lange herself compiled the story, informing Stryker that she would limit the pictures to ones made in California and explaining that this would make "a more pointed story" than a series of pictures from across the nation. 14 Lange submitted twenty-five pictures on the theme of human erosion, but Stryker had separately sent Life the set of pictures from the Senate report, instructing them not to use any photographs until the report had been published. 15

Only one of Lange's photographs of migrants ultimately appeared in Life . At the end of a six-page spread on the Dust Bowl in the issue dated 21 June 1937, following an optimistic look at new farming practices designed to reduce erosion, the magazine displayed a striking full-page close-up of the man with the defiant glance, cropped from the center of the four-by-five-inch negative. Lange was not credited, although the agency was. Life did not present the unidentified man as a victim of human erosion but called him a "new pioneer" seeking a new life in California. According to Life , his "courageous philosophy" led him to say, "I heerd about this here irrigation. . . . I figured that in a place where some people can make a good livin' I can make me a livin'." 16

In a 1964 interview conducted by Richard Doud, Lange discounted the contemporary impact of the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration photographs, forgetting for a moment the fact that her own pictures had influenced public opinion and government policy. Life 's use of her Imperial Valley photograph may have contributed to her bleak assessment that "during the years [the section] was being formed, it was not a [public relations] success." Recalling Stryker's encounters with major magazines, she asked, "Did Roy ever tell you of the many, many trips he made to New York, with pictures under his arm, trying to peddle them to periodicals and to publications, and didn't make it . . . ? That's a little bit humiliating, and embarrassing to him." 17

The picture magazines were reluctant to use the Resettlement Administration and Farm Security Administration photographs, Lange speculated, because of the media's emphasis on current events. The photographs "got mixed up with news," Lange told Doud, adding, "This was a state and a condition we were describing, and had no appeal." But she concluded that the judgment of history has established the importance of the photographs. "But time of course is a very great editor, and a great publicist," Lange said. "Time has given those things the value." 18

1 Copies of the reports are in Lots 897 and 898, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

2 Much of the information in this text is from Karin Becker Ohrn, Dorothea Lange and the Documentary Tradition (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), 38-49; Milton Meltzer, Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978), 126-29; and Dorothea Lange interview by Richard Doud, 22 May 1964, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

3 Lange to Stryker, 16 February 1937, Stryker Collection.

4 Paul S. Taylor and Dorothea Lange, An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1939; rev. ed., New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1975), 145, 148.

5 Federal Writers' Project, California: A Guide to the Golden State (New York: Hastings House, 1939), 639-40.

6 Meltzer, Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life , 163-70.

7 Lange to Stryker, 12 March 1937, Stryker Collection.

8 Lange to Stryker, 12 March 1937, Stryker Collection.

9 Meltzer, Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life , 166-69. Clippings from serials may be found in the Supplementary Reference files and agency scrapbooks, FSA-OWI Written Records. Not all of the clippings offer full bibliographic citations. Lange's 1937 Imperial Valley pictures were used in the following newspapers, journals, and magazines: St. Louis Post Dispatch Sunday Magazine , 17 April 1938, 4; Current History , April 1939, 33; Social Work , April 1939; St. Louis Post Dispatch Sunday Magazine , 28 January 1940; Country Gentleman , February 1940, 9; and Democratic Digest , June-July 1940, 46.

10 Stryker to Lange, 2 December 1936, Stryker Collection.

11 Lange to Stryker, 16 February 1937, Stryker Collection.

12 Stryker to Lange, 9 March 1937, Stryker Collection.

13 Lange to Stryker, 19 March 1937, Stryker Collection.

14 Lange to Stryker, 23 March 1937, Stryker Collection.

15 Meltzer, Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life , 164-65.

16 "The U.S. Dust Bowl," Life , 21 June 1937, 60-65.

17 Dorothea Lange interview by Richard Doud, 22 May 1964, Archives of American Art.

18 Lange interview by Doud, 22 May 1964, Archives of American Art.

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The history of Migrant Labour in South Africa

Introduction

The migrant labour system marks a period in which African men were integrated into wage labour. Black men changed  from being farmers in their own lands to being cheap labour in the mines. African men from the Bantustans and from other neighbouring countries left their families behind to work as contract labourers in the mines. The migrant labour system is the evidence of how legislation was used to the benefit of mining magnates and white workers to oppress African workers. African migrant labourers did not only work as cheap labour, but they also worked under harsh conditions as they were also victims of abuse by their white supervisors.

From peasants to migrant labour

The control over African labour began in 1834 after slavery was abolished. The abolition of slavery led to constant labour demands that were influenced by the discovery of diamond and gold in South Africa [1] . It was then only through cheap wage labour that African labourers could still be controlled as slavery was no longer an option. The large part of South African history is centred around the transformation of the majority of the country's people. The rural African population changed from their pre-colonial status as pastoralist-cultivators to their current status as subsistence rural dwellers. The inability to sustain themselves through agriculture made them rely on wages earned in white industrial areas or on white farms for subsistence [2] . The vital post-mineral era was one in which non-market forces prevailed. It was an era in which economic and political power bearers utilised discriminatory and coercive measures to marginalise the African peasantry. The  economy was built with a structure that favoured market forces for the white capitalist sector [3] .

Moreover, the reduction in the productivity and profitability of African agriculture as well as the consequent increase in Africans' reliance on wage labour, is a significant component of the character of capitalist growth in South Africa [4] . African employment in the mines was due to deprivation in tribal areas as a result of soil erosion, population growth and land occupation by whites [5] . Things became more difficult for farmers in 1886 after the discovery of gold as it meant more labour would be needed [6] . Black labour on Witwatersrand mines was short of 100 000 men by the turn of the century [7] . There was competition between the farms and mines about African labour [8] . This meant that mining magnates and farmers had to find ways to attract African labour.

The Integration of Africans into wage labour in the mines

Between 1890 and 1914 there were challenges with labour and capital and as a result during this period Southern African labour was either forced, cheap, resembled bondage or modern slavery [9] . Black men were forced to migrate while in the process their land was dispossessed [10] . It was not only because Africans were forced to work in the mines but also the spreading knowledge about work in the mines played a role in the integration of Africans in the mines. In addition, agents also painted a rosy picture about the advantages of working in the mines for Africans and as a result it was perceived as a privilege to have worked in the mines among African tribes [11] . Workers worked under exploitative conditions as the death rate of workers in 1903 was eighty per thousand and Black workers were frequently assaulted by whites [12] . It was not only South Africans who worked as cheap labour in the mines but also African men from other neighbouring countries such as Mozambique , Swaziland , and Botswana .

