New ILO publication explores the path to social justice for migrant workers

GENEVA (ILO News) – A newly published ILO anthology, Temporary labour migration: Towards social justice? explores the challenges, policy choices, and innovative approaches shaping temporary labour migration worldwide.

The edited volume brings together contributions from distinguished academics and practitioners to examine how temporary labour migration programmes have evolved and are impacting both local labour markets and migrant workers.

In many contexts, temporary labour migration programmes have been shown to expose workers to decent work deficits, restricted rights, and exclusion from labour laws. However, there have also been positive changes in the design of the programmes to provide workers with better opportunities to change employers, and other policy innovations to learn from.

By presenting perspectives from different world regions, disciplines and historical periods, the book provides concrete policy recommendations for fairer migration policies.

The volume is structured around four key themes, including shifting paradigms on temporary labour migration, an analysis of new mobility programmes and areas that affect the governance of migration such as international trade, policy tools for the protection of migrants, and historical lessons to help improve migration policies.

The publication delves into the economic and legal dimensions of temporary labour migration to present a well-rounded analysis. It highlights the need for social justice in migration policies, calling for equal treatment, strengthened protection mechanisms and policy coherence to help make temporary migration fairer.

The book is available for download on the ILO website and was edited by Christiane Kuptsch and Fabiola Mieres, senior migration and labour market specialists at the ILO.

For more information, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].