Always Strangers: Democracy and the Rights of Guest Workers

Abstract

The past decade has seen an upsurge in temporary foreign worker (“guest worker”) programs, which have been described as being “close to slavery” because they indenture the worker to work for a specific employer to maintain their visa status and limit access to permanent residence in the host country. The programs exemplify the dilemma between sovereignty and universalism. States claim to support universal labour rights but maintain absolute sovereignty over the legal status of foreign workers, providing limited, differentiated rights. The paper offers a normative argument, supported by empirical data from Canada, Hong Kong, United States, and Israel, that citizenship status continues to be paramount for accessing even universal (personhood-based) labour rights for these workers.

I also address some of the potential ramifications that have been raised against an expansive definition of rights for non-citizens, beginning with the impact of immigration on democratic solidarity and social cohesion. Secondly, the fact that guest-workers “consent” to the conditions of their stay in the foreign state before they enter has been consistently used to undermine their rights, especially in the public sphere, which I argue is untenable with democratic justice. Lastly, I address the cosmopolitan concerns about the costs of extending all possible rights to residents within the context of global justice and the risks of tightened border control and restrictive immigration policies.