Composition of labour

By 1936, South Africans made up 58 percent of the Black labor force. However, when recruitment in the North was reopened in 1973, the number decreased to 22 percent [13] . Mozambicans were mostly preferred, because they lasted in jobs and did not have problems with working underground [14] . In 1961, Tanzania officially ceased with recruitments to South Africa as a form of protest against apartheid government. In 1966, Zambia followed while on the contrary Malawi continued to supply migrant labourers to South Africa and this was because of economic dependence, and it was only in 1974 that Malawi withdrew 120 000 migrant labourers [15] . This withdrawal by Malawi was the first to have major repercussions on demand patterns [16] . The recruitment of foreign migrant labourers was later influenced by the independence of the most powerful states in the region which were a political threat to South Africa. The rise in the price of gold, lengthy recession which was made worse by drought and the changes in internal political and economic policies in South Africa also influenced the recruitment of migrant labourers [17] .

Recruitment organisations

Recruitment organisations were established to further integrate Africans into the migrant labour system in the mines. The Chamber of Mines established The Native Labour Department in 1893 to focus on resources in the former Transvaal. The Department was established to primarily focus on the recruitment of Black labourers from Mozambique [18] . It was later replaced by the Rand Native Labour Association which its role was to supply labour force to mines while also ensuring there was no competition between mines [19] . The Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (WNLA) also referred to as Wenela was later established in 1900 and its initial role was to recruit labourers from Mozambique for different industries, It was later limited to gold mines and also expanded recruitment to other parts of Southern Africa [20] . The other reason for the formation of Wenela was to monopolise recruitment to prevent competition for labour by mines [21] . Although Wenela was to recruit all black labour for the industry, it took time for mines to stop competing for South African labour [22] . A few years after the establishment of Wenela, it became enormously powerful and influential to such an extent that by 1907, it had already recruited 100 082 Black labourers from Transvaal, Bechuanaland, Swaziland, Cape Colony, Mozambique and British central Africa Protectorate. The highest number of labourers which was 47 656 was recruited from Mozambique [23] . Wenela recruitment expanded even more in the 1930s, it expanded to Bechuanaland, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia, Angola, and Southwest Africa [24] . Recruitments were accompanied by agreements between South Africa, Nyasaland, and Northern Rhodesia in 1938 although the Inter-Territorial Migrant Labour later replaced it in 1947 [25] .

Legislation

There was a need to organise labour supply in the mining industry and as a result significant legislative and administrative effort was required [26] .The pass laws were first introduced by the Chamber of Mines and these pass laws demanded that African miners wear a badge or a metal plate on the arm [27] . The Glan Grey Act of 1894 was established to enslave Africans through the introduction of tax. Cecil Rhodes, the prime minister of the Cape Colony at the time described the introduction of tax as removing the Native from life of sloth by teaching them the importance of labour and to make them contribute to the prosperity of the state by giving return to good government [28] . This was a way of trapping Black people into the service of white employers [29] . Although such laws were not helpful in increasing labour supply, they were evidence of the power of mining financiers to create law into their own favour.

Involvement of the state

State support was needed by the mines in enforcing legislation and administration because Africans were not willing to accept mine labour and mostly underground work [30] . The reluctance of African labourers to work in the mines was also attributed to their unwillingness to break with their tradition, not wanting to work for foreigners who talked a strange language and having to leave their wives and families behind [31] . Despite the mining owners' wishes, black labour was not available and those who agreed to sign employment contracts were not  reliable workers, as they constantly fled and looked for work on the Rand [32] . Even in the early difficult years of diamond activity which marked the development of the mining sector in South Africa, African labour was in demand to such an extent that wage of African labourers was as high as those paid to white workers overseas [33] . This then made the mines to be dependent on the government. Dependence on the government was also necessary because of the competition between the different mines, the government was used to maintain discipline [34] . In 1900, the mining magnates approached Transvaal government requesting that labour requirements be a state enterprise, but they were turned down [35] . After the Anglo-Boer war, Randlords exercised power through the state as the state became sensitive to their needs [36] . They believed that good governance should come with abundant labour as abundant labour would enable cutting down wages and by 1906 there was an improvement in the flow of African migrant labour in the mines [37] .

The Colour Bar

 The first legal colour bar in the economy was adopted by the Volksraad in 1893 [38] . Workers were imported from Europe and the difference between skilled and unskilled labour began. Skilled men were white people while unskilled men were Black people and white men in the gold mines perceived themselves as aristocracy of labour [39] . A clause in the first mining stipulated that only white people can do the actual blasting although it was later dropped in 1896 [40] . The job of engine drivers was reserved for whites only and the regulations had to be tightened up with the importation of labour from China in 1904 [41] . The importation of labour from China was accepted by whites on a condition that the employment of Chinese was only limited to enumerated list of capacities in order to prevent Chinese from competing with skilled and semi-skilled whites [42] . This was a way of reserving jobs that were meant for white people. During this time, the number of white labourers was larger than usual, and it was not only Chinese who were a threat to white labour as in 1907 whites protested to prevent Black people from doing skilled jobs [43] . Despite the fact that the strike was defeated, it had the consequence of forcing the government to impose a strict rationing of civilized labor to indentured locals in the mining industry [44] . As a result, the challenging periods between the end of the Anglo-Boer war and the Act of Union, white miners in the Witwatersrand were able to maintain their status of privilege [45] .

Through the Mines and Works Act of 1911, the status of white miners was further entrenched as this law allowed the Governor General to establish regulations that required certificate of competency for performance for diverse types of works and these certificates were only issued to whites in the Transvaal and Free State [46] . When in 1897, the Chamber of Mines attempted to reduce the wages of all its employees, white employees went on a strike and their wages were never reduced and Black workers’ own were reduced [47] . After the successful strike of white workers and after their unions gained recognition in 1913, black workers decided to protest  against their working conditions. One of the grievances by black workers was the colour bar as it prevented them from getting promotions and even after the protest, it was never removed [48] . When the Chamber of Mines was under pressure from white trade unions in 1918, they decided to preserve the status quo on the mines with regards to the employment of black people and white people [49] . The reason for this agreement was to prevent the crumbling of the colour bar which would have not been prevented by legislation due to labour shortages [50] .

The chairman of mines, Albu in 1897 noted that it was necessary for the wages of natives to be reduced because they needed to reduce their expenditure as mines and to also prevent the natives from becoming rich in a short period of time [51] . The Chamber of Mines ensured that the wages of the labourers never increased as it would take long for them to return to the mines, so by paying low wages they ensured they returned to the mines within a short period of time [52] . Wage reduction was implemented three times by the mines, in 1890, 1896 and 1897 to ensure profit maximisation [53] . The formation of the Labor Association in 1896 was accompanied by an agreement to cut pay, which was enforced by wage sheet inspections [54] . As a result, by 1899 the Chamber of Mines was successful in raising the black labour force to 99 000 men at the lowest wage rate ever since the establishment of the mining industry [55] . Also, when Wenela was set up, the Chamber of Mines lowered wages from R5 to R3 a month before the Anglo-Boer war [56] .

