Ebook: Migrants at Work: Immigration and Vulnerability in Labour Law

This collection has its origins in the recognition that there is a highly significant and under-considered intersection and interaction between migration law and labour law. It is the culmination of a collaborative project on ‘Migrants at Work’ funded by the John Fell Fund, the Society of Legal Scholars and the Research Centre at St John’s College, Oxford. The collection aims to shed light on the interactions between immigration, migration law, and labour law, in particular how migration status has a bearing on labour relations and the world of work. Contributors to the volume identify the many ways that migration law, as currently designed, divides the objectives of labour law, privileging employers’ interests in the supply of labour over worker-protective concerns. In addition, migration law creates a particular form of status, which affects labour relations, thereby dividing the subjects of labour law. While several contributions focus on the UK, other countries examined include Australia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the US. References are also made to discrete practices in Brazil, France, Greece, New Zealand, Mexico, Poland, and South Africa. The collection identifies how migration law as currently configured jeopardizessome of the values and institutions of labour law.

Keywords: immigration, migrants workers, labour law, vulnerability, migration status, employment relationship, personal work relations, human rights of migrants