Precarious Work and its Complicit Network: Migrant Labour in Singapore

ABSTRACT

How does precarious work entail social vulnerabilities and moral complicities? Theorists of precarity pose two challenges for analysing labour conditions in Asia. Their first challenge is to distinguish the new kinds of social vulnerability which constitute precarious work. The second is to assign moral responsibility in the social network that produces vulnerability in depoliticised and morally detached ways. In this article, the social and normative dimensions of precarious work are connected through a conceptual investigation into how Singapore allocates responsibility for managing temporary migrant labour. First, it analyses how various management strategies, driven by globalisation and government deregulation, increase worker vulnerabilities. These strategies intensify relations of dependence, disempowerment and discrimination, which the workers may accommodate or resist in limited ways. Second, it assesses why the strategies leave the state, employers, agents and others complicit in producing the vulnerabilities. These actors enable, collaborate with, or condone the production of precarity. Their complicity is complicated by varying support or resistance to reforms. The result is a novel conceptual scheme for analysing the complicit network behind precarious work, which can be used in other sites of precarity where some are complicit in the vulnerability of others.

KEY WORDS:

• Precarity
• precarious work
• social vulnerability
• complicity
• migrant labour
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editor, guest editors and referees for their guidance. He is grateful for feedback from Nicole Constable, Teresita Cruz-del Rosario, Jonathan Rigg, Teo You-Yenn, Caleb Yong and others at the two conferences where sections of this article were presented: Living in an Age of Precarity (Asia Research Institute, Singapore, February 27–28, 2017) and The Ethics of Migration Beyond the Immigrant-Host State Nexus (European University Institute, Florence, January 11–12, 2018). Gavin Maughfling, Désirée Lim, Kamalini Ramdas, Voo Teck Chuan, Alexandra Serrenti and Will Zhang commented on various drafts of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Both work visas are valid for up to two years, though they are renewable with conditions. Work permits are for “foreign domestic workers” and “semi-skilled foreign workers in the construction, manufacturing, marine shipyard, process or services sector.” S passes are for “mid-level skilled staff” who earn at least US$1,704 per month (US$1 = S$1.35).

2. On laws and policies, see Baey and Yeoh (2015); Bal (2015a, 2016, ch. 2); Chok (2013, ch. 4); Koh et al. (2017); Teo and Piper (2009); Yeoh, Huang, and Devasahayam (2004); Yeoh et al. (2017); on business, see Bal (2016, ch. 2); Debrah and Ofori (1997); Wise (2013); Yeoh (2006); on unions and non-governmental organisations, see Bal (2015b, 2016, ch. 7); Chok (2013, ch. 5); Lyons (2009); Yeoh and Huang (1999); Yeoh, Huang, and Devasahayam (2004); and on workplace discipline and bargaining, see Bal (2015b, 2016, ch. 4); Koh (2016); Ye (2016, ch. 3); Yea (2017); and Yeoh and Huang (2010).

3. This divide between theorists of vulnerability is surveyed in Mackenzie, Rogers and Dodds (2013). They propose a taxonomy that partly classifies vulnerabilities according to their inherent or situational sources. Among the situational vulnerabilities are “pathogenic” ones, which arise from problematic social relations, structures and interventions.

4. The theoretical connections between dependence and vulnerability are analysed in Dodds. According to Dodds (2014, 182–183), dependence is “one form of vulnerability,” which “requires the support of a specific person (or people).” She argues that dependence can promote other forms of vulnerability – a point which I demonstrate in relation to precarious work.

5. Chok (2013, 377) proposes an “expanded precarity package” including what she terms “dependency,” “deportability,” and “discrimination.” The classification used in this section focuses on three kinds of social vulnerability, while Chok’s is tied to a broader list of insecurities. I thank the referee who drew my attention to her illuminating work.

6. The provisions of the Employment Act and the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act can be found at the Singapore Ministry of Manpower website (http://www.mom.gov.sg/). Other exemptions to the Employment Act include managers or executives who earn more than US$3,342.50 per month; seafarers; and statutory board employees or civil servants. The effects of exempting migrant domestic workers are analysed in Koh et al. (2017); Platt et al. (2017); Teo and Piper (2009); Yeoh, Huang, and Gonzalez (1999); Yeoh, Huang, and Devasahayam (2004); Yeoh and Huang (2010); and Yeoh et al. (2017).

7. I put aside the question of how other actors are collectively responsible for the state’s actions. The answer will depend partly on the state’s decision-making processes. In the rest of this section, I assume that an actor can be (in one role) complicit in the state’s wrongdoing even when it is (in another role) collectively responsible for that wrongdoing.

8. This challenge is noted in Chok (201, 309), who recommends a model of shared responsibility tied to the “social connections that implicate all agents, albeit in differentiated ways.” Her model emphasises the agents’ political responsibility for correcting injustices, rather than their moral responsibility for producing vulnerabilities.

9. There is a rich philosophical literature on complicity. Key distinctions from the conceptual framework in Lepora and Goodin (2013) are used here (see also Driver 2015; Kutz 2007; Mellema 2016). Tognazzini and Coates (2016) situate complicity in relation to blame and its appropriate conditions.

10. Caleb Yong and Alexandra Serrenti prompted me to clarify the state’s role in this section.

11. As Lenard and Straehle (2012, 214) observe: “it is a mistake to think that the only issue of moral relevance should be maximizing agency.” They add that even democracies “constrain the agency of their citizens as a matter of course,” for example through minimum wage requirements (see also Carens 2013, 115; Miller 2016, 195, n. 16).

12. Both Nicole Constable and a referee raised the significance of migrant labour advocacy for my arguments on condoning.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by an NUS Early Career Award fellowship.