Labor Exploitation in Tech’s Immigrant Information Technology Workforce

• In Event: Individual-Level Research Labor Force Participation, Drug Use, and Crime.

Abstract

There is a national-level political dialogue about whether immigrant information technology workers at major tech companies experience indentured servitude. While this issue is gaining public attention, there is still only a small body of literature on this topic; little is known about these workers’ experiences and less about the factors that lead to exploitation. Drawing insights from critical criminology and digital studies, I seek to answer the following questions: how do foreign national information technology workers experience exploitation, and what mechanisms allow for exploitation? I leverage data from 30 interviews with workers and their support networks to answer my research questions. My findings show that many workers utilize brokers and often face exploitation when entering into these arrangements, which can include multiple levels of subcontracting. Here, workers encounter wage theft, fraud, and debt bondage. I find that subcontracting schemes intersect with the exclusion and criminalization of immigrants and create complex issues when workers interact with immigration agencies and other institutions. The intersection of these issues furthers worker precarity and immobility. I argue that exploitation in tech’s subcontracting immigrant worker population connects to a system that excludes and criminalizes immigrants—a finding that has implications for labor and immigration policy. 

Author

• Dylan O'Donoghue, Rutgers University-Camden