Jennifer Gordon, Solidarity Center, 2015
SUMMARY
“I contend that a key goal of efforts to regulate recruitment should be to reshape the incentives of the entities at the top of the product or service supply chain, so that in turn they become the forces driving compliance by the recruiters below. Likewise, recruiters at the top of labor supply chains must be made liable for the false promises and unauthorized charges of their sub-agents and brokers.
In this paper, I address the final issue of migrant worker agency and participation, examining roles for guest workers themselves as organizers, monitors, and policy-setters in supply chain initiatives and other efforts to address recruitment violations. I begin with an argument for the importance of such initiatives. I then set out and analyze case studies of three very different efforts to engage migrants in this way, all with a base in Mexico and all involving workers who travel to the United States on so-called “H-2 visas,” to do seasonal work in agriculture or food processing.”