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Migrant farm worker, New York

A migrant worker is someone who regularly works away from home, if they even have a home.^[1]

Although the United Nations' this term overlaps with 'foreign worker', the use of the term within the United States is more specific. In the United States, the term is most commonly used to describe low-wage workers performing manual labor in the agriculture field. Today in Europe and the United States these are often immigrants who are not working on valid work visas. In England, the epithet "fruit bum" has been used to refer to migrant workers who travel on freight trains and work in orchards. The United States has enacted the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act - 29 U.S. Code Chapter 21to remove the restraints on commerce caused by activities detrimental to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers; to require farm labor contractors to register; and to assure necessary protections for migrant and seasonal agricultural workers, agricultural associations, and agricultural employers.

The term migrant worker sometimes may be used to describe any worker who moves from one seasonal job to another.^[1] This use is generally confined to lower-wage fields, perhaps because the term has been indelibly linked with low-wage farmworkers and illegal immigrants.^[1] Examples of professions which could be called migrant workers, some of them quite lucrative, include: Electricians in the construction industry; other construction workers who travel from one construction job to another, often in different cities; wildland firefighters in the western United States; temporary/roving consulting work; and possibly even interstate truck drivers.

In America's history, starting at the end of the American Civil War, hobos were the migrant workers who performed much of this agricultural work, using freight railroads as their means of transportation to new jobs. During the collapse of capitalism in the Great Depression, so-called Okies who fled the dust bowl were a significant source of temporary farm labor. Cf. The Grapes of Wrath.

It is also used currently for workers from China's impoverished west who go to work in the more prosperous east. People like Wang Binyu, whose case became newsworthy in 2005. According to State statistics, the current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 150 million, that is to say nearly 11.5% of the population. China’s urban migrants sent home the equivalent of almost 30 billion US$ in 2005.

The "United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families"^[2] defines migrant worker as follows:

This Convention has been ratified by Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines (amongst many other nations that supply foreign labour) but it has not been ratified by the United States, Germany and Japan (amongst other nations that depend on cheap foreign labour). For an up to date listing of ratifications and signatories visit this special page on the website of December 18, the International Advocacy and Resource Centre on the Human Rights of Migrant Workers.

• Cesar Chavez migrant worker organizer in US
• Raj Chouhan migrant worker union organizer in Canada
• Patrick Chamusso migrant worker union organizer in South Africa
• Army of Hope
• PoliticosLatinos.com Videos of 2008 US Presidential Election Candidates' Positions regarding Immigration
• December 18 Multilingual site on migrants' rights issues.

• Dust bowl migrants (Okies)
• In China, Filmmakers Get Involved with Migrant Workers
• China Labour Bulletin
• Beijing's Min Gong migrants
• Article from China View on Chinese migrant workers
• More statistics and datas about menial employment in China
• Voices of Yi Migrant Workers - Interviews in Chinese of Migrants from Sichuan in China