It can be concluded that the migrant labour system was all about profit maximisation of the mines and this could only be achieved through the exploitation of African labourers. Even when African labourers raised their grievances, their voices were never heard, and it was only white workers who were protected. The colour bar which was reinforced by racism also played a part in the exploitation of African labour as higher positions were only reserved for white workers. Legislation also reinforced the idea that skilled and semi-skilled workers were only white through the certificates of competency that were issued only to white workers.

[1] Seabela, M. 2021. A brief history of labour control in South Africa: Migrant Labour and the Recruitments, 1890s-1970s. Available: A brief History of Black Labour control in South Africa: Migrant Labour and Recruitments, 1890s-1970s – Ditsong Museums of South Africa Accessed [2022, May 28]

[2] Bundy, C., 1972. The emergence and decline of a South African peasantry. African Affairs, 71(285), pp.369-388.

[3] Bundy, C. 1972. p 371

[4] Bundy, C. 1972. p 371

[5] Hutt, W, H. 1964 p 48

[6] Wilson, F., 1972. Labour in the South African gold mines 1911-1969 (Vol. 6). Cambridge University Press. p 2

[7] Wilson, F. 197 p 2

[8] Hutt, W.H., 1964. The economics of the colour bar. Ludwig von Mises Institute. p 51          

[9] Seabela, M. 2021

[10] Seabela, M. 2021

[11] Hutt, W, H. 1964. p 48

[12] Wilson, F. 1972 p 4

[13] Seabela. 2021

[14] Seabela. 2021

[15] Seabela. 2021

[16] De Vletter, F., 1985. Recent trends and prospects of black migration to South Africa. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 23(4), pp.667-702.

[17] De Vletter, F.1985 p 667.

[18] Seabela, M. 2021

[19] Seabela, M. 2021

[20] Seabela, M. 2021

[21] Wilson, F. 1972 p 4

[22] Wilson, F. 1972 p 4

[23] Seabela, M. 2021

[24] Seabela, M. 2021

[25] Seabela, M. 2021

[26] Jeevs, A. 1975 p 3

[27] Seabela, M. 2021

[28] Seabela, M. 2021

[29] Wilson, F. 1972 p 2

[30] Jeeves, A., 1975. The control of migratory labour on the South African gold mines in the era of Kruger and Milner. Journal of Southern African Studies, 2(1), pp.3-29.

[31] Hutt, W, H. 1964 p 51

[32] Levy, N., 1983. The foundation of the South African cheap labour system. Indicator South Africa, 1(1), pp.31-32.

[33] Hutt, W, H. 1964 p 48.

[34] Jeevs, A. 1975 p 4

[35] Wilson, F. 1972 p 4

[36] Levy, N. 1983 p 31

[37] Levy, N. 1983 p 32

[38] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7.

[39] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[40] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[41] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[42] Wilson, F. 1972 p 8

[43] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[44] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[45] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[46] Wilson, F. 1972 p 8

[47] Wilson, F. 1972 p 7

[48] Wilson, F. 1972 p 9

[49] Wilson, F. 1972 p 9

[50] Wilson, F. 1972 p 9

[51] Levy, N. 1983 p 31

[52] Seabela, M. 2021

[53] Levy, N. 1983 p 31

[54] Wilson, F. 1972 p 2

[55] Wilson, F. 1972 p 2

[56] Wilson, F. 1972 p 4

• Bundy, C., 1972. The emergence and decline of a South African peasantry. African Affairs, 71(285), pp.369-388.
• De Vletter, F., 1985. Recent trends and prospects of black migration to South Africa. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 23(4), pp.667-702.
• Hutt, W.H., 1964. The economics of the colour bar. Ludwig von Mises Institute.
• Jeeves, A., 1975. The control of migratory labour on the South African gold mines in the era of Kruger and Milner. Journal of Southern African Studies, 2(1), pp.3-29.
• Levy, N., 1983. The foundation of the South African cheap labour system. Indicator South Africa, 1(1), pp.31-32.
• Seabela, M. 2021. A brief history of labour control in South Africa: Migrant Labour and the Recruitments, 1890s-1970s . Available: A brief History of Black Labour control in South Africa: Migrant Labour and Recruitments, 1890s-1970s – Ditsong Museums of South Africa Accessed [2022, May 28]
• Wilson, F., 1972. Labour in the South African gold mines 1911-1969 (Vol. 6). Cambridge University Press.

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Migrant Workers in Kuwait: The Role of State Institutions

Attiya Ahmad

The treatment of migrant domestic workers is one of the defining stories told about the Arab Gulf states. Every year hundreds of news media and human rights reports detailing migrant domestic workers’ experiences of exploitation and abuse circulate globally. The narratives of these accounts are remarkably consistent. They often begin with the story of an impoverished woman from the global South, who, in order to improve the situation of her family, migrates to the oil-rich Gulf states in search of work and a more prosperous future. Confined to the household, she works long, arduous hours, and is subjected to the dictates and whims of her employers, who may withhold her salary, force her to work under unconscionable conditions, or abuse her physically and sexually. Explanations for this occurrence of abuse and exploitation are usually taken as self-evident — having to do with the cruel logic of asymmetrical power relations between the haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor, the master and the maid.

This essay, which is based on over two years of research in Kuwait and South Asia, focuses on the changes in how states have sought to govern migrant domestic workers — a realm often elided in these accounts. I argue that in order to effectively redress the situation of migrant domestic workers in Kuwait, and the Gulf more generally, we must account for the gendered ways in which certain migrant populations and categories of work come to be included or disregarded by state institutions, and the important role played by labor recruitment agencies as intermediaries between domestic workers, employers, and governments.

The oil boom of the mid-1970s marks the beginning of domestic workers’ large-scale migration to Kuwait. Flush with petrodollars, Kuwaitis increasingly began hiring women to cook and clean, as well as care for their children and the elderly. Having domestic workers became an expected, often taken for granted part of Kuwaitis’ everyday lives and their understanding of themselves as modern, affluent subjects. Fewer Kuwaiti women, however, were willing or found it necessary to undertake paid domestic work.

Demand for domestic workers was met through the recruitment of women from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and more recently, East Africa. Wave after wave of these women migrated to the Gulf due to the worsening economic situation of their home countries, a situation that had developed because of their countries’ spiraling trade deficits and foreign debts brought about by oil price hikes. From the mid-1970s to the late 2000s, Kuwait’s migrant domestic worker population grew from 12,000 to 500,000, and the percentage of Kuwaiti households employing domestic workers increased from 13% to 90% . [1]

Kuwaiti state institutions were initially unable — and unwilling — to manage this burgeoning population. Led by the Al Sabah family, the country’s ruling elite, state formation in Kuwait was focused on two interrelated objectives: the control and distribution of the country’s oil revenues through the development of state welfare institutions, and the production and consolidation of Kuwait’s national body through the activities of these rentier state institutions. [2] Kuwait’s private sector was carved out in contradistinction to the state, one ceded to the country’s influential merchant families and nascent entrepreneurial class. [3] Within this context, the everyday governance of migrants working in the private sector became the responsibility of their kafeel — citizens who sponsored, employed, and acted as guarantors for migrant workers. [4]

Similar to construction workers, street cleaners, sales associates, company managers, and other migrant worker populations, migrant domestic workers’ everyday activities were regulated by the kefalah system. Domestic workers, however, did not fall under the purview of Kuwait’s labor laws. Kuwait’s labor laws were passed in 1964, before the large scale influx of migrant domestic workers. Similar to labor laws throughout the world, domestic work was excluded from the provisions of Kuwait’s labor laws. A gendered understanding of “labor” underpins these laws, one in which work undertaken within the household, the work of social reproduction, is not considered “labor.”

