Migration Regimes and the Production of (Labor) Unfreedom

Temporary migrant worker programs (TMWPs) are widely touted as promising pathways for Southern countries looking to stimulate development. A large body of literature, however, has documented the widespread vulnerabilities associated with temporary labor schemes, including the institutionalization of labor unfreedom.1 This tension raises important questions regarding the limits of managed migration, including the changing nature of citizenship invoked under these arrangements. In this article, I consider the plight of Filipino migrants recruited to work for Canada’s leading fast-food corporation, Tim Hortons. Drawing from field research conducted in the Philippines and western Canada, I outline some ways in which labor migrants in Canada are inherently “unfree,” and then turn to an analysis of a Canadian-Filipino fast-food labor chain to delineate how Filipino labor migrants are specifically unfree. The concept of unfree labor operates as a useful analytical tool that highlights a continuum of exploitation along which certain groups and individuals have particular vulnerabilities.2 Through specifying the nature of unfreedom in the Canadian context and the role of immigration policies in inciting these conditions, I show how unfreedom refers to both the employment relationship and [End Page 11] exclusions from citizenship, the latter mediated by dimensions of migrant social location. Moreover, while literature on unfreedom may generally focus on the employment contract, it is not only a question of labor rights and vulnerabilities, but also centrally about (racialized) social exclusion and belonging from the nation. My central contention is that Filipino nationals are both inherently and distinctly unfree, and that a primary element organizing the latter occurs in the sending context through the workings of the Filipino migration apparatus. To illustrate this, I employ an analysis of migration and citizenship policy alongside the employment contract to trace the contours of unfreedom in the law and in employment relations. A corollary argument I advance is that while much has been written about unfree labor and the various factors that entrap workers in coerced employment relations, a route to “freedom” in the employment relationship may actually further entrap migrants, and be an increasingly important factor involved in organizing experiences of contemporary, bonded mobility.