Origin Country Bargaining over Improved Conditions for Migrant Domestic Workers

• In Event: Migrant Workers and Sending State Relations

Abstract

What can origin countries to do improve the conditions of their low-waged migrant workers abroad? In a world in which low-waged migrant workers are perceived to be in oversupply, migrant origin countries seemingly have a weak bargaining position. Moreover, origin countries’ efforts carry risks. One of the main tools at origin countries disposal is the announcement of occupation-specific or wholesale migration bans. Yet bans often increase the vulnerability of migrants workers rather than reducing it (Shivakoti et al., 2021). Pushing for changes for migrant workers may also lead to a deterioration of the overall bilateral relation with the destination country. Despite these risks, previous research has documented several cases in which origin countries successfully bargained to improve the conditions of their low-waged migrant workers.
The aim of this paper is to increase our understanding of the sources of leverage origin countries have in negotiations with destination countries. We do this by examining two sets of multi-year negotiations on working conditions for migrant domestic workers between the Philippines and Kuwait and between Indonesia and Malaysia. Building on work by Tsourapas (2018) and Malit & Tsourapas (2021), this paper examines how the negotiations enfolded through the lens of migration interdependence. We look at cross-field migration interdependence and analyse how migration was leveraged against other policy fields. We also look at within-field migration interdependence by analysing the presence of plausible alternative source countries and destination countries. Data come from case reports and elite interviews conducted in the Philippines and Indonesia between 2018 and 2024.
The Philippines economy is much more reliant on remittances than that of Indonesia (10% vs 1 % of GDP), but the Philippines also has a larger labour migration infrastructure and more experience with bilateral negotiations than Indonesia. In both cases, negotiations took place over multiple years and in both origin countries used migration bans as a bargaining tool at multiple stages of the negotiations and to varying effect.
In January 2018 the Philippine Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) called a ban on deployment of Filipino migrant workers to Kuwait. The ban was instituted pending the investigation of the death of seven Filipino workers who died in Kuwait. Barely two weeks after the announcement of the deployment ban, the body of Joanna Demafelis, a domestic worker from the Philippines, was found in a freezer in Kuwait. The Philippines escalated the diplomatic tensions by publicly announcing its diplomats had rescued domestic workers from Kuwaiti homes. The two countries signed a Memorandum of Agreement on the employment of domestic workers in May 2018 and the Philippines lifted the deployment ban. In January 2020 the Philippines issued another deployment ban for domestic workers travelling to Kuwait. In 2023 Kuwait responded by introducing ban on migrants from the Philippines in all professions. Several months later the Philippines lifted the ban on domestic worker migration to Kuwait without having agreed a new MoU.
Indonesia started negotiations with Malaysia after the severe mistreatment of a young migrant domestic worker in 2004 sparked outrage. A MoU signed in 2006 offered little protection to workers and abuse cases continued. After Indonesia imposed a ban in 2009 an amendment protocol was agreed in 2011. While the amendment offered improvements in some areas, it weakened the position of Indonesian migrant domestic workers on other fronts. Continued efforts by Indonesia drew little response from the Malaysian government. The movement restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic changed the power dynamics between the two countries, most importantly by increasing Malaysia’s dependence on Indonesian migrant workers in the palm-oil sector. In 2022, the countries signed a new MoU that offers a higher level of protection to domestic workers.
The findings suggest that migration bans can be successfully used as bargaining tool when destination countries have few alternative sources of labour – or if those alternative sources are seen as lower quality or difficult to access. It thus confirms the utility of migration interdependence as framework for understanding bilateral negotiations on labour migration. The findings also show that that low-waged migrant workers are not as replaceable as is often asserted.

Authors

• Annisa Sekaringrat, University of Amsterdam

• Evelyn Ersanilli, University of Amsterdam