Análisis profesora 2

Rights based discourse closely accompanies the formation of the United Nations following World War II. Waltz (2002) demonstrates that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), while calling on recognisable Western philosophies, was dependent in its drafting on the leadership of newly independent countries and reflects a significantly wider cultural grouping. An unavoidable corollary is that rights are politically/culturally defined rather than absolute. Human rights “can be regarded as a unique political project of the twentieth century” (Waltz, 2002, p. 438).

Three international conventions are of particular importance for migrant worker programmes and migration generally. Two are International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions20_{. The Migration}

for Employment Convention (revised) 1949, #97) and the Migrant Workers (supplementary

provisions) Convention (1975, #143) are focused on the rights of migrant workers. There are also ILO conventions which are noted by the ILO (International Labour Office, 2010, p. 124) as having

particular relevance for migrant workers such as the Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention (2001, #184).

The third is the United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (1990), hereinafter referred to as the Migrant Workers’ Convention (MWC). First drafted in 1981, this convention has experienced a long gestation and an even longer path to ratification. It was not until 2003 that the required number of signatories was achieved to allow the convention to come into force. Nafziger and Bartel (1991) suggest that the manner in which the convention overlaps existing instruments such as ILO conventions and the way it establishes two classes of migrants (documented and undocumented) with different rights may

20 _{Four fundamental principles, found in eight of the ILO’s conventions, are freedom of association, elimination} of all forms of forced labour, effective abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination (ILO, 2010). In its Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the ILO “should give special attention to the problems of persons with special social needs particularly the unemployed and migrant workers”.

cast doubt on its effectiveness. Credence is therefore given to the reluctance of some developed countries to sign, with Sweden and Finland encouraging the ratification of existing ILO conventions as an alternative protection (Nafziger & Bartel, 1991, p. 780). However, Taran (2000, p. 11) states:

a general counter-offensive has taken shape against human rights as being universal, indivisible and inalienable. In part, this challenge focuses on distinguishing between ‘realizable’ political and civil rights versus economic social and cultural rights characterised as costly, unsustainable and secondary. Explicit resistance to extension of human rights protection to migrants appears to be a feature of this counter- offensive. Ratification and entry into force of the 1990 Convention has been explicitly discouraged by some governments.

Article 6 of ILO convention 97 requires ratifying countries to accord immigrants “lawfully” within borders treatment “no less favourable” than that which it applies to its own nationals in respect of such matters as remuneration (including family allowances, overtime arrangements, paid holidays, training), membership of trade unions, and accommodation. New Zealand is one of the few

developed countries to have signed this protocol. Articles 25-27 of the Migrant Workers Convention are nearly identical in meaning to the provisions of article 6.

Table 2-1: Signatories to Major Conventions on the Rights of Migrants Nos. of South signatories Nos. of North signatories NZ signed Notes UNDHR (International Covenant Civil Political Rights only)

136 24 yes Based on

ratifications

MWC (migrant workers’ convention)

47* 0 no In force from July

2003 (20 ratifications)

ILO #97 migration for employment

40 9 yes

ILO #143 migrant workers (supplementary)

20 3 no

ILO #129 labour inspection (agriculture)

41 10 no

ILO #87 protection of right to organise

150 18 no NZ has signed #98

with 160 others

Source: author. Principal sources used:

ILO,UNdatabases;.http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12000:0::NO:::, https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?src=treaty&mtdsg_no=iv-13&chapter=4&lang=en *In the case of UN treaties this number refers to parties fully bound by the convention.

Although the above table indicates a great reluctance on the part of OECD member countries to sign conventions protecting the rights of migrant workers, some credence may be given to the argument that some northern countries wish to sign a smaller number of conventions and provide the

resources to honour those conventions they do sign, so the reason for the lack of signing is likely to be a synthesis of positive and negative reasons.

It is not possible to say that the vulnerability of temporary migrant workers is more the result of their lack of citizenship, the unfree nature of the labour, or the precarised nature of the industries in which they work, because all these elements intersect in diverse ways. In the case of undocumented workers, for instance, there may not be any form of coercion and they may be free labourers in the sense used in political economy, yet the precarised nature of their employment feeds and is fed by the lack of citizenship. In the case of TMWPs, the unfree nature of their employment is underlined by the lack of substantive citizenship because given their inability to find alternative employment, deportation is the natural consequence of an employment dispute.

We now have some conceptual tools with which to examine TMWPs. Those programmes of particular interest to this study and which do contribute in large measure to the history of TMWPs are the seasonal agricultural worker programmes. In stark contrast to the paucity of research

surrounding New Zealand’s late twentieth century schemes, at least two programmes internationally have received considerable scholarly attention. Just as the northern cities of England provided the geographic space for key industrial development, and the staging for the contradictions between labour and capital to be played out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries21_{, there are certain}

key agricultural regions which have become the staging posts for large scale labour intensive horticultural development. Two of these regions are the San Joaquin valley in California, USA, and southern Ontario, Canada, scenes of engagement for two contract work programmes addressed in section 2.4.