Despite this, domestic workers who experienced problems — an estimated 10% of the total population, the bulk of which pertain to salary or contract disputes (7-8%) and the rest to incidents of physical and sexual abuse (2-3%) [5] — were not without recourse. They could file criminal charges in situations of physical or sexual abuse, and file civil legal cases related to contract disputes. Few did so, however, due to language barriers, and to the widespread perception that the courts were favorably disposed towards Kuwaiti citizens, or were unable to properly address the types of contracts disputes domestic workers had. More often than not, when disputes or conflicts arose, domestic workers would seek informal assistance from friends and family members (should they have any in Kuwait), or formal assistance from embassies, officials, or representatives from labor recruitment agencies.

Under increasing pressure from their embassies, overseas citizens, and informed domestic populations, the governments of labor-sending countries began adopting policies to redress the situation of their migrant domestic worker populations in the Gulf. [6] Formerly, labor-sending states had played a minimal role in these matters. The reasons were myriad and overlapping: governments typically focused on the policing of migrants coming into their countries rather than those leaving; they were concerned with the governance of populations within their borders; they have limited jurisdiction to assist citizens residing abroad; and the state institutions of these countries had been systematically dismantled or crippled by years of structural adjustment programs in financing their foreign debts.

The policies that these governments eventually adopted — restricting or banning the outmigration of women to the Arab Gulf states, and imposing stipulations on domestic workers’ contracts — had limited, and in many cases contradictory effects. Labor-sending states had little capacity to enforce contract stipulations, and with the exception of Pakistan, the out-migration of women from these regions continued unabated. Migrant domestic workers circumvented restrictions placed on their out-migration by traveling via third party countries. [7] Considered illegal by their home countries, their journeys to the Arab Gulf states became more hazardous, subject to the workings of grey and black markets, and the arbitrary actions of government officials at the interstices of these realms. Once in Kuwait, these migrant women could no longer, or could not easily, seek the assistance of their home country embassies.

Faced with dwindling options in the face of difficulties, domestic workers began seeking assistance from the Kuwaiti labor agencies involved in their recruitment. Initially conceiving of themselves as market intermediaries, these agencies increasingly (and in many cases reluctantly) started to take on state-like functions. They mediated and adjudicated problems between domestic workers and their employers. They developed systems to ensure domestic workers’ regular and timely pay. Some also established temporary lodging facilities (i.e., shelters), provided legal assistance, and started insurance programs for domestic workers. In Kuwait, labor agencies also developed a union responsible for coordination between and the policing of members, and for lobbying and coordinating collaborative efforts with state governments. In the late 2000s, they played an instrumental role in the passing of new laws related to migrant domestic workers — laws which included a minimum wage requirement, stipulated work hours, and rest times, and that outlined the responsibilities of both domestic workers and their employers. Labor agencies also became the intermediaries through which labor-sending states began overseeing and regulating the situation of their migrant domestic worker population in the Gulf. Labor agencies had to register with Labor and Foreign Affairs Ministries within labor-sending states, and had to receive permission from these institutions before seeking to recruit women from these countries. Labor agencies acquired these permits only by passing the evaluations conducted on an ongoing basis by embassy officials overseas.

The focus of much reporting on the situation of domestic workers in the Arab Gulf region is on their relationships with their employers. Extending labor laws and abolishing the kefalah system are often presented as means of redressing the exploitation and abuse experienced by these migrant women. In this essay, I have discussed briefly issues elided and presupposed by these reports; namely, the difficulty state legal systems have had in recognizing domestic work as “labor” due to gendered understandings of the term, the problems state legal systems have had in adjudicating this realm of work, and the willingness — and capacity — of states to reform the kefalah system and improve the everyday experiences of migrant domestic workers. In discussing these matters, this essay also has underscored the significant role played by labor recruitment agencies in the formation of Kuwait’s domestic work sector. Their activities, in turn, point to the important role played by state-like institutions in not only knitting together global processes, but in mediating and facilitating state institutions’ ability to expand their governance of their transnational citizens in a global context.

[1] . Nasra Shah et al., “Foreign Domestic Workers in Kuwait: Who Employs How Many,” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal , Vol. 11, No. 2 (2002), pp. 247-69.

[2] . Jill Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf: Rulers and Merchants in Kuwait and Qatar (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and Jill Crystal, Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992) .

[3] . Crystal, Oil and Politics in the Gulf and Kuwait: The Transformation of an Oil State .

[4] . Anh Nga Longva, Walls Built on Sand: Migration, Exclusion and Society in Kuwait (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); and Anh Nga Longva, “Keeping Migrant Workers in Check: The Kafala System in the Gulf,” Middle East Report, No. 211, Trafficking and Transiting: New Perspectives on Labor Migration (Summer 1999), pp. 20-22.

[5] . This figure was one widely used and circulated by embassy officials, human rights activists, labor agencies, ministry officials, police officers, lawyers, and others involved in Kuwait’s domestic work sector.

[6] . Examples include: 1) migration restrictions and bans passed by the governments of Pakistan (mid and late 1970s), Bangladesh (early 1980s), India (early 1990s and late 1990s), the Philippines (late 1980s), and Nepal (late 1990s); and 2) contract stipulations passed by the governments of Pakistan (mid-1970s), India (mid-1990s and 2007), the Philippines (2006), Sri Lanka (fall 2007), and Indonesia (fall 2007).

[7] . For example, Nepali women traveled via India, and Indian women traveled via Sri Lanka.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here .

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Living and Working Safely: Challenges for Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers

Thomas a. arcury.

Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center for Worker Health, Program in Community Engagement and Implementation, Wake Forest University Translational Science Institute, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Sara A. Quandt

Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Division of Public Health Services, Program in Community Engagement and Implementation, Wake Forest University Tranlational Science Institute, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are essential to North Carolina agriculture, yet they experience major health risks. This commentary describes the characteristics of North Carolina farmworkers, important hazards they face, and the status of regulatory protections. Finally, it presents a summary of policy needed to protect the health of farmworkers.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are essential to the success of agriculture in North Carolina. These farmworkers provide the hand labor needed to plant, cultivate, and harvest many of the state’s economically important crops, including tobacco, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, berries, peaches, apples, and Christmas trees. Immigrant farmworkers are also increasingly full-time employees, supporting the production of livestock and poultry, as well as crops. Although essential for agriculture’s financial success, farmworkers seldom share in its financial rewards. Rather, they experience significant occupational and environmental exposures, deplorable living conditions, limited safety training, and few supporting regulations [ 1 ].

