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Offloading Migration Management: The Institutionalized Authority of Non-State Agencies over the Guatemalan Temporary Agricultural Worker to Canada Project

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Abstract

The global expansion of migration programs managed by non-state actors has cleared the way for the inception of the Guatemalan Temporary Agricultural Worker to Canada project. Responsibility over the regulated migration scheme has been delegated to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Quebec private interest group la Foundation des entreprises pour le recrutement de la main-d'oeuvre étrangère (FERME) in an effort to reconfigure the state governance approach and advance market mechanisms. By transferring authority to non-state agencies, the Canadian and Guatemalan governments also offload protection of migrants’ social welfare, granting the IOM and FERME with regulatory authority migrants. The transfer of control has granted non-state agencies with considerable clout over migration policies and the implementation of new labour recruitment schemes, creating a transnational space of institutionalized authority for non-state actors over the movement of migrants.

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Notes

  1. The low-skilled pilot project is a branch of the Canadian TFWP that streams workers on the basis of duties based on the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system. Skilled workers are grouped into levels O, A and B and low-skilled and unskilled workers are categorized into levels C and D.

  2. FARMS is an Ontario-based non-profit agricultural association responsible for the coordination of foreign seasonal agricultural labour.

  3. FERME is the Quebec-based non-profit agricultural association responsible for the coordination of foreign seasonal agricultural labour.

  4. Introduced in 1966, the SAWP recruits foreign workers solely from Mexico and participating Caribbean countries.

  5. The most progressive developments under the agricultural stream that have increased the protection of foreign agricultural workers have been limiting the stream to on-farm primary agriculture and aligning wage rates to the SAWP, which follows a wage rate commodity based system.

  6. The MFN exemption, a principle of non-discrimination amongst World Trade Organization (WTO) members, restricted trading partners from establishing new agreements with other member countries. Preferential treatment with regards to trade in goods or services was not permitted by WTO members after the one-time exemption. Canada secured the long-standing MOUs with Mexico and Caribbean countries by listing participating SAWP countries as an MFN exemption under the General Agreement Trade in Services (GATS).

  7. The Labour Market Opinion analyzes the effect foreign workers could have on Canada’s labour market and/or how the offer of employment could potentially impact Canadian jobs.

  8. Labour Code article also states that recruitment and transportation fees must be paid by the employer or recruiting agent.

  9. A group of organized Guatemalan migrants are in negotiations to formalize an agreement with the US-based Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agricolas or Independent Farmworkers Center (CITA) that would sanction the recruitment of Guatemalans to Arizona. The program would be directly administered by the workers themselves.

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  1. Liberal Arts Studies, George Brown College, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Giselle Valarezo

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  1. Giselle Valarezo
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Valarezo, G. Offloading Migration Management: The Institutionalized Authority of Non-State Agencies over the Guatemalan Temporary Agricultural Worker to Canada Project. Int. Migration & Integration 16, 661–677 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-014-0351-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-014-0351-7

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