The popular divide between ‘exceptional’ and ‘everyday’ has far-reaching ramification when it comes to the exploitation of migrant workers in the global economy. Migrant workers play indispensable economic roles in all kinds of different economic sectors, especially in relation to construction and care, yet their precarious pay and conditions rarely generate much in the way of outrage or investment unless their experiences are determined to rise to the exceptional threshold of ‘slavery’. As we have seen in previous weeks, the abuse of migrant workers is not simply a question of individual actions, unscrupulous gangs, and private recruiters or intermediaries. It is instead a direct and intended outcome of laws and policies which leave migrant workers with few protections and few if any channels for raising grievances.
This is not simply a question of migrant workers who are undocumented or in violation of immigration laws being exploited in the informal economy. Millions of workers across the globe migrate legally, but do so based on visas, sponsorships and contracts which leave them with much fewer rights and returns than local workers, which make it very difficult for them to change employers, and which given their employers tremendous amounts of discretionary power over their working and living arrangements. Behind these systems of control is the further and final threat of deportation, which is frequently exercised to remove ‘troublesome’ workers.
These abuses are not specific to a small number of individual employers. They are instead features of entire systems. Everyday experiences include wage theft, forced confinement, lack of holidays or time off work, and verbal, physical and psychological abuse. All but the most extreme cases are treated as legitimate as long as applicable laws have not been seriously violated (and even then there is likely to be a reluctance amongst officials to take action). The law rarely provides much protection for migrant workers, but instead plays a central role in creating vulnerability. This is at least in part because slavery, exceptionalism and ‘illegality’ are set as the threshold against which exploitation gets measured. Severe restrictions on migrants and migrant worker rights can therefore be passed off as ‘legal’, unremarkable or desirable from a modern slavery perspective.
