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Vulnerability, Rights, and Social Deprivation in Temporary Labour Migration

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Abstract

Much of the debate around temporary foreign worker programs in recent years has focused on full or partial access to rights, and, in particular, on the extent to which liberal democratic states may be justified in restricting rights of membership to those who come and work on their territory. Many accounts of the situation of temporary foreign workers assume that a full set of rights will remedy moral inequities that they suffer in their new homes. I aim to show two things: first, and based on experiences reported by former Live-in-Caregivers in Canada who now have access to the full set of citizenship rights, and German citizens who are descendants of Kurdish guestworkers in Germany, I have proposed that even after gaining citizenship, many of them experience social stigma and a sense of exclusion. Second, I have argued that this neglects a basic need that individuals have, which is to have access to relational resources within society in order to be protected against social deprivation. This need is seemingly immune to be effectively protected through the known catalogue of social, civic and political rights. Instead, I argue that social deprivation needs to be analyzed through the lens of institutional vulnerability to yield an analysis of the moral obligations of liberal democratic states.

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Notes

  1. See for example Hovdal-Moan (2014).

  2. See Lenard and Straehle (2011).

  3. The change in programme makes it more difficult for caregivers to gain access to the Canadian labour market, and it makes it more difficult to gain citizenship. Since my argument analyses social deprivation after achieving citizenship, the arduous road to citizenship does not change the conclusion I propose here.

  4. Canada Gazette, 2009, p. 378; see http://www.gatesurvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/GATES-Preliminary-Analysis-201407221.pdf, page 7(accessed Nov 20, 2016).

  5. In fact, this hypothesis was at the basis of earlier arguments for group-differentiated rights, such as that proposed by Kymlicka (1994).

  6. See http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/caregiver/apply-who.asp (accessed Nov 22, 2016)

  7. See Shklar (1991).

  8. As a note of clarification, this is not to say that individuals have a right to find a job based on their skill level or their qualification but merely to say that we would expect labour mobility rates to be comparable for all members of society depending on skill sector.

  9. All citations and figures from http://www.gatesurvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/GATES-Preliminary-Analysis-201407221.pdf (accessed Nov 20, 2016). See Tungohan et al. (2015).

  10. See Macklin (1992).

  11. See http://ccrweb.ca/en/private-sponsorship-refugees

  12. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/mandate/policies-operational-instructions-agreements/timely-protection-privately-sponsored-refugees.html

  13. See the collection edited by Mackenzie et al. (2015), Vrousalis (2013), Straehle (2017b).

  14. Panitch and Horne (2017), at 104.

  15. Compare, for instance, Harry Frankfurt’s important distinctions in (1984), with Gillian Brock’s critique (1998).

  16. Wringe (2005), at 187. I suggest a focus on social needs rather than alternative frameworks since social needs combine the individualist aspect of human capabilities with the social aspect of social primary goods. In this sense, a focus on needs includes the relevance of social deprivation that I will discuss later on.

  17. See Miller (2014), Shue (1980).

  18. Song (2016). See also Cohen (2010).

  19. Walzer (1983), at 59.

  20. See Lenard and Straehle (2011), at 217.

  21. Song, at 242.

  22. Song, at 230. Song seemingly disputes here the affiliation principle as grounds for access to citizenship rights, which Joseph Carens has defended. See Carens (2013), particularly chapter 8. Yet Song acknowledges that “affiliation is scalar, not binary. It admits of degrees. The deeper one’s affiliation to the country, the greater one’s entitlements to rights.” Song at 231.

  23. Song, at 231.

  24. Song, at 234. And indeed, the claim has been made that if temporary foreign workers are good enough to work, they should be good enough to stay Hanley et al. (2012).

  25. Song, at 237.

  26. See for example, Blake (2001), Miller (2010), in response to Abizadeh (2010). See also Oberman (2016) and Straehle (2017a). Justified state partiality and the vulnerable subject in migration. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy for a discussion of the link between individual autonomy and coercion, as employed by Song.

  27. Song, at 239.

  28. Song, at 243.

  29. Raz (1986), at 418, 420.

  30. Raz, at 407.

  31. To be sure, a critique could argue that to be fully protect against coercion, migrants should have access to the full set of rights, and not the set of differentiated rights that Song proposes; see Carens (2008). See also Hovdal-Moan (2014) for an insightful analysis of domination even in cases of access to rights.

