Labour Precarity and Other Structural Forces Affecting Migrant Workers' Health: The Case of the Undocumented Workers in Ontario, Canada

This paper will discuss the ways in which the labour dynamics that have emerged in the agricultural production in Ontario during the last decade have been organizing particular forms of precarity that affect the physical and mental health of the undocumented migrant workers and other migrant workers of precarious status (UMW and MWPS) that are employed in such industry. Likewise, it will analyze how this phenomenon of labour precarity, along with legal and linguistic barriers; fears of deportation; and perceived forms of racial subordination in the local health institutions, have prevented the workers from seeking and receiving medical services. Finally, the paper will discuss some of the ways by which the workers have contested the social forces affecting their health, and will offer some reflections on why such forms of collective action haven’t been entirely successful.

This paper draws upon the analysis of twenty in-depth interviews with UMW and MWPS, as well as upon field notes generated as part of a sociological, ethnographic research carried out in Ontario, Canada.