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Topics

Background Two major kinds of

foreign migrant workers:

A. Foreign factory workers

B. Foreign domestic helpers

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Background of transnational labor migration in East and Southeast Asia

Vivien Wee and Amy Sim, “Transnational Labor Networks in Female Labor Migration: Mediating between Southeast Asian Women Workers and International Labor Markets,” SEARC Working Papers Series, No. 49, City University of Hong Kong, 2003

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Trajectories of transnational labor migration (1)

Major sending countries: Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam

Major receiving countries: Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, USA, and countries in the Middle East

– Malaysia: send workers to Singapore; receive workers from Indonesia)

– Thailand: send workers to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan; receive workers from Burma and Laos

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Trajectories of transnational labor migration (2)

In Hong Kong in 2001, more than 200,000 documented foreign workers

Most transnational migrant workers were female

E. g. Indonesian female immigrant workers: Indonesian male immigrants workers=100: 30 (statistics in 1993-1994)

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Examples of Commercial Agents for transnational labor migration

Taiwan: the Dart-wits Manpower Co. Ltd; the Great Manpower Co.

Hong Kong: the Proxy-maid Service Center Singapore: the Maid Power Ltd.

How did they get to work overseas

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SOSC 102 U

Lecture Note 13

Transnational Immigrant Labor

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What do these commercial agents do

Recruit the workers Provide training Find them employment (agents in sending societies

would contact with agents in receiving societies) Arrange their passage Provide loans Draw up contracts Remit their remuneration Arrange their repatriation

Wee and Sim (2003: 4)

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Impoverishment Decision to work overseas

Enquiry: friends, family, acquaintances, job-placement agencies

Medical check-up, training and orientation

Pre-departure: search for an employer

Fees levied by agents (may result in debts)

Departure: leave sending country

Arrive in host country

Employment: work, get paid, pay the debts, remit money back home

Repatriation: end of contract, get an extension, look for another contract, or go home

Wee and Sim, 2003, p. 6 Migration Cycle of a migrant women worker

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Marketing the Immigrant Workers*

Nationality-based stereotypes (constructed by the brokers and accepted by the employers)

Thai men: hard-working and honest make the best factory and construction work

Filipino men: good at handling machines good factory work

Filipina women: better educated, “more civilized”, good in English take care of children

Indonesian women: loyalty, caring, willingness to work hard take care of the sick and elderly

* Interview of Anne Loveband (2003)

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Foreign Factory Workers

Anru Lee’s case study on Thai workers in a Taiwan factory(Lee in Chow, Ch. 9)

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Foreign Labor as Factory Worker

Why they are in need? How do they get to work overseas? What do they do? How about their salaries?

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Why are they in need

Young generation of Taiwanese women do not want to work in a factory

Foreign workers become alternative source of cheap labor

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How do they get to work overseas?

Bilateral agreements between sending and receiving states: only citizens of sending countries can be recruited to work overseas

The Taiwan government would adopt a system of quota control and issue a two-year non-renewable work permit to foreign workers

To prohibit them from permanent settlement, each foreign worker can stay in Taiwan no longer than six years and cannot transfer employers freely

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What do they do in the shop floor

Sexual division of labor in textiles between male and female Taiwanese workers

E.g. Men’s work: mechanics Women’s work: tend

looms, upload and download fabrics

No explicit sexual division of labor

Sometimes Thai male workers are assigned to do those “women’s work”

Usually foreign workers are asked to do the undesirable jobs—the 3 D (dirty, dangerous, and demeaning) work

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Salary gaps in textile factory (workers performing similar work)

Estimation of average monthly wages for Taiwanese workers (paid by piece-rate wage system)

Male workers: U. S. $ 1,111-1,481

Female workers: U. S. $ 814

Male and Female Thai workers: U. S. $ 518 (paid by fixed monthly salary)

U. S. $ 518 is the minimum wage according to the Labor Standards Law in Taiwan

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Foreign Domestic Helpers

Mary Romero, Maid in the U. S. A. (N. Y. and London, 1992)Nicole Constable, Maid to Order in Hong Kong (Cornell, 1997)Anne Loveband, “Positioning the Product: Indonesian Migrant Women Workers in Contemporary Taiwan,” SEARC Working Papers Series, No. 43, City University of Hong Kong, 2003.

P. C. Lan, “Micropolitics of employing migrant domestic workers,” Social Problems, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2003): 525-249.

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Foreign domestic helpers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore

150,000 Filipina domestic workers are hired in Hong Kong, out of a total population of approximately 7 million

80,000 Filipina domestic workers are hired in Singapore, out of a total population of 4 million

120,000 foreign domestic workers from the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia are hired in Taiwan, out of a total population of 22 million

– (Hong Kong and S’pore: Daniel A. Bell; Taiwan: Lan)

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Who are the foreign domestic helpers?

No. Some of them have college degrees but could not find a job after graduation (esp. the Filipinas); some of them held professional jobs such as nurses or teachers

Are they professional domestic helpers from the beginning?

“Contradictory class mobility”: people downgrade their jobs from professional or semi-professional tracks to take on unskilled and demeaning jobs while gaining higher wages overseas

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How do they “become” domestic helpers?