This commentary reviews the characteristics of the farmworkers who work in North Carolina, important farmworker occupational and environmental health risks and outcomes, living conditions that affect farmworker health, and the status of safety training and regulatory protections. Finally, this commentary presents a summary of policy and regulations needed to protect the health of farmworkers.

Farmworkers in North Carolina

Few data document the number of farmworkers employed in North Carolina or describe the characteristics of these farmworkers. The 2007 Census of Agriculture (available at: http://www.agcensus.usda.gov ) provides some information. In 2007, 12,284 North Carolina farms employed 77,400 workers, with 2413 of these farms employing migrant labor and 9521 farms employing 48,305 employees who worked fewer than 150 days per year. The North Carolina Employment Security Commission estimated that, in 2010, farms in the state employed 35,520 migrant farmworkers, 24,725 seasonal farmworkers, and 8905 farmworkers with H-2A guest worker visas. These numbers are acknowledged to be conservative estimates. In 2009, the Employment Security Commission reported that 35,000 of the 36,000 migrant farmworkers spoke Spanish.

Information describing the personal characteristics of farmworkers employed in North Carolina is limited to small surveys. These show that the overwhelming majority of farmworkers are Latino, and most were born in Mexico. However, farmworkers have diverse backgrounds, and some African American and Afro-Caribbean farmworkers continue to be employed in the state. Recently, some farms have employed workers from Southeast Asia. Migrant farmworkers are largely unaccompanied men, but some farmworker families migrate, and many seasonal workers live with their families. Although most farmworkers are in their 20s and 30s, a sizable number of farmworkers are under 18, and some are as young as 12 and 13. Farmworkers in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are common. Farmworkers are poor, and many have little formal education. Most farmworkers speak Spanish, with approximately one-quarter speaking an indigenous (American Indian) language.

Occupational Exposures and Health Outcomes

Agriculture is a dangerous industry. Occupational and environmental hazards that confront farmworkers in North Carolina include the physical environment (sun, heat, rain, organic and inorganic dust), wild plants (eg, poison ivy) and animals (eg, snakes), sharp tools, equipment, chemicals, and noise.

Official rates for occupational injuries and illnesses are not available for farmworkers in North Carolina. Few farmworkers have access to workers’ compensation. No surveillance system exists for occupational injuries in agriculture. Therefore, farmworker injury and illness data must be gleaned from surveys and clinic reports. Occupational injuries common to farmworkers include cuts and lacerations, eye injuries, musculoskeletal problems, and skin conditions [ 2 ]. Hearing loss and respiratory conditions are common to farmworkers employed in other regions of the country, but little research has been conducted on these effects in North Carolina.

Three hazards are particularly critical for North Carolina farmworkers. Heat stress is common among farmworkers, because of the state’s high temperatures in July and August [ 3 ]. These high temperatures are magnified by the physical exertion of farm labor, which often occurs within the enclosure of tight tobacco rows. Few years pass without a death from heat stress in North Carolina.

Nicotine exposure from working with tobacco plants is another important hazard for North Carolina farmworkers. Farmworkers absorb nicotine while working with tobacco, to the point of acute nicotine poisoning; this is referred to as green tobacco sickness, or GTS [ 4 ]. One-quarter of farmworkers experience GTS each year. Symptoms of GTS include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, insomnia, and anorexia. GTS is a self-limiting occupational illness, because the body will metabolize nicotine within 24 hours. However, GTS can lead to severe dehydration when combined with the heat in which farmworkers labor. Further, farmworkers must work every day or not receive any income, and those who are particularly susceptible to GTS continue to experience symptoms daily.

Biomarker data document that all North Carolina farmworkers show evidence of recent agricultural pesticide exposure [ 5 ]. Luckily, acute pesticide exposure remains rare. However, long-term exposure to small amounts of pesticides has negative health consequences. Data documenting the sequelae of long-term exposure among North Carolina farmworkers are not available, but current research is being conducted to address this issue.

Living Conditions

Farmworkers experience significant exposure to hazards because of their living conditions. Although these hazards are more severe among migrant farmworkers, they also apply to many seasonal farmworkers who live in North Carolina year-round. Travel and transportation is the first of these hazards. The act of crossing the border from Mexico to the United States results in many deaths each year. Many farmworkers do not control the transportation that they use. They must travel in crowded vehicles from region to region, looking for work. They must also travel, on a daily basis, from their residences to work in these vehicles.

Housing is another hazard that farmworkers experience. The housing available to farmworkers, whether in migrant farmworker camps controlled by farmers or contractors or in rural communities, is overwhelmingly substandard. Housing regulations exist for migrant farmworkers but not for seasonal farmworkers. However, enforcement of migrant housing regulations is limited. For example, more than 25% of migrant camps violate regulations for sufficient laundry facility and bedroom space, and 1 in 5 camps has signs of rodent infestation [ 6 ]. Farmworker housing exposes workers and their families to toxicants, including lead and pesticides; to allergens, including mold, mildew, and insect and rodent dander; to electrical and structural hazards; and to crowded conditions.

Although farmworkers toil to produce food, they are often food insecure; almost half of farmworker households studied by Quandt and colleagues [ 7 ] were found to be food insecure. Food insecurity results from low wages and not having access to safety net programs, such as food stamps. Food insecurity is more pronounced among farmworkers who have children living with them.

Many farmworkers, seasonal as well as migrant, are separated from their families. Recent US policy on immigration has exacerbated this problem, as many farmworkers are now staying in the United States year-round, rather than risk trying to cross the border each year. Farmworkers are often isolated, living in rural areas with no transportation. They experience discrimination and harassment. They must often work long hours, with little diversion or entertainment. As a result, farmworkers have high rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems [ 8 ].

Also related to separation from family and isolation, farmworkers are at increased risk for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, because of their use of commercial sex workers and because of men having sex with men [ 9 ]. Farmworkers are at increased risk for infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis and hepatitis, because of crowded living conditions.

Finally, when farmworkers get injured or ill, they have limited access to health care [ 10 ]. The migrant clinic network is limited to approximately 24 clinics across the state. Many of these have limited hours of operations. Farmworkers seldom have health insurance.

Training and Regulatory Requirements

Although farmworkers experience extensive occupational and environmental hazards and although they endure extremely poor living conditions, policies to protect the occupational health of farmworkers are limited. Agriculture is exempt from many of the occupational health standards of other industries; these exemptions, referred to as “agricultural exceptionalism,” were meant to protect family farms but continue to shield industrial agriculture [ 11 ].

