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States often face immigration "control dilemmas" between popular pressures for tighter immigration controls versus economic pressures for more liberal work visa controls. Using a systematic process analysis of recent policy developments in Australia, this article argues that the Howard government's large expansion of "wanted" forms of immigration hinged upon its ability to control "unwanted" forms of immigration. The concept of "control signals" is introduced to account for the government's success in exiting an immigration control dilemma, which allowed it to pursue skilled immigration reforms that would have otherwise proven difficult. A research agenda is established for examining the conditions under which the use of control signals is likely to be successful and for applying the concept to other realms of public policy where states face control dilemmas.

AbstractThis article examines the benefits and costs of Australia's labour migration policies. While previous economics studies have demonstrated the efficiency‐related benefits of these policies, this article analyses the consequences for worker voice and equity, which employment relations scholars have identified as important labour market policy goals. We argue that the efficiency‐related benefits of labour migration policy reforms, particularly the expansion of temporary visa schemes, have been generated in part by barriers to temporary migrant workers' access to representation and social rights. This situation has contributed to an increase in the underpayment and mistreatment of temporary migrant workers by employers.

This article uses human capital theory to analyse employer motivations for recruiting skilled migrants on temporary sponsored visas, a group receiving limited attention within human resource management (HRM) scholarship despite being an increasingly important part of the workforce in many organisations and countries. We address this gap through a survey analysis of 1602 employer respondents who sponsored temporary skilled visa holders in Australia. The findings indicate that cost-effectiveness as a motivator for recruitment decisions can be achieved not only through HRM strategies to maximise worker productivity, as human capital theories emphasise, but also by identifying groups of workers perceived as harder working than other groups. The findings also draw attention to the role of government policy in this identification process, specifically visa regulations constraining the mobility of temporary sponsored skilled migrants, which allows employers to utilise these workers' human capital effectively.

AbstractDecent labour standards are a prerequisite for perceived justice and social cohesion. Insofar as they have been achieved in Britain in the past, it has been the result of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions. This has all but vanished in the private sector and, it is argued, there is no chance of its being revived. Upholding labour standards now lies in the provision of statutory individual employment rights. Experience with minimum wages provides some guidance on how these might be developed through social partnership arrangements. Once achieved, such rights amount to little without effective enforcement. Increasingly important for this is the use of the law and consumer campaigns to expose poor employment practices and complex supply chains so that offending employers can be held to account. If Britain is to avoid falling into a competitive 'race to the bottom' with Brexit, it must institute a robust means of implementing and enforcing decent labour standards.

Growing alarm has been expressed about populism in mainstream political parties, yet the vast majority of scholarship investigating populism has documented the role of radical right populist parties rather than that of mainstream parties. This article draws on non-essentialist understandings of populism—the idea that populism is a central aspect of democracy and not restricted to the realm of radical political parties and "populist" leaders—to examine how mainstream political leaders discursively articulate the antagonism between "the people" and the institutional order. We also examine how mainstream party leaders, who are likely to be deeply embedded in the institutional order, negotiate tensions between the institutionalized system and populist articulation. We study this in the Australian context, which is appropriate for examining populism in mainstream political parties given that far-right and far-left parties have gained much smaller shares of electoral support in Australia than elsewhere. Our findings indicate that mainstream party leaders discursively construct the idea of "the people" by homogenizing disparate social demands and claiming their right to represent the community as a whole. In doing so, these leaders must negotiate pressures from the institutionalized order in the form of clientelism and accountability. This article contributes insights on the reconciliation of contemporary populism with institutionalized settings and processes.

Temporary migrants comprise a substantial component of the Australian workforce. Evidence of the tensions and contradictions in Australia's reliance on temporary migrant workers was spotlighted during the COVID-19 global health crisis, particularly with regards to the actions and responsibilities of key players in the attraction, recruitment, deployment and ultimately abandonment of these workers. In this article, we interrogate the public framing of temporary migrant workers within the context of the pandemic. We employ a discourse analysis and build upon theories of precarity and dehumanisation. In doing so we demonstrate how the precarious state within which temporary migrant workers found themselves saw them cast as a dehumanised and unwelcome 'other', a burden to the labour market, the state and the broader society.

This article seeks to examine the role of life course in understanding job quality. It uses a qualitative case study analysis of Australian restaurants and reveals how chefs at different life stages can subjectively perceive the same objective job characteristics differently. The findings extend pre-existing knowledge by demonstrating how workers' subjective perceptions of job quality are shaped by their life stages.

This article analyses the function of temporary sponsored skilled migrants in Australian hospitality, an industry with acute difficulties attracting and retaining skilled workers. Drawing upon survey data, the findings indicate that rather than utilising temporary sponsored skilled migration to source hard skills, as assumed within the extant literature, employers' recruitment practices are motivated by a desire to source soft skills and labour perceived as relatively controllable, productive and reliable. In explaining these findings, the article develops new insights regarding the dependence of temporary sponsored skilled migrants on their employer sponsors and the industry effects of hospitality. These factors make these workers a relatively more attractive source of labour and shape the nature of employer demand.