Better but Not Enough: On the Limitations of Reformed Temporary Labor Migration Programs

Many political philosophers and theorists have sought to preserve the global justice benefits and economic rationale of Temporary Labour Migration Programmes (TLMPS) while remedying some of their most serious normative problems. In this paper, I analyse two of the strongest attempts to do this, and argue that both ultimately fail. First, I engage with Patti Tamara Lenard and Christine Straehle’s argument that TLMPs which provide a path to citizenship for migrant workers can be justified. I argue that such a reform introduces a form of work-based conditionality on the access to citizenship which leaves workers both dominated and subject to exploitation by host states and employers. I then turn to the argument developed by Rainer Bauböck and Martin Ruhs, who argue that TLMPs can be justified if they are characterised by ‘fair representation’ of the interests of workers and other parties in design and meet democratic conditions of legitimacy. But I argue that this argument also fails because it leaves workers subject to power over which they have insufficient control. As there is no mechanism by which workers can force the bodies tasked with representing their interests to do so in any particular way, they have insufficient input into the determination of the terms of TLMPs and the coercive power exercised within them. While not precluding the possibility, the failure of these arguments should make us sceptical that TLMPs can be justified without more serious structural reform.