The ethics of seasonal labour migration

Abstract

Seasonal labour migration and 'guest worker' schemes are a common and growing phenomenon around the world. In 2008, the Australian government introduced the Pacific Seasonal Worker pilot scheme for workers from select Pacific Island nations to work in the horticultural industry in Australia. The scheme is the first guest worker scheme in the history of the Commonwealth. The visas entitle workers to reside in Australia for a maximum of seven months, with no provision for secondary visas for family members and no prospect of upgrading the visas to permanent residency. The introduction of the pilot scheme is indicative of a growing trend in the use of temporary labour migration in Australia, and raises the fundamental question of just what are the ethical limits of such schemes. The article addresses this question by considering whether it is consistent with liberal political values to deny long-term seasonal workers the opportunity to join the Australian community. It introduces Michael Walzer's influential work on this question, and then proposes the liberal criteria of 'freedom' as the principle underpinning the state's obligation to seasonal workers. The article draws on a distinction between freedom as non-interference and freedom as non-domination in Philip Pettit's theory of republicanism, and uses the distinction to pose the question of whether the freedom of the migrant labourer can be assured through regulation of the employment relationship, or whether it can only be assured through removing the unequal status between alien workers and citizen employers. The article also considers the nature of work, and the vulnerability of migrant workers within the employment relationship. It argues that the problems which arise in the employment relationship between migrant workers and their employers, as they invariably do, are symptomatic of the exclusion of migrant workers from participation in the political life of the receiving state. The article concludes that there are problems with dissociating work in a state from membership of that state in the long term, and makes the case for providing the opportunity for guest workers to apply for permanent residence.