Module 5: Migrant workers (Summary)

Migrant workers are people who are engaged or have been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national. This is the official UN definition, but we can see that it is very broad. It doesn’t specify for how many time or under which status, so we can consider a migrant worker a Spanish person who goes to work in Portugal for summer vacations (according to that definition).

The most common example for us when we think about migrant workers is the Mexican (Latin in general) workers migrating (legally or illegally) to the US. This is the closest case for us because of the familiarity and closeness of it, but it is not the only case. Migration of workers is present around the entire world; and actually it has been like that since a long time ago.

Working migration has its roots in the colonial times when the people of the powers left their hometowns looking for wealth and better life conditions. That’s a reason why most of the former colonies of the big powers were highly influenced by the migrants’ cultures. Later on the migrations continued to appear, mainly in crisis times. During big crisis the people look for a better future leaving the problems of their countries and trying to find a new life in more prosperous nations.

This is for example the reason why the US is a heavily migrant country. During the crisis generated by the wars in Europe, many European workers left their homes and came to the new world trying to find better opportunities. The migration may be generated due to economic, social and/or political reasons.

One of the main problems today is the illegal migration. Due to the lack of a legal status, the irregular migrant is often target of work exploitation and this generates a lot of problems for the host country (resentments, social differences, discrimination, violence, etc). In the other face of the coin we have cases like the European Union, where it is perfectly normal (and legal) to go from one country to another looking for better job options and social stability. This case can also bring some problems because as the nationals may see their works threatened by the migrants from other countries it can generate xenophobic feelings.

We have seen that migration of workers has been present from a long time in the history and with the globalization of the world we can assume that it is not going to stop. The real important point is to find an equilibrium where the migrants don’t be a problem but a complement for the society and that they can get some securities (such as education, health, etc) to avoid the problems that may be associated with them.

References:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/22/migrant_worker.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GisGLfyzL.jpg

http://www.usdiplomacy.org/exhibit/images/isolationcartoon.jpg