Research

Note: This David Bacon article is a preview of his upcoming book "Illegal - How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants," Beacon Press, Fall 2008

Mr. Sensenbrenner's Family Business
In December 2005, Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner convinced his Republican colleagues (and to their shame, 35 Democrats) to pass one of the most repressive immigration proposals of the last hundred years. His bill, HR 4437, would have made federal felons of all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., criminalized teachers, nurses or priests who helped them, and built a 700-mile wall on the U.S. Mexico border to keep people from crossing.

Amnesty International has published a report on the situation of migrant workers in China: "Internal migrant workers in China are paying the cost of the country’s economic "miracle". Most find themselves denied their rights -- shut out of the healthcare system and state education, living in appalling, overcrowded conditions and routinely exploited by their employers. An estimated 150-200 million Chinese rural workers are currently living and working in cities and that number is expected to continue to grow. While they make up the majority of the population in some cities, they are treated as an urban underclass discriminated against under the hukou (household registration) system, which requires them to register with local authorities as temporary residents."

Der Prozess der Prekarisierung, also die fortschreitende Entsicherung der Arbeits- und Lebensverhältnisse, hat in den letzten Jahren bzw. Jahrzehnten neue soziale Fragmentierungen hervorgebracht, die häufig mit einem niedrigen Organisationsgrad der Arbeitenden einhergehen. Dadurch scheint auch der gesellschaftliche Vertretungsanspruch jener Institutionen brüchig zu werden, die - wie z.B. die Gewerkschaften - historisch die zentralen AkteurInnen bezüglich Organisierung und Interessenvertretung der Arbeitenden waren.

Im Rahmen der Tagung "Let's Organize!" werden internationale Erfahrungen mit neuen Formen der Organisierung und Interessenvertretung im Spannungsverhältnis zwischen sozialen Bewegungen und Gewerkschaften diskutiert.

Via RSD Watch: The American University in Cairo’s Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program (FMRS) published a report on the intense protests of Sudanese refugees in Egypt that ended in December with the death of at least 28 people. The protests involved several thousand Sudanese frustrated by the suspension of refugee status determination and resettlement at UNHCR’s Cairo office. The forum update includes two commentaries that seek to find lessons for future refugee policy from the tragic events in Egypt, along with excerpts of the FMRS report.

The Handbook aims to assist states in their efforts to develop new policy approaches, solutions and practical measures for better management of labour migration in countries of origin and of destination. It has been prepared primarily for use by decision-makers and practitioners in the OSCE area and countries served by IOM and ILO. It analyses effective policies and practices and draws on examples from OSCE participating States as well as other countries that have considerable experience in this field.
The book is published jointly by the OSCE, the International Organization for Migration and the International Labour Office.
http://www.osce.org/item/19187.html

The Heinrich Böll Foundation is organizing an international conference on labour migration in February 2006 with participation from scholars, policy experts and NGOs across Europe. The conference aims to explore the potential of labour migration for Europe in view of "best practices" and realistic options in migration policy and governance. A guiding principle of the conference is that the potential benefits, uncertainties and disadvantages pertaining to migration must be openly discussed in order to attain the legitimacy from European civil society, which is essential for the successful realisation of migration policies. More information is available at: http://www.migration-boell.de/web/nav/46_53.htm

PICUM - the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants - released its report “Ten Ways to Protect Undocumented Migrant Workers” at a reception yesterday at the European Parliament. Keynote speakers included MEP Anne Van Lancker and Wiebke Düvel, representing the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).

To
Die a Little: Migration and Coffee in Mexico and Central America By
Luis Hernández Navarro

Reyno
Bartolo Hernández died of heatstroke in the Arizona desert
near Yuma on May 22, 2001. He wasn’t the only Mexican farmer
who lost his life that day trying to cross the border. Thirteen of

The
strong demand for women's domestic, caring, and sexual labor in
contemporary Europe promotes migrations from many parts of the world
(report).
"The moral panic over trafficking and the limited feminist
debate on "prostitution" contribute to a climate that
ignores the social problems of the majority of women migrants".

The considerations which follow about women’s work and women at work have been developed by Libera Università Contropiani in the frame of a more general discourse about precariousness and precarization and about the paradigmatic character of migrant labour as explained in the Maurizio Ricciardi’s and Fabio Raimondi’s paper already published on Thistuesday website. The starting point was the analysis of the transformations of the Italian labour-market under the influence of Law n. 30 (about labour and social security) and the so called Bossi-Fini law (concerning migration). The main consequence of this transformation is the impossibility of a representation of labour in the traditional Unionist form and way of struggle.