By Sarah Farr, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum
What happens to the implicit work hierarchy in an economic downturn? Jonathan Browning and Screaming Frog Productions answered with this amusing yet insightful video.
While the video certainly draws laughs, it also points to some important social structures that are currently being revisited in this new economic environment. Namely, it asks the viewer to think about the security of her or his own job and about the reality faced by millions of immigrant workers on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, the real world economic crisis has not (at least not yet) turned the tables in such a comical manner. Immigrant workers, especially those classified as “unskilled,” are in fact hit harder by the economic crisis than their native-born and white collar counterparts.
According to a recent report published by the Center for Immigration Studies, unemployment rates have risen faster for immigrant workers than for native workers since the economic downturn. For recent immigrants and “unskilled” immigrants, these rates are even higher still.
Remittances, the second largest contributor to the Mexican economy, have been steadily increasing since the 1990s--at least until recently. By the end of 2008, per cent increases in remittances plateaued and then began to decline. In the first 5 months of 2009 remittances fell by a whopping 11.3 per cent. And this downward trend only seems to be worsening—the worst decline on record, in fact. See this Business Week article for all the numbers.
Data from the Mexican government’s census showed that migration flows out of Mexico decreased by nearly 25 per cent during the period from August 2007 to August 2008. Compared to the steady increase of Mexican emigration to the United States, this drop is startling. The cause? Researchers point to a lack of jobs available to immigrants in the United States. The situation in Mexico, where an estimated 25% of the population is underemployed, may not be much better.
Another, uglier reason for this decline, however, could be found in the fact that violence and hostility towards immigrants, especially “unskilled” immigrant workers and day laborers, seems to be on the rise across the country. This trend shouldn’t be much of a surprise: xenophobia and economic crisis seem to be historically bound. Examples abound-- from hyperinflation and the Third Reich, to the recent wave of violence that hit migrant workers in South Africa last summer. True to form, current research shows that recession-related violence has hit communities of color hardest. See this report from the Applied Research Center for more information.
In addition to violence, immigrant workers, who already enter the workforce with significant disadvantages because of barriers such as status or language difficulties, are often the first to be harmed by employer exploitation during hard times. The ARC report found that “inadequate protections for immigrant workers allow exploitative practices to flourish. In this recession, some employers have violated employment laws to take advantage of the surplus of unemployed workers seeking jobs.” So as the recession deepens we can expect the situation for immigrant workers to worsen--less access to jobs, a continued increase in xenophobic tendencies, and more incidences of exploitative activities by employers.
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