In a recruitment agents in sending countries: “Packing the product”--to transform women of different backgrounds into a domestic workers

The training include how to cook, to do household chores, to use modern electronic facilities

All women would be required to become (or at least to look like) a hardworking, submissive, and obedient domestic helper

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How do Potential Employers Choose their Live-in Maids?

Middle income or above: Family with kids under 12 or the older above 65

Local agents

e. g. the Proxy-maid Service Center

Access to individual applicant files

See candidates on video monitors

The agency coordinates the necessary paperwork with a counterpart agency of the sending country

After three or four months, the maid arrives

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Why are they hired?

Why are domestic helpers in need? Where are the housewives?

Many double-income families cannot arrange time to fulfill these home demands

“market substitutes” of home demands

Some upper middle and upper class families with full-time housewives would also hire domestics helpers

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Implication of Hiring Domestic Workers for double-income families

Wee and Sim: “This [practice of hiring domestic maids] reflects a particular developmental trajectory where the economy is developed through the labor force participation of its female citizens, without the government compensating for the withdrawal of their labor in social reproduction.”

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Why foreign maids were favored than compatriot maids

Hiring women of different races to work for domestic helpers is a common practice

For example, middle-class families in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan (mostly ethnic Chinese) hire domestic helpers from Indonesia and the Philippines

In the U. S., many white middle- and upper-class families hire working-class women of color (esp. the Chicano women from Mexico) as domestic helpers

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Why don’t the middle-class women hire someone of their own color?

Interviews of white middle-class women in the U. S.: the employers regard that hiring a woman of color is a form of social benefit, reducing the unemployment rate of the minorities

Scholars (Romeo, Lan, and Loveband) however argue that the working relationship entails a racial and class hierarchy between the middle-class employers and the domestic workers

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Racial and class hierarchy

Master-servant relationship is easier to establish when the differences are obvious

Ethnic differences help to establish class domination—compared with hiring a compatriot maid, employers would feel more comfortable to control the relationship

Employers vs. Employees: class and racial differences

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Labor process of domestic helpers

Domestic work include two primary spheres: physical labor and emotional labor

Physical labor: the employers decide what aspects of physical labor should be left for domestic helpers to take care of. While some employers hire women to replace their own labor, others hire women to do much more demanding household labor

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Labor process of domestic helpers

Emotional labor: domestic helpers are hired to do emotional labor, such as to talk, to offer psychological support, and to be accompany with the employers

“Protomothers” of domestic helpers: expected to perform the emotional labor of “mothering” both the women employers and their families

Would reciprocal relationship be established through emotional labor and thus diminished the master-servant hierarchy

Romeo’s research on domestic work in the U. S.: No.

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Emotional labor and social hierarchy

The inherent power relation between an employer and employee

1. Employers expect to be consoled, but the psychological needs of domestic helpers are often neglected

2. Most employers would show a condescending manner to interact with their domestic helpers

3. Even when employers initiated conversations at a peer level, domestic helpers have to hide their real feeling

4. “Instrumental personalism” or “strategic intimacy”: Some employers would try to makes friends with domestic helpers in exchange for better service

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When home becomes a workplace… (hiring live-in domestic helpers)

Domestic service creates a unique social setting that women (or men) from different social-economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds interact in an informal and intimate way

The social setting is the employer’s home

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“Boundary work”*

Theory of “Boundary Work”: the strategies, principles, and practices we use to create, maintain, and modify cultural categories

For example, employees would describe the home/work boundary by organizing realm-specific matters, people, objects, and aspects of the self

In the context of domestic service: both the employers and employees would negotiate the boundaries between each other

– Visible boundary and invisible boundary

Based on P. C. Lan’s research on Filipina domestic work in Taiwan

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Visible boundary

Eating arrangement in a family: who is included in the dining table, where to sit at the table, who eats before or after whom, who gets more food, better quality, and a larger variety, whose tastes or needs are prioritized

Spatial arrangement (living/working space)

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Invisible boundary

Invisible boundary: guardianship (are employers the foreign migrant maids’ protectors?); privacy (how much should they know each other?)

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Employer’s boundary work

Family BoundaryInclusion Exclusion

Class/ ethnic divides

Highlighting

Downplaying

Distant Hierarchy

Maternalism

Personalism Business Relationship

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Workers’ boundary work

Live-in domestic workers live in a dual life—the life with “front” “and “backstage”

Life in the front stage: submissive servants on weekdays

Life in the backstage: go to church, picnic, meet friends, go shopping, dancing, etc. on Sunday

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Workers’ boundary work in “front stage”

Front/backstage boundaryIntegrating Segmenting

Class/ ethnic divides

Accepting

Objecting

Seeking patronage

Keeping safe distance

Obscuring previous positions

Highlighting status similarity

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discussion

Equal rights for foreign resident workers? Pros: Liberal democratic theorists argue that foreign

resident workers should be put on the road to citizenship. Rights of guest workers in Europe and immigrants in North America are protected by laws (Daniel A. Bell)

Cons: if the foreign workers are not satisfied with the wages and labor conditions, they can choose to leave and to return their home countries