Savoie considers the war of reform waged by the leaders of these major industrial countries. Reagan declared that he had come to Washington to “drain the swamp” of bureaucracy, and set up the Grace Commission to investigate the operation of the U.S. government. Thatcher and Mulroney were equally committed to reform and initiated wide-ranging changes. By the end of the 1990s, the changes were dramatic. Many governments operations had been privatized in all three countries, and new management techniques had been introduced. In Great Britain, one observer judged that the changes were historically as important as the collapse of Keynesian economics.
Is government now better in these countries, and was political leadership right in focusing on management of the bureaucracy as the villain? Savoie suggests that the reforms overlooked problems now urgently requiring attention and, at the same time, attempted to address non-existent problems. He combines theory and research based on sixty-two interviews, nearly all with members of the executive branch of the governments of Britain, Canada and the United States.
From its inception in 1966, the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) has grown to employ approximately 20,000 workers annually, the majority from Mexico. The program has been hailed as a model that alleviates human rights concerns because, under contract, SAWP workers travel legally, receive health benefits, contribute to pensions, are represented by Canadian consular officials, and rate the program favorably. Tomorrow We’re All Going to the Harvest takes us behind the ideology and examines the daily lives of SAWP workers from Tlaxcala, Mexico (one of the leading sending states), observing the great personal and family price paid in order to experience a temporary rise in a standard of living. The book also observes the disparities of a gutted Mexican countryside versus the flourishing agriculture in Canada, where farm labor demand remains high.
Drawn from extensive surveys and nearly two hundred interviews, ethnographic work in Ontario (destination of over 77 percent of migrants in the author’s sample), and quantitative data, this is much more than a case study; it situates the Tlaxcala-Canada exchange within the broader issues of migration, economics, and cultural currents. Bringing to light the historical genesis of “complementary” labor markets and the contradictory positioning of Mexican government representatives, Leigh Binford also explores the language barriers and nonexistent worker networks in Canada, as well as the physical realities of the work itself, making this book a complete portrait of a provocative segment of migrant labor.
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