Patterns of exploitation : understanding migrant worker rights in advanced democracies

"With an estimated 164 million workers globally, migrant workers are an essential component of contemporary workplaces. Despite their number and indispensability in the global economy, these workers suffer workplace violations that range from underpayment of wages, to unsafe work conditions through to sexual assault and even industrial manslaughter. Patterns of Exploitation documents the bases for exploitation. It does this through a comparison of labor laws and practices in six labor law jurisdictions and four countries, over a twenty-year period: Australia, Canada (Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta), the United Kingdom (England) and the United States (California). Starting with a startling new database (the Migrant Worker Rights Database) of 907 court cases involving 1,912 migrants, this unprecedented study offers in-depth analysis of seven court cases to document individual migrant experiences. It draws upon 53 interviews with leading counsel (and other actors) on both sides of litigation to provide an assessment of the patterns of exploitation that emerge. The central factors informing these narratives are ethnicity, gender, occupational sector, visa status, trade union membership and enforcement policy. Yet, the key factor that explains variation across cases is the industrial relations systems of these four countries. This central finding emphasizes ongoing institutional resilience in labor market regulation, even within most-similar liberal market economies that these cases represent."