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Essential Work, Disposable Workers: Migration, Capitalism and Class
Across the world we are witnessing daily the lethal effects of a rapid and scary hardening of borders, ignited and justified by manufactured fear and scarcity. In such conditions, highly exploitative ideas of “managed migration” are presented as reasonable and just.
And temporary worker programs, championed by countries like Canada and the US, are presented as an acceptable response to both acute labour shortages and ugly nationalist feelings. For this, all workers pay the price in the form of dwindling rights and diminished solidarity. This book is the result of decades of thinking, organizing and deep research on the global struggle for equality and freedom in and against an increasingly walled world. Through this immediate and up-close account, Henaway takes the reader on a journey across a familiar consumer landscape of corporate power — from Amazon and Dollarama to chicken farms and late night rideshares —offering a vivid analysis of the consequences of a system built to marginalize, exploit and divide people through the creation of exclusionary categories of belonging.
In Essential Work, Disposable Workers, Henaway offers a counter proposal to the global border, arguing that we reject control over freedom of movement as a means to halt a race to the bottom for all working people and instead build solidarity across struggles for decent work and justice. In this moving account of a global system of hyper-exploitation, Henaway weaves stories of struggle with his own on-the-ground experience and expansive research, to explain the workings of a global system of managed precarity that affects everyone who works, albeit unequally. Written with the unique verve and insight of a committed scholar and decades-long grassroots organizer, Essential Work, Disposable Workers offers a vivid analysis to help us grasp the cruel consequences of borders and points to an alternative future.
And temporary worker programs, championed by countries like Canada and the US, are presented as an acceptable response to both acute labour shortages and ugly nationalist feelings. For this, all workers pay the price in the form of dwindling rights and diminished solidarity. This book is the result of decades of thinking, organizing and deep research on the global struggle for equality and freedom in and against an increasingly walled world. Through this immediate and up-close account, Henaway takes the reader on a journey across a familiar consumer landscape of corporate power — from Amazon and Dollarama to chicken farms and late night rideshares —offering a vivid analysis of the consequences of a system built to marginalize, exploit and divide people through the creation of exclusionary categories of belonging.
In Essential Work, Disposable Workers, Henaway offers a counter proposal to the global border, arguing that we reject control over freedom of movement as a means to halt a race to the bottom for all working people and instead build solidarity across struggles for decent work and justice. In this moving account of a global system of hyper-exploitation, Henaway weaves stories of struggle with his own on-the-ground experience and expansive research, to explain the workings of a global system of managed precarity that affects everyone who works, albeit unequally. Written with the unique verve and insight of a committed scholar and decades-long grassroots organizer, Essential Work, Disposable Workers offers a vivid analysis to help us grasp the cruel consequences of borders and points to an alternative future.
- GenresPoliticsLaborNonfiction
320 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 20, 2023
6 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 22, 2023
An urgent and "essential" read for those in the contemporary labour movement in Canada and the world. Henaway draws lessons from a life lived in struggle for migrants rights and for justice in the workplace, and synthesizes experience and theory expertly. He makes a clear case for the necessity of migrant justice organising, and the abolition of unjust border and immigration regimes-- not just for the workers crossing these borders, but for the working class as a whole. It is and will be crucial in our fight for decent, dignified working conditions, and power over our work and lives.
The book moves quickly, and is well written. Compact, and compelling. Excellent work from Henaway and the team at Fernwood.
The book moves quickly, and is well written. Compact, and compelling. Excellent work from Henaway and the team at Fernwood.
December 4, 2024
I started this book as a stop gap until my next book arrived… I quickly realized that it was more (and better) than that. “Essential Work Disposable Workers” intrinsically links the struggle for migration permanency and the struggle of the working class in Canada and around the globe. A fantastic, if short, read!
December 6, 2024
Learned a lot about the specific exploitation of migrant labour in Canada and the utility of workers centres as an adjunct to union labour organizing.
June 30, 2025
An outstanding read rooted in the author's own organising and experiences over the past two decades analysing the dialectic of migrant workers being both essential and disposable under global capitalism and centring their struggles amid this context.
This context is one of a mutually reinforcing cycle of remittances and migration in which countries in the Global South are trapped in a development path of remittance dependency, which necessarily also requires the export of labour with far-reaching implications: as opposed to seeking other forms of state policy to redress inequalities created by capitalist development, countries are locked into a model of labour export that separates families, destroys communities and lacks concern for workers' livelihoods.
Migrant workers have not only been shaped by global capitalism, but have now become central to propping it up: the capitalist drive for profit requires an ever-expanding, disposable, exploitable workforce - essential as labour, disposable as humans.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in migrant labour
This context is one of a mutually reinforcing cycle of remittances and migration in which countries in the Global South are trapped in a development path of remittance dependency, which necessarily also requires the export of labour with far-reaching implications: as opposed to seeking other forms of state policy to redress inequalities created by capitalist development, countries are locked into a model of labour export that separates families, destroys communities and lacks concern for workers' livelihoods.
Migrant workers have not only been shaped by global capitalism, but have now become central to propping it up: the capitalist drive for profit requires an ever-expanding, disposable, exploitable workforce - essential as labour, disposable as humans.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in migrant labour
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews