Occupational Health, Safety and Well Being of New Migrant Workers

Dear Colleagues

Global changes to business practices in the last 35 years, like frequent downsizing/restructuring by large private and public sector employers, privatization and outsourcing have led to fundamental shifts in work arrangements that include a steady erosion of ‘standard employment’ (ongoing full-time employment) and an increase in the incidence of precarious employment.  Scholars refer to precarious employment as a cumulative combination of atypical employment contracts, limited social benefits, poor statutory entitlements, short term, low wages and poor job security. Precarious employment poses a high occupational health and safety (OH&S) risk as it often involves physically demanding jobs, hazardous work settings, stressful psychosocial working environments and increased workload. A significant proportion of the labor force that takes up precarious employment in countries like Canada and the United States are new migrants with or without permanent resident status. Their vulnerability to exploitation and work-related accidents/illness is often exacerbated by factors like language barriers, difficulty finding work that is in keeping with their overseas qualifications, lack of work experience in the host country , poor awareness of OH&S legislation, entitlements and protections. With the onset of COVID 19, many migrant employees, especially those who lack permanent status face additional challenges. They are forced to live and work in conditions that increase their exposure to the deadly virus.  Although several host countreis have legislation to protect employees, this becomes ineffective due to weak labor market regulations and current work arrangements that favor employers. These conditions can have adverse personal, social and economic consequences.  There is a significant need for research that examines the perspectives of workers, and other stakeholders on how to improve OH&S and working conditions for migrant employees  who are forced to take up precarious employment.

The aim of this Special Issue is to publish original manuscripts on the OH&S experiences and challenges of migrant workers in countries like Canada and the United States that accept a large number of migrants every year.  We invite contributions from researchers and practitioners from a wide array of disciplines including, social work, occupational therapy, biomedical and social sciences, history, psychology, public health, cultural, and legal studies. The contributions of authors can be conceptual, empirical, methodological, as well as story- or arts-based contributions that respond to practice, research and pedagogy. We look forward to receiving manuscripts that document original research, successful practice interventions, stories of inspiration, community-engaged research with migrant workers and families, ethnographies, and creative approaches to conveying knowledge about occupational health and safety and improving work arrangements and conditions for migrant workers. We envision that this Special Issue will also shed light on the pressures associated with precarious employment and the consequential health and work family balance difficulties.  Our hope is that this Special Issue will serve as a resource for future generations of scholars, educators, practitioners and innovators.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:

• Migrant workers perspectives on their work arrangements and conditions.
• Migrant workers’ understanding of OH&S and related legislation
• OH& S challenges faced by recent migrants
• Approaches to educating migrant workers about OH &S and employment standards, their responsibilities and entitlements and employers’ responsibility for creating safe and culturally friendly work environments.
• Challenges to achieving work family life balance for new migrant workers in precarious employment.
• Service providers perspectives on improving OH &S for migrant workers
• Reconceptualizing preventive regulatory approaches to improve protection from workplace hazards and injury for migrant workers, including monitoring and enforcement of OH& S standards.
• Approaches to improve cultural sensitivity of employers

Dr. Janki Shankar
Dr. Shu Ping Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Occupational Health & Safety
• New Migrant Workers