Current regulations protecting North Carolina farmworkers include those concerning pesticide safety, field sanitation, housing for migrant farmworkers, and minimum wage. The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Worker Protection Standard (WPS) requires that those who might be exposed to pesticides receive specific training, that they be provided with information about the pesticides to which they might be exposed, and that they be provided with medical care if they experience an acute pesticide exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) supports regulations prescribing field sanitation requirements for farmworkers. These regulations indicate where and when drinking water and cups, hand washing facilities, and restrooms are to be provided to farmworkers. The North Carolina Migrant Housing Act (MHA), which is more stringent than the OSHA regulations on which it is based, includes regulations for minimum housing requirements for migrant farmworkers (no such regulations are available for seasonal farmworkers). These housing regulations provide minimum standards for bedding, storage space for personal belongings, showers, toilets, refrigerator space, and laundry facilities. The North Carolina Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Bureau is responsible for ensuring that farmworkers receive at least the minimum hourly rate of pay; farmworkers employed on small farms are exempt from the minimum wage law. Farmworkers with H-2A visas should receive an hourly rate greater than the minimum. However, research in North Carolina and elsewhere shows that farmworkers often are not afforded the protections of the WPS, the OSHA field sanitation requirements, the North Carolina MHA, or the minimum wage rates [ 6 , 12 , 13 ].

North Carolina and the nation must become more realistic about the labor needed to support agriculture, and they must become more humane in treating those who work to plant and harvest our fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural products. Because of the history of agricultural exceptionalism, few health and safety regulations are available to protect agricultural workers.

Immigration policy reform is needed. Although immigrant workers are essential to the financial success of agriculture, it is extremely difficult for agricultural employers and workers to conform to current immigration regulations. The H-2A visa program is one avenue for the legal and safe movement of agricultural workers. In North Carolina, migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas who have been recruited by the North Carolina Growers Association are represented by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Although research shows that the occupational safety and living conditions of migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas are better than those of migrant farmworkers without H-2A visas [ 12 , 13 ], investigators also raise serious human rights concerns about the current H-2A visa program [ 14 ].

Regulations are needed that require occupational safety training that is linguistically and educationally appropriate for farmworkers [ 15 ]. However, safety training is no panacea for the technological and organizational changes needed to make agriculture a safer industry. Appropriate safety regulations that address all areas of agriculture work, including child labor, heat stress, pesticide and other chemical exposures, minimum wage and payment for overtime work, workers’ compensation, field sanitation, and housing, are needed. Farmworkers need assurance that they will be protected should they decide to report violations of existing regulations or should they decide to organize. In North Carolina, the Farmworker Advocacy Network ( http://www.ncfan.org/ ) has advocated for new legislation that addresses many of these safety regulations. Funding is needed to support the enforcement of current safety regulations. Neither the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services nor the North Carolina Department of Labor has sufficient staff to enforce the current WPS pesticide safety regulations or the current migrant housing and field sanitation regulations.

Adequate health care for all farmworkers is also needed. Few farmworkers in North Carolina have employer-provided health insurance. Workers’ compensation is available only to farmworkers with H-2A visas or to those working for someone with 10 or more full-time employees. The North Carolina Farmworker Health Program, Office of Rural Health and Community Care ( http://www.ncfhp.org/ ), supports migrant farmworker clinics across the state, as well as other programs. However, the 24 clinic sites supported through this program are insufficient to serve the needs of migrant farmworkers, who labor in most of the state’s 100 counties. Further, seasonal farmworkers often are not eligible for these services.

In 1960, the Edward R. Murrow documentary Harvest of Shame showed the plight of farmworkers in the United States. This documentary increased awareness in America about the human cost of its food. It also led to policy changes that improved some aspects of farmworker lives. Although improvement in farmworker occupational health and safety continues, public policy is needed to address the conditions that farmworkers, farmers, and all agricultural workers must endure.

The North Carolina Gold Star Grower Program

Regina Cullen

Agriculture provides employment and income to more than 20 million people nationwide and to more than 800,000 here in North Carolina. It’s an industry that can exact a powerful cost: farm machinery, agricultural chemicals, grain bins, and farm animals all can place those working in agriculture in a danger zone, both in the working environment as well as in living conditions. During 2007, hired farm labor was reported on 482,186 (22%) of the nation’s farms and ranches. North Carolina, 1 of 9 states that account for just over half of all workers hired directly by farm operators, has made efforts to highlight agricultural danger zones.

The North Carolina legislature enacted the Migrant Housing Act (MHA) of North Carolina, which took effect in 1990. The MHA consolidated the inspection of migrant housing in the North Carolina Department of Labor (NCDOL) and updated housing inspection standards. In addition to enforcing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration migrant housing regulations—the Temporary Labor Camp Standard (29 CFR 1910.142)—the MHA added fire protection, heating, kitchen sanitation, and hot water requirements. Field sanitation provisions were expanded to apply to all individuals providing migrant housing. Housing owners or operators who provide housing to 1 or more migrant worker must register the housing with NCDOL 45 days before the workers take occupancy. Water and septic systems are required to be inspected by the local county health departments.

For many North Carolina growers, this legislation was not an easy pill to swallow. Before the MHA, growers had been subject to other rules, enforced by other agencies, and did not come under inspection unless they housed more than 10 farmworkers. But for advocates, the MHA did not go far enough.

The North Carolina Gold Star Grower program began in the early 1990s as a response to the inspection process. Some growers complained, “Why are you inspecting me? I meet all the requirements! There are folks down the road that NEED your inspection. I don’t! I work hard to keep this house right!” Office staff and inspectors noticed this, as well, commenting, “Some housing is always in great shape. What can we do to acknowledge the growers’ efforts?” Inspectors observed that some growers provided housing that exceeded the MHA requirements: installing telephones or providing appliances such as microwave ovens and freezers.

Such discussions led one staffer to remark, “Remember back in school, when we’d get a gold star on our papers?” The Gold Star Grower program began with simple thank you notes, blue cards with a gold star in the corner, sent to those whose housing met all the requirements of the MHA. In 1992, there were 136 Gold Star Growers (13% of those inspected).

NCDOL held the first recognition luncheon in 1994 and has held them annually ever since. In the beginning, these events took place in various locations throughout the state, including Kernersville, Wilson, Lexington, Farmville, Mount Olive, and Greenville. Hosts included North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension agents: Mark Tucker, in Forsyth County, and Tom Campbell, in Pasquotank County. Commodity groups—cucumber, tobacco, blueberry, Christmas trees—are supporters. Growers who receive 2 consecutive stars are then eligible to conduct their own housing inspections the following year. They must attend the luncheon, continue to register their housing, and have their water and septic systems inspected.

