Doctoral Dissertation Research: From Agriculture to Information Technology: American Guestworkers and the Law in Flexible Labor Markets

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation project examines the type of legal practice that is constituted through temporary alien employment regulatory laws in the United States. Federal administrative enforcement of agricultural and emergency guestworkers' employment contracts dates to the 1940s; however, it is only since the 1990s that non-agricultural guestworkers can turn to these protections for help with employment problems. As more and more non-agricultural guestworkers enter and exit "neoliberalized workplaces" (that is, flexible labor), we see the circulation of employment protections as well as an increase in state dispute processing and mobilization of law in this area. Yet, at the same time, an employer's right to terminate is almost absolute. Unlike in previous guestworker programs, an administrative hearing is not required for an employer to fire a guestworker employee. Under the supervision of the PI, the dissertation student will investigate how the older, temporary agricultural and emergency employment framework shapes current legal regulations of flexible labor across contemporary workplaces. Contrary to scholarship on neoliberal labor regulation, the dissertation student argues that flexible workplaces are not "unregulated corners of labor," but rather areas where the state is "rolling out" a minimalist form of enforcement over private employment contracts. Drawing upon historical sociolegal methods, the research focuses on variations in dispute processing across time and labor sectors and the kinds of claims guestworkers have filed/make against their employers. Through legal anthropological research, this dissertation examines how the power of employers shapes guestworkers' perceptions of their entitlements. Ultimately, this research approaches an unstudied area of state regulatory development, employment law, and legal claims-making. The research provides a historical context for proposed pending guestworker policies and laws, bringing existing legal practices into the debate about legal design and workplace justice.