ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between discrimination and the emergence of temporary migration patterns characterised by workplace exploitation. In doing so, this chapter challenges public discourses around exploitation that identify migrant choice as the main cause of exploitation, as well as extending international scholarly accounts that have generally focused on political-economic and legal dimensions of exploitation and unfreedom. Our chapter draws on independent qualitative research we undertook on behalf of the New Zealand government with temporary migrants who had experienced different forms of workplace exploitation and unfreedom. The interviews in this research focused on pathways to exploitation, situating current or recent experiences of exploitation within narratives of migration to and labour market incorporation in Aotearoa New Zealand. These accounts pointed to how difficulties gaining legitimate non-exploitative employment set the preconditions for migrants accepting and remaining in jobs with exploitative employers – labour market discrimination enhances vulnerability to workplace exploitation. In this chapter, we explore three key dimensions of the relationship between discrimination and exploitation and their implications for the outcomes of temporary migration programmes and patterns: immigration status and the production of precarity; labour queuing and job queuing and encounters with enforcement and other government systems. Through this focus, this chapter highlights how disparities in labour market outcomes are embedded within wider systems of discrimination that link race and class prejudice to migration policies and systems as well as broader structural injustice.