Two-way communication proved beneficial: problems discussed at Gold Star luncheon meetings included farm safety issues. The danger zone expanded from housing issues to the farm field and beyond. In 1998, driving farm equipment on rural roadways was the topic Gold Star Growers considered their “most serious workplace safety problem.” Solutions included grant money from the Governor’s Highway Safety Program to fund educational programs and to provide all registered growers with slow moving vehicle signs for their farm vehicles. Billboards with tractors and the slogan “Slow Moving” were posted in a number of rural counties, drawing attention to the problem. North Carolina State Cooperative Extension worked with NCDOL to promote Light & Reflect, the safety program developed as a result of this initiative. Other agricultural safety initiatives include workplace safety DVDs, in English and Spanish, filmed on Gold Star farms. Safety topics include pesticide information, heat stress/stroke recognition and prevention, and machine guarding. At present, a housing DVD is in production. Topics include fire prevention, bathroom sanitation, electrical issues, and maintenance. The DVDs, distributed to all growers who register their housing, are used to conduct on-site farm training.

Our belief is that all agriculture-related illnesses, injuries, and fatalities are preventable. The Gold Star Grower program addresses the health and safety of the agricultural workforce by viewing it from multiple perspectives: grower, farmworker, and safety professional. The Gold Star list keeps growing; the program has proven to be an effective initiative for the growers and the state. Permitting growers who have earned the right to self-inspect allows the Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau to focus resources on unregistered camps and on growers who need intervention.

Regina Cullen bureau chief, Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau, North Carolina Department of Labor, Raleigh, North Carolina.

Address correspondence to Regina Cullen, NC Department of Labor, 1101 Mail Service Ctr, Raleigh, NC 27699-1101 ( [email protected] ).

Acknowledgments

Financial support. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (R01-ES008739 and R01-ES012358).

Potential conflicts of interest. T.A.A. and S.A.Q. have no relevant conflicts of interest.

Contributor Information

Thomas A. Arcury, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Center for Worker Health, Program in Community Engagement and Implementation, Wake Forest University Translational Science Institute, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Sara A. Quandt, Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Division of Public Health Services, Program in Community Engagement and Implementation, Wake Forest University Tranlational Science Institute, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Essay on Migrant Workers Exploitation

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Migrant workers, have the same rights and protections as any other worker under the law. However, the sad fact is that migrant workers often face abuse, job insecurity, discrimination, and even violence at rates much higher than workers who do not have to migrate from one country to another to find employment. In recent years, wage exploitation and human trafficking have become serious issues that the United Nations and other governmental organizations and nonprofits have tried to address with uneven success (Harkins 103). There are many factors contributing to this alarming trend in migrant worker exploitation; while it is a complex international problem, there are some efforts underway which show promise in protecting this vulnerable global demographic.

According to a 2017 International Labour Organization report, there are an estimated 164 million migrant workers around the world, who have emigrated from their native countries – at least temporarily – to find work elsewhere (ILO). In the United States alone an estimated 1.3 temporary foreign workers find work here each year, although since those statistics do not include undocumented immigrants, it could likely be much higher (Costa and Rosenbaum 25). According to ILO, men continue to comprise the majority of migrant workers, with women’s share of the migrant workforce declining in recent years (ILO). While migrant workers are often critical to the operation and expansion of national economies, the migrant and at times illegal status of this workforce often leaves it subject to exploitation.

Migrant workers are exploited by their employers in many different ways; in some cases, this exploitation appears to occur due to governments of work nations ignoring the plight of migrant workers, or at times even tacitly enabling it. The most common form of abuse of migrant workforces is wage exploitation (Stringer and Snejina 64). Since many migrant workers seek work in other countries due to dire economic circumstances in their homelands, they are often less willing to demand better wages; moreover, due to their migrant status they often have less capacity to bargain collectively; this is especially the case for undocumented workers, who fear they may be subject to legal action if they confront employers about low wages.

Additionally, many migrant workers often experience debt bondage as well. Nefarious employment agencies or employers themselves at times charge exorbitant fees for connecting migrant workers with employment opportunities, arranging for travel and entry into a country, etc. As a result of debt bondage, many migrant workers are compelled to work for an employer longer than desired, and often have to hand over significant portions of their earnings in order to pay off their “debt;” In some cases debt bondage leads to migrant workers owing their employers or employment agencies more than they can ever make in their jobs.

Travel Status exploitation is a further type of exploitation migrant workers have been subject to in some countries. Migrant workers who travel from one country to another to work may have their passports or other documents confiscated by employers or other entities. Lacking the ability to leave the work country or even travel freely within It, workers often feel compelled to continue working. This form of exploitation may also make it more likely for the migrant workers to be victimized in other ways, such as through wage exploitation.

Finally, migrant workers, due to their status, often face threats to their health and safety as well. Unscrupulous employers expose migrant workers to unsafe working conditions at higher rates than native workers, often failing to provide them proper safety and protective equipment. As a result, these workers are more prone to injuries or health issues on the job, and often are not provided or do not have access to the healthcare required to mitigate these risks. Migrant workers, especially women or children, can be at high risk for sexual exploitation in some particularly heinous work arrangements as well (Various Authors 33).

Overall, it is clear that while migrant workers are critical to the global economy and provide clear opportunities for many of the workers involved, greater protection of these at-risk workers is absolutely necessary.

Efforts to prevent the exploitation of migrant workers have achieved mixed results. The United Nations has long recognized the plight of the migrant worker, and its Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights has established a Committee on Migrant Workers that is dedicated to protecting the rights of these workers and their families. The Committee uses independent experts to monitor global adherence to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, which the UN Assembly adopted by resolution on December 18, 1990 . Still despite all of the international consensus on the importance of protecting them, exploitation of migrant workers remains a global problem.

In the United States, there are considerable Federal and State laws that provide protections for migrant workers. For example, the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA), passed in 1983, provides protections to migrant workers by establishing standards for compensation, work conditions and how employers must account for these types of workers; the overall Intent of this act was to ensure that migrant workers were treated fairly, and would be less susceptible to mistreatment and exploitation (Department of Labor, 2021). However, while the MSPA and other laws and policies do afford migrant workers some critical support, most policies do little to protect undocumented migrant workers, whose legal status often leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.

While there are more laws and policies across the world to protect them than ever before, migrant workers remain highly vulnerable to exploitation. The migrant worker population accounted for more than one in twenty workers in 2019 and is expected to continue growing in the future, failure to enforce existing laws or enact new ones to protect these workers could put more people at risk and damage a vital resource of human capital that is essential to the global economy (United Nations, 2021).

Works Cited

Author Unknown, ILO Global Estimate on Migrant Workers , ILO Labour Migration Branch & ILO Department of Statistics, 2018.

Author Unknown, International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, December 18, 1990, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CMW.aspx

Author Unknown, Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, U.S. Department of Labor, accessed November 9, 2021, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/agriculture/mspa

Costa, Daniel and Rosenbaum, Jennifer, Temporary Foreign Workers by the Numbers, Economic Policy Institute , March 7, 2017, https://www.epi.org/publication/temporary-foreign-workers-by-the-numbers-new-estimates-by-visa-classification/ .

Harkins, Benjamin, Wage Theft: The Missing Middle in Exploitation of Migrant Workers, Open Democracy , January 21, 2021, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/wage-theft-missing-middle-exploitation-migrant-workers/ .

