New interest in what we are learning to call modern slavery is leading to increased public awareness that there are groups of people in the world today who get a very raw deal out of the labour market. In this long read, Don Flynn points out that high on everyone’s list of the biggest victims are migrants: workers who cross national frontiers in search of a livelihood.
There are two things to say about concerns registered on behalf of migrants.
The first is, yes, there are very good grounds for believing that many of them are exposed to a high risk of abusive, exploitative work conditions.
The second is, don’t get carried away: migrants are working hard to turn their disadvantages around, and there are things to learn from those who are registering a degree of success in doing this.
Migrant workers are not necessarily vulnerable workers
The facts are a good place to start this discussion. And here the empirical evidence for the disproportionate presence of migrants in work situations which are clearly exploitative is not as clear-cut as many suppose.
