Doctoral Dissertation Research: From Agriculture to Information Technology: American Guestworkers and the Law in Flexible Labor Markets

本论文项目考察了美国通过临时外国人就业管理法律构成的法律实践的类型。联邦行政部门对农业和紧急客工的雇佣合同的执行可以追溯到20世纪40年代；然而，直到20世纪90年代，非农业客工才可以求助于这些保护措施，以帮助解决就业问题。随着越来越多的非农业外来务工人员进入和退出“新自由主义工作场所”(即灵活劳动)，我们看到就业保护的循环以及国家在这一领域的争端处理和法律动员的增加。然而，与此同时，雇主的解雇权几乎是绝对的。与以前的客工项目不同，雇主解雇客工不需要行政听证会。在PI的监督下，研究生将调查较老的临时农业和紧急就业框架如何影响当代工作场所灵活劳动的现行法律法规。与关于新自由主义劳动法规的学术研究相反，这位博士研究生认为，灵活的工作场所不是“不受监管的劳动角落”，而是国家正在“推出”一种针对私人雇佣合同的最低限度强制执行形式的领域。这项研究借鉴了历史上的社会法律方法，重点研究了不同时间和不同劳动部门之间纠纷处理的差异，以及客工对雇主提出/提出的索赔类型。通过法律人类学的研究，本文考察了雇主的权力如何塑造客工对其权利的认知。最终，本研究探讨了一个未被研究的领域，即国家监管发展、劳动法和法律索赔。这项研究为拟议的客工政策和法律提供了历史背景，将现有的法律实践纳入了关于法律设计和工作场所正义的辩论。

This dissertation project examines the type of legal practice that is constituted through temporary alien employment regulatory laws in the United States. Federal administrative enforcement of agricultural and emergency guestworkers' employment contracts dates to the 1940s; however, it is only since the 1990s that non-agricultural guestworkers can turn to these protections for help with employment problems. As more and more non-agricultural guestworkers enter and exit "neoliberalized workplaces" (that is, flexible labor), we see the circulation of employment protections as well as an increase in state dispute processing and mobilization of law in this area. Yet, at the same time, an employer's right to terminate is almost absolute. Unlike in previous guestworker programs, an administrative hearing is not required for an employer to fire a guestworker employee.Under the supervision of the PI, the dissertation student will investigate how the older, temporary agricultural and emergency employment framework shapes current legal regulations of flexible labor across contemporary workplaces. Contrary to scholarship on neoliberal labor regulation, the dissertation student argues that flexible workplaces are not "unregulated corners of labor," but rather areas where the state is "rolling out" a minimalist form of enforcement over private employment contracts. Drawing upon historical sociolegal methods, the research focuses on variations in dispute processing across time and labor sectors and the kinds of claims guestworkers have filed/make against their employers. Through legal anthropological research, this dissertation examines how the power of employers shapes guestworkers' perceptions of their entitlements.Ultimately, this research approaches an unstudied area of state regulatory development, employment law, and legal claims-making. The research provides a historical context for proposed pending guestworker policies and laws, bringing existing legal practices into the debate about legal design and workplace justice.