"The Working Men Have No Country: Unfree Labour in the Canadian Maritimes" with Dr. Raluca Bejan

January 27, 2025 (4:00 pm - 5:30 pm)

Location: BAC 239


This public lecture with Dr. Raluca Bejan (School of Social Work, Dalhousie University) will explore the experiences of migrant workers on temporary work permits in the Maritimes. There will be an opportunity for questions following the presentation.
 
Citizenship acts as a stratifying factor in occupational segregation. There is a hierarchy, in national contexts, when it comes to work-related protections. Those who have the most rights in a society are the citizens, followed by those with permanent residency, those with temporary work statuses, and lastly, migrants with irregular status.
 
The story of precarious occupational conditions among migrant workers on temporary work permits is a universal one, be they Mexican workers in Canada, Bangladeshi workers in Japan, or Romanians in Germany and the UK. Employed under closed work permits, migrant workers have little say in changing their employment contracts, even if they are unhappy with their job. When the right of workers to stay in a country depends on their employment contract, workers’ rights are ultimately curtailed by design. Without permanent status, migrant workers are susceptible to unsafe occupational conditions and substandard living conditions, as they lack adequate access to healthcare and other government-related benefits and are prone to job insecurity and abusive work practices, including low pay, ineligibility for overtime pay, long hours, and even dismissal and repatriation.
 
This talk uses empirical data in the form of 45 interviews with Mexican migrant workers conducted between 2020 and 2023 across the Canadian Maritimes, in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to discuss labor extraction in the region and show how migrants’ lack of citizenship and/or permanent status works a stratifying factor in the allocation of their work-related rights.

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