I’m very pleased to be co-chairing a track at the 11th International Critical Management Studies conference later this year. As with previous streams at the same conference, I am working with colleagues from the University of Eastern Finland to bring together a set of papers on contemporary challenges for Health and Social Work.
I’m also presenting my own paper as part of this stream. The abstract is below.
Relational Ethics and the Migrant Worker - reconsidering the impact of Brexit
Dr Will Thomas, Associate Professor, Suffolk Business School, University of Suffolk, UK
This paper draws on an ethical framework founded on a relational ontology to highlight moral risk and harm caused by a reliance on migrant workers in the delivery of carework. It starts with the claim that “human beings [exist] in complex groups and ‘webs’ of relationships which are thick with responsibilities” (Robinson). From this position it is argued that if our actions fail to recognise the needs, rights and interests of those with whom we share these relationships we do moral harm.
This approach informs a discussion concerning the way in which already uncertain, precarious, work in the UK’s health and social care sector has been exacerbated by the policy and rhetoric of Brexit. Even without this policy, the sector is reliant on the contributions made by migrant workers; in Hochschild’s (2009) words, the “global heart transplant”. The paper considers two themes that emerge from the political narrative that has driven the desire to leave the EU and the government’s approach to the consequent negotiations.
The vociferous claim that Brexit is in the economic interests of the UK, taken as an article of faith by many ‘leavers’, exemplifies the power of the economic trump-card in decision-making (rather than one driven by social justice, responsibility, care, attentiveness or other motivations) that has led to increasingly “commodified carework” (Kittay, 2009, 55). Carers are treated like other basic commodities - as fungible goods, tradable from places of greater supply (typically the global south) to places of greater demand (typically the global north). Results of this move include the perpetuation of global inequalities (Robinson, 2006) and the creation of temporary and ersatz ‘relationships’ rather than those that are more fulfilling and caring (Kittay, 2009, 64) and which value and promote the responsibilities derived from our relational nature.
The second theme to be considered concerns the increasing uncertainty that many migrant workers have in relation to their continued presence in the UK following Brexit. Rather than acknowledging the (mutual) benefits of their presence and employment in the UK, increasing numbers report feeling unwelcome, unwanted and uncertain of their rights following withdrawal. The narrative that ‘migration is bad’ not only fails to acknowledge the contribution made by migrant workers and the responsibilities owed to them, but serves to make many people who have lived and worked in the UK uncomfortable. Difficulties in applying for settled status, and the conflation of skills and pay in the minds of policymakers serves to increase the precarious nature of this work.
This paper will present analysis which emphasises the failure to adequately support careworkers not just in the period in the run up to Brexit, but over many years. It will consider the marginalisation of these workers and the increasing uncertain future for them, and for the sector in which they make such a significant contribution.
HOCHSCHILD, A.R., 2002. Love and gold.
KITTAY, E.F., 2009. The moral harm of migrant carework: Realizing a global right to care. Philosophical Topics, 37(2), pp. 53-73.
ROBINSON, F., 2006. Care, gender and global social justice: Rethinking ‘ethical globalization’. Journal of Global Ethics, 2(1), pp. 5-25.