Stringer, Christine and Snejina, Michailova, Understanding the Exploitation of Temporary Migrant Workers: A Comparison of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Report prepared for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, July 2019.

Various Authors, I Already Bought You": Abuse and Exploitation of Female Migrant Domestic Workers in the United Arab Emirates , New York, Human Rights Watch, 2014.

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Migrant workers in China - statistics & facts

Rural migrants and urbanization in china, the hardships of migrant workers, key insights.

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Number of strikes and collective protests of workers in China in 2023, by grievance

Number of workers' strikes in China 2023, by sector

Number of strikes and collective protests of workers in China in 2023, by sector

• Premium Statistic Per capita disposable income in urban and rural China 1990-2023
• Premium Statistic Average monthly income of migrant workers in China 2013-2023
• Premium Statistic Monthly income of migrant workers in China 2021-2023, by industry
• Premium Statistic Monthly income of migrant laborers in China 2023, by region
• Premium Statistic Growth of monthly incomes of migrant laborers in China 2021-2023, by region
• Premium Statistic Monthly salary of blue-collar workers in China 2022, by sector
• Premium Statistic Monthly minimum wage in China 2024, by region
• Basic Statistic Minimum wage per hour in China 2024, by region

Per capita disposable income in urban and rural China 1990-2023

Average annual per capita disposable income of urban and rural households in China from 1990 to 2023 (in yuan)

Average monthly income of migrant workers in China from 2013 to 2023 (in yuan)

Monthly income of migrant workers in China 2021-2023, by industry

Average nominal monthly income of migrant workers in China from 2021 to 2023, by industry (in yuan)

Monthly income of migrant laborers in China 2023, by region

Average monthly income of migrant workers in China in 2023, by region (in yuan)

Growth of monthly incomes of migrant laborers in China 2021-2023, by region

Annual nominal growth of monthly income among migrant workers in China between 2021 and 2023, by region

Monthly salary of blue-collar workers in China 2022, by sector

Average monthly salary of blue-collar workers in China 2022, by sector (in yuan)

Monthly minimum wage in China 2024, by region

Monthly minimum wage in China as of January 2024, by region (in yuan)

Minimum wage per hour in China 2024, by region

Minimum wage per hour in China as of January 2024, by region (in yuan per hour)

Living conditions

• Premium Statistic Migrant workers' living area in urban China 2019-2023, by city size
• Premium Statistic Breakdown of migrant workers in China 2018, by accommodation
• Premium Statistic Migrant workers' access to residential facilities in urban China 2021
• Premium Statistic Migrant workers' sense of belonging in urban China 2023

Migrant workers' living area in urban China 2019-2023, by city size

Average living space of urban migrant laborers' accommodation in China from 2019 to 2023, by size of city (in square meters)

Breakdown of migrant workers in China 2018, by accommodation

Breakdown of migrant workers in China in 2018, by accommodation

Migrant workers' access to residential facilities in urban China 2021

Share of urban migrant laborers that had access to certain residential facilities in China in 2021, by type of facility

Migrant workers' sense of belonging in urban China 2023

Perception of belonging and adaptation of urban migrant laborers in China in 2023

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The Manner Coffee Case: Trending Terms, Income Inequality, and China’s Private Sector

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A recent Baidu trending search term reveals Beijing’s continued efforts to suppress the private sector.

On June 22, a search term , which is also the title of an article, “ the founders of Manner Coffee have a combined net worth of 7.2 billion yuan, making them included in the 2024 Hurun Global Rich List ” began trending on the Chinese internet, ranking as the fourth-most popular term on Baidu Hot Search that day.

The search term stems from two incidents at Manner Coffee outlets in Shanghai that both occurred on June 17, and went viral on the Chinese internet. In one instance, a male staff member physically clashed with a customer, while at a different location, a female staff member poured coffee grounds on a patron.

Despite Manner Coffee’s prompt apology, in which they assured the public they would enhance employee training and service awareness, streamline store operations to reduce customer wait times, and improve barista well-being after the two incidents, it nevertheless sparked fervent discussions online.

The majority of internet users sided with the staff members. Some even disclosed information about harsh working conditions, with one alleged former barista complaining that each employee has to make 500 cups of coffee in eight hours, leaving them no time to use the bathroom. The former barista also said that staff are paid poorly, only 4,000 Chinese yuan (approximately $550), during the two-month internship period. 

First established in 2015 as a single roadside stall in Shanghai, Manner Coffee expanded drastically to over 1,000 locations in China by October 2023. Its rapid growth coincided with a period in which China’s coffee industry was dominated by major players like Starbucks, Luckin, and Cotti. The brand sets itself apart by targeting a younger crowd, and has become known for its creamy flat whites, chic store design, and prices 30 to 40 percent lower than those of Western chains.

Unlike the first wave of debates, which mostly focused on the right and wrong of the baristas’ and customers’ behavior, this trending search term places special emphasis on the wealth of Manner Coffee’s founders. The article referenced in the search term is structured to create an innuendo. It begins by recounting the incidents at two Manner Coffee outlets in Shanghai, quoting former baristas complaining about working conditions and low pay. It concludes with the statement that “the founder of Manner Coffee frequently appears on various billionaire lists.” The article clearly aims to implicitly direct public anger toward the founders’ tremendous, accumulated wealth by highlighting the contrast between the affluence of the founders and the impoverishment of its typical employees.

The huge gap in income inequality between a company’s top executives and its typical employees is not limited to China. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs in the U.S. were paid 399 times as much as a typical worker in 2021. What is unique in the Manner Coffee case is that the trending title and the article itself are evidently government-approved, as multiple major news sources, such as Xinhua , Sohu , and Tencent News , have posted the exact same title and content on their websites. Consequently, this has successfully elicited public fury toward Manner Coffee’s founder. Comments posted under the trending search term accuse the founders of being “capitalists who exploit the blood and sweat of the working people.”

This again reflects Beijing’s bias and hostility toward the private sector, despite its rhetoric in support of it. 

On one hand, Beijing is sending out positive signals in an attempt to boost confidence among private sector businesses. In 2024, there were two State Council Executive Meetings, one on February 2 and the other on April 26 , that focused on “further optimizing the business environment,” specifically building a “market-oriented, rule of law-based, and internationalized top-notch business environment.” During the same year, China also began drafting a Private Economy Promotion Law that would codify equal treatment of state-owned, private, and foreign businesses while protecting the property rights of private entrepreneurs. 

On the other hand, the private share of overall business investment dropped from its peak of nearly 60 percent in 2014 to only 50 percent in 2023, as Chinese government policies have consistently favored state control of the economy to the detriment of private firms. Since 2013, the state sector has expanded , and there has been tightened political oversight and a regulatory crackdown on the private sector since 2021. This crackdown was justified under the banner of “Common Prosperity,” a political slogan promoted by Beijing to bolster social equality and economic equity.

The insinuation in the trending search term related to the Manner Coffee case is another example of how China’s support of the private sector is often lip service and, at times, self-contradictory.

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