Mobilization of Immigrant Workers in São Paulo: A Study on Mediation and Applications of Work

The research focuses on the mobilization of immigrant workers in São Paulo and is based on fieldwork that took place at Missão Paz, certainly one of the main institutions to host recently arrived immigrants as well as to promote their so-called ‘social mediation’ in the city. Mainly engaged in the struggle against human trafficking and contemporary slavery as well as in the promotion of decent labor conditions, through the ‘processes of intermediation to work’ it promotes the meeting of employers and immigrants who are seeking work. Apart from direct observation of this entire process (22 sessions of interviewing and hiring), the fieldwork has been extended to a few hiring companies and is based on interviews with both employers (8) and candidates to vacancies or hired immigrants (14), all men and from seven different countries. The main questions orientating the research are: what managerial strategies determine the hiring of immigrant workers? What kind of enterprises is currently hiring immigrants at Missão Paz and for what kind of jobs? From the point of view of employers, which presumed characteristics make immigrants a desirable kind of employee? How do immigrants react to those managerial strategies? How do they see the set of jobs that are available according to their trajectories and migration projects? In what concerns employers, one of the most significant findings of the research was that all of them have expressed a negative view of Brazilian workers in general and projected to have on ‘immigrants’ their exactly opposite (that is someone who prizes work and who 'works correctly'). In turn, immigrants have to choose between the acceptation or denial of such expectations.