Table Of ContentJust Work?
Wildcat: Workers’ Movements and Global Capitalism
Series Editors:
Peter Alexander (University of Johannesburg)
Immanuel Ness (City University of New York)
Tim Pringle (SOAS, University of London)
Malehoko Tshoaedi (University of Pretoria)
Workers’ movements are a common and recurring feature in contemporary
capitalism. The same militancy that inspired the mass labour movements of
the twentieth century continues to define worker struggles that proliferate
throughout the world today.
For more than a century labour unions have mobilised to represent the
political-economic interests of workers by uncovering the abuses of capitalism,
establishing wage standards, improving oppressive working conditions, and
bargaining with employers and the state. Since the 1970s, organised labour has
declined in size and influence as the global power and influence of capital has
expanded dramatically. The world over, existing unions are in a condition of
fracture and turbulence in response to neoliberalism, financialisation, and the
reappearance of rapacious forms of imperialism. New and modernised unions
are adapting to conditions and creating class-conscious workers’ movement
rooted in militancy and solidarity. Ironically, while the power of organised
labour contracts, working-class militancy and resistance persists and is growing
in the Global South.
Wildcat publishes ambitious and innovative works on the history and
political economy of workers’ movements and is a forum for debate on pivotal
movements and labour struggles. The series applies a broad definition of the
labour movement to include workers in and out of unions, and seeks works
that examine proletarianisation and class formation; mass production; gender,
affective and reproductive labour; imperialism and workers; syndicalism and
independent unions, and labour and Leftist social and political movements.
Also available:
Southern Insurgency:
The Coming of the Global Working Class
Immanuel Ness
Just Work?
Migrant Workers’ Struggles Today
Edited by
Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo
First published 2016 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo 2016
The right of the individual contributors to be identified as the authors of this
work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3584 1 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3583 4 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7837 1339 4 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1341 7 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7837 1340 0 EPUB eBook
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed
and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are
expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Text design by Melanie Patrick
Simultaneously printed in the European Union and United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations ix
1 Just Work? Migrant Workers, Capitalist Globalisation
and Resistance 1
Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo
PART I: AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
2 Xenophobia, Resilience, and Resistance of Immigrant
Workers in South Africa: Collective and Individual
Responses 21
Mondli Hlatshwayo
3 States of Exclusion: Migrant Work in the Gulf Arab States 41
Adam Hanieh
4 Undocumented Migrant Workers in Nigeria: Labouring
in the Shadows of Regional Integration 61
Baba Ayelabola
PART II: EUROPE
5 Migrant Rights Activism and the Tree Workers Case in
the Czech Republic 85
Marek Čaněk
6 Towards a History of the Latin American Workers
Association 2002–12 106
Jake Lagnado
7 Lessons from Migrant Workers’ Organisation and
Mobilisation in Switzerland 129
Vasco Pedrina
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Just Work?
PART III: ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
8 Migrant Unionism in Hong Kong: A Case Study of
Experiences of Foreign Domestic Workers in Union
Organising 151
Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants
9 The Possibilities and Limitations of Organising Immigrant
Workers in Japan: The Case of the Local Union of the
All-Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers’
Union 170
Hiroshi Ueki
10 Disaster Capitalism and Migrant Worker Organising in
Aotearoa/New Zealand 188
Edward Miller and Dennis Maga
PART IV: NORTH AMERICA
11 Migrante, Abante: Building Filipino Migrant Worker
Leadership through Participatory Action Research 211
Valerie Francisco
12 Temporary Employment Agency Workers in Montreal:
Immigrant and Migrant Workers’ Struggles in Canada 230
Aziz Choudry and Mostafa Henaway
Contributor Biographies 251
Index 256
vi
Acknowledgements
At one level, the idea for Just Work?: Migrant Workers’ Struggles
Today arose from conversations between the two of us, beginning in
Johannesburg in 2012 and continuing in our face-to-face and virtual
discussions since then. But at another level, as co-editors of this
collection, our various engagements in worker and migrant justice
struggles grounds and informs our scholarship and the rationale for
our collaboration in putting this book together. Choudry currently
works as an associate professor in the Department of Integrated
Studies in Education at McGill University, is a board member of the
Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, and has a longer history
of working with labour and other movements and organisations,
particularly in the Asia-Pacific and North America. Hlatshwayo is a
senior lecturer at the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation
at the University of Johannesburg, and is involved in organising
against xenophobia in South Africa. He has also written extensively
on trade unions and immigrant workers in a South African context.
This book has very much been a collective effort.
First, we are deeply grateful to all of the chapter contributors for
their work – many of whom took precious time away from organising
and other responsibilities to work with us. We also acknowledge
other colleagues who expressed strong interest in this book project,
but who were unable to participate due to their commitments.
Second, we sincerely thank David Shulman at Pluto Press for his
enthusiasm and support throughout the process of producing this
collection. We have greatly appreciated the encouragement of Manny
Ness, as editor of Pluto’s new Wildcat series in which this book
appears, as well as the professionalism of others at Pluto who have
assisted in its production. Désirée Rochat’s efficient help in getting
the manuscript ready for publication was invaluable.
Finally, we acknowledge the sacrifices and struggles of migrant
workers and organisers across the world, both within existing trade
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Just Work?
union structures and in other forms of organisations and movements
– and regardless of their state-ascribed ‘legal status’. Visible or not,
recognised or not, these daily struggles are not only significant
in their own right, but are also key sites of knowledge production
– contributing vital ideas for action to resist global capitalism and
fight for just working conditions and immigration policies in the
twenty-first century.
Aziz Choudry and Mondli Hlatshwayo
All royalties from this book will go to The Immigrant Workers
Centre, Montreal (www.iwc-cti.org).
Chapter 12 is adapted from Choudry, A. and Henaway, M. (2014).
‘Temporary Agency Worker Organizing in an Era of Contingent
Employment’. Global Labour Journal, 5(1), 1–22.
viii
List of Abbreviations
ACOMORON Amalgamated Commercial Motorcycle Riders
Organisation of Nigeria
AMCB Asia Migrants Coordinating Body
ANACOWA All Nigeria Automobile Commercial Owners and
Workers’ Association
APMM Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants
BWI Building and Wood Workers International
CAIC Campaign Against Immigration Controls
CBPR Community-based participatory research
CCMA Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and
Arbitration
CLCF Committee for Localities with a Concentrated
Foreigner Population
CLR Construction Labour Research
CNT Commission des normes du travail
COLACOR Latin American Coalition Against the Cuts
CORAS Colombian Refugee Association
CoRMSA Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South
Africa
COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions
CSD Centrale des syndicats démocratiques
CSN Confédération des syndicats nationaux
CSQ Centrale des syndicats du Québec
CSST Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail
CWAO Casual Workers Advice Office
ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States
EPMU Engineers, Printers and Manufacturers Union
EQC Earthquake Commission
EU European Union
FCC Filipino Community Centre
FDNS Front Des Non Syndicats
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