Browsing by Author "Yin, Xiaoqing"

In the era of globalisation, uneven development among regions facilitates and fuels the flow of capital to cheap-labour developing countries. Simultaneously, labour from the global South is swarming into the well-paid global North. The influx of immigrant labour plays a unique role in the informal sectors and is the cause of the boom of the ethnic economy in the receiving countries. At the same time, the debate on exploitation of these immigrants in developed countries like Finland is ongoing. This essay uses in-depth interviews and participatory observation to examine the reasons shaping the gap between the local labour legislation and actual practice. It further seeks to investigate the factors that facilitate the exploitation of immigrant workers as well as potential obstacles to defending their rights, using the example of Chinese immigrant labour. After three months of intensive interactions with Chinese victims of labour exploitation and project workers from the Chinese Victim Support project, this thesis concludes that Chinese immigrant labour’s weak bargaining power in the local labour market is conditioned by the institutional legal set-up, the exclusiveness of the dual labour market and immigrant labour’s dependency on the ethnic economy as well as ineffective Trade Union support. This essay will further outline potential areas of improvement for external institutions, e.g. authorities, Trade Unions and NGOs to monitor the implementation of Collective Agreements and to incorporate immigrant workers into the available labour protection system. These factors lead to a low-wage competition among ethnic Chinese economy and further facilitate the vicious circle of co-ethnic exploitation. The improvement of the situation requires more efficient cooperation and regulation between all the institutional forces, enhanced regulations as well as awareness raising among the victims themselves.