The Employment System Relating to Temporary Foreign Workers: The Topography of a Multiparty Wage Relationship

Temporary migration programs are a manifestation of the international division of labour that is reflected in the movement of productive agents. Temporary foreign workers and their employers are part of a unique employment system that is characterized by game mechanisms involved during the formation, implementation and termination of the wage relationship. If these games are inextricably linked to the legal rules regulating the wage relationship, they also stem from the practices and strategies deployed by the actors interacting within the employment system. However, some of these actors have the ability to occupy a unique place at the scene of the action, with the significance of their action plans being directly proportional to the nature and scope of the role they play in the employment system. This article presents the results of a field study that identified the contours of the employment system in which Guatemalan agricultural workers were hired through the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. This research shows how actors, who can be exogenous or endogenous to the labour field, organize their capacity for action. Hence, if the action of some actors is constrained by the effect of geographic and system boundaries, an empirical understanding of the employment system studied also shows a mismatch between the legal power granted to the employer under labour law and the strategic power that is available to certain actors who are external to the labour field. To conclude, this article provides an overview of the ways in which this multiparty context has consequences for the wage relationship studied.