25/01/2021 Wage theft: the missing middle in exploitation of migrant workers | openDemocracy in the actions of transnational criminal syndicates, as suggested in the UN Tra cking Protocol. Framing exploitation as resulting from criminality is a convenient distraction from an immensely uneven distribution of global wealth. By identifying individual cases of severe exploitation as unacceptable, the structural inequities are left largely unquestioned. A more transformative approach to these issues cannot be limited to extreme cases of exploitation that make international news headlines and trigger corporate social responsibility initiatives. Instead, it would necessarily have to engage with the everyday vulnerabilities to abuse that exist for the vast majority of migrant workers. Unlike the enigmatic issue of human tra cking, proven approaches for addressing wage theft against migrant workers already exist. Fundamentally, they involve increasing the power of migrant workers within their employment relationships so that they are less dependent and can assert their rights to equitable wages and working conditions. Expanded e orts to eliminate wage theft would ideally be part of a broader shift towards a labour rights approach to these issues. However, much of the empirical data available on exploitation of migrants suggests that improving the response to wage theft is a particularly pragmatic starting point. It would lead to better working conditions for the vast missing middle who experience more commonplace forms of abuse. The focus on a more equitable distribution of wages would redirect attention to a core issue at stake in the era of globalisation. Greater e orts to address wage theft against migrant workers would contribute to an expansion of social justice for a large segment of the world’s most vulnerable workers. That is something that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on counter-tra cking initiatives every year has so far failed to achieve. A longer version of this article rst appeared in Anti-Tra cking Review, issue 15. Related story https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/wage-theft-missing-middle-exploitation-migrant-workers/?utm_source=tw 6/12