This discussion paper by a group of scholars across the fields of health, economics and labour relations argues that COVID-19 is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis from which there can be no return to the ‘old normal’. The pandemic’s disastrous worldwide health impacts have been exacerbated by, and have compounded, the unsustainability of economic globalisation based on the neoliberal dismantling of state capabilities in favour of markets. Flow-on economic impacts have simultaneously created major supply and demand disruptions, and highlighted the growing within-country inequalities and precarity generated by neoliberal regimes of labour market regulation. Taking an Australian and international perspective, we examine these economic and labour market impacts, paying particular attention to differential impacts on First Nations people, developing countries, women, immigrants and young people. Evaluating policy responses in a political climate of national and international leadership very different from those in which major twentieth century crises were addressed, we argue the need for a national and international conversation to develop a new pathway out of crisis. JEL Codes: E18, HO, I1, J64, J88

This article advances research on why international students, who comprise a growing segment of the workforce in many countries, are underpaid. By revisiting Piore’s dual frames of reference theory, the article builds an important knowledge base around migrant workers’ tolerance of low pay. The research uses mixed methods incorporating a survey of 1433 international students, and interviews with 40 of them. Drawing on segmented labour market theory and examining workers’ ‘multiple frames of reference’, the article seeks to explain migrant workers’, in this case international students’, tolerance of extensive and persistent underpayment. While migrants’ reference to lower pay in their home country has long been accepted as explanation for their acceptance of low pay, it is not found to be a significant factor. The new concept of ‘peer frame of reference’ is developed to explain their tolerance of underpayment.

Wage theft has emerged as a major problem for regulation of work in Australia. Yet, the state has done little to address the issue. In this context, this article considers why there has been recent growth in reported cases of underpayment of wages, particularly of temporary migrant workers, and why the state has failed to implement a strategy to adequately address this problem. The article examines the fragmented nature of employment regulation and visa categories constraining worker agency which, combined with widening avenues for temporary migration, have contributed to the underpayment problem. We also consider how conflicting imperatives of the state, business influence over the policy process and weak political incentives to address underpayment help to account for the state’s inaction. JEL Codes: J58, J61, J81

This article presents an historical and comparative analysis of the bargaining power and agency conferred upon migrant workers in Australia under distinct policy regimes. Through an assessment of four criteria – residency status, mobility, skill thresholds and institutional protections – we find that migrant workers arriving in Australia in the period from 1973 to 1996 had high levels of bargaining power and agency. Since 1996, migrant workers’ power and agency has been incrementally curtailed, to the extent that Australia’s labour immigration policy resembles a guest-worker regime where migrants’ rights are restricted, their capacity to bargain for decent working conditions with their employers is truncated and their agency to pursue opportunities available to citizens and permanent residents is diminished. In contrast to recent assessments that Australia’s temporary visa system is working effectively, our analysis indicates that it is failing to protect temporary migrants at work. JEL Codes: J24, J61, J83

The marginalisation of migrants at work, especially those in industries and occupations characterised by low wages and low-skilled jobs, is a critical issue for scholarship, policy and practice. While the bulk of migration-related research and theory comes from other disciplines, the insights of employment relations perspectives are particularly valuable in explaining why vulnerability to marginalisation and mistreatment is so persistent for these groups of migrants. We explore this issue by reviewing the reasons why migrant workers, especially newly arrived and temporary migrants, are more vulnerable than other groups of workers, examining worker-focused, employer-focused and state-focused scholarship on this issue. After providing an overview of the articles published in the Journal of Industrial Relations special issue on ‘Migration and Work’, which relate to the theme of the persistent relationship between migrant labour and low-quality work, this introductory article uses insights drawn from our review to propose an agenda for future research.