  32. See also Mackenzie (2017).

  33. See http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/helpcentre/answer.asp?qnum=223&top=28

  34. Brownlee (2013), at 199.

  35. At the time, German politicians assumed that most of the young, bodily-abled men who followed their call to come and work in Germany would stay only for a limited time period before returning to their home country. When many of them started to bring their families to Germany, it was generally held that family reunification could not be prohibited for humanitarian reasons. However, the original generation of labour migrants did not have access to integration services beyond the labour market, and hardly any naturalized. See Jurgens (2010).

    Their children and grandchildren have also faced high hurdles for naturalization, despite having been born on German soil. Thus, while having access to civic and social rights, many have been denied political rights. Earlier policies have now been changed due to more inclusive naturalization laws that confer double citizenship to those born in Germany, until the age of 23 when double citizens are asked to decide on one. See https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21572822-how-not-treat-people-more-one-passport-jus-sanguinis-revisited (accessed July 23rd, 2017).

  36. See Pratt Ewing (2006).

  37. Brownlee, at 205, emphasis added.

  38. Brownlee, at 200, emphasis mine.

  39. The relational aspect has been the subject of different ethical theories, most notably also Nussbaum’s capability approach. But while Nussbaum proposes that rights are vehicles to assure access to capabilities, I want to suggest that a rights-based analysis is not sufficient. See Nussbaum (2011). For two different interpretations of the nature of rights within the capabilities approach see Van Hess (2013).

    For extensive discussion of the political relevance of the concept of vulnerability when discussing capabilities, see Mackenzie (2014)

  40. Brownlee, at 212.

  41. See Straehle 2017b.

  42. Rawls considers that “other things being equal, people normally find activities that call upon their developed capacities to be more interesting and preferable to simpler tasks, and their enjoyment increases the more the capacity is realized or the greater its complexity.” Rawls (1999), at 374.

  43. Rawls 1999, 386.

  44. Brownlee, at 213/214.

  45. Particular thanks to both annonymous reviewers, who have pressed me to clarify the distinction between recognition and social deprivation. I return to this distinction just below.

  46. A seminal work in recognition theory is Taylor (1985). For the specific link between recognition and vulnerability as they affects individual autonomy, see Anderson and Honneth (2005).

  47. Cordelli, at 88.

  48. Cordelli, at 90.

  49. And, in fact, Brownlee suggests that liberal democratic states should adopt a human right against social deprivation. To be fair, Brownlee’s main concern is the social deprivation suffered by prisoners who are stripped of many of their civic, social and political rights while serving their sentences, but whose human rights remain intact. Put otherwise, with the specific concern of the moral status of prisoners in mind, it makes sense to call for an additional human right.

  50. I am very grateful to one anonymous reviewer to have suggested these possible remedies to the wrong of social deprivation.

  51. Lea Ypi has argued that all temporary foreign work casts those who carry it out as members of a disadvantaged class, irrespective of skill level and origin. Temporary workers would then have to be considered as members of an exploited international class because of the exploitative nature of guest worker programs. The deprivation guest workers and their descendant experience might indicate a structural problem of local and global markets, rather than one with specific national programs. Ypi (2016).

  52. I am following here Joel Feinberg’s distinction of manifesto and claim rights: Feinberg (1980).

  53. Cordelli, at 100.

  54. Cordelli, at 100.

  55. Cordelli, at 100, emphasis in original.

  56. Cordelli, at 101.

  57. See Garreau and Laborde (2015). Garreau and Laborde explore to what extent non-domination can account for the specific wrong that social marginalization and disqualification cause, but find that the republican account of non-domination needs to be supplemented with an account of vulnerability. Much of what I say here is an attempt to formulate how the concept of vulnerability could address social disqualification.

  58. In contrast to arriving in a family to work with children or the elderly, consider the experiences of migrants who now benefit from the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program, launched in 2007 and implemented as a standing program in 2010.To quote from the program’s website: “The first CIIP component is a one-day orientation workshop where participants are informed about: Job Prospects, Job Readiness, Job Search, Job Retention - understanding the Canadian workplace and its culture. The second CIIP component involves personalized planning focused on key job and integration decisions, as well as actions to be taken before and after arrival in Canada. The third CIIP component provides online advice, tools, and other resources from Canadian partner organizations and direct contact with Canadian employers.” http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/partner/bpss/ciip.asp

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  1. Institute for Philosophy, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Christine Straehle

  2. Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, 120 University Private, FSS 6005, Ottawa, ON, K1S 2Y9, Canada

    Christine Straehle

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Straehle, C. Vulnerability, Rights, and Social Deprivation in Temporary Labour Migration. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 22, 297–312 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-019-10010-0

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