In January of 2004, George W. Bush proposed a new temporary worker program that would “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs.” He argued that this system would protect “decent, hard-working people” with labor laws, including the right to change jobs and earn fair wages, and that they would “enjoy the same working conditions that the law requires for American workers.” Against the prevailing view that any comprehensive immigration reform should include new or expanded guest worker programs based on similar principles to those laid out in Bush's proposal, Immanuel Ness argues that if these efforts succeed, conditions for all workers, immigrants and US-born workers alike, will significantly diminish.

Scholars and practitioners interested in labor migration, and particularly guest worker programs, will find in this book a cautionary argument against this policy option, mainly from the perspective of labor rights. For those familiar with Ness's previous book, Immigrants, Unions, and the New U.S. Labor Market (2005), it will not be surprising to find that one of his main concerns regarding guest worker programs is that given their “temporality” and the lack of government oversight regarding conditions of employment and housing, employers do not respect immigrant workers' rights and limit their ability to organize. This has led not only to declines in union membership but to what Ness identifies as an erosion of solidarity among all workers.

At the title suggests, the book is largely a critique of businesses that hire foreign-born guest workers under dire conditions. According to Ness, together with the US government, corporations have created a demand for exploitable foreign labor instead of raising wages and work conditions for US-born workers. He argues that US businesses promote guest worker programs “to reinforce control over a foreign labor force that will fear union organizing and is exposed to labor, workplace and human rights violations” (p. 3). Moreover, he describes the conditions of employment through US guest worker programs as onerous, exploitative, “as abusive as indentured servitude” (p. 3), and even worse than those that undocumented workers face given the ties that bind guest workers to their employers.

The usual justification for establishing guest worker programs is that native-born workers are unqualified or unwilling to take the jobs available, or that there are not enough workers to fill the gaps given demographic changes. Ness questions whether these alleged labor shortages actually exist or are rather a result of the US government's unwillingness to improve education and technical training programs in the sectors that have the highest demand for guest workers. Coupled with businesses' attempts to remain competitive by maintaining low wages and unfavorable working conditions, these conditions make these jobs undesirable for US workers that would presumably demand higher wages or better labor conditions. Furthermore, Ness claims that guest worker programs increase rates of unemployment and lower wages for the working class as a whole. However, this argument is weakened by the fact that he does not provide data to show a decline in wages or an increase in unemployment over time for a specific group, or in a specific sector or a state or city that has relied on guest worker programs in the US.

The book lacks a general overview of existing categories and data about guest worker programs in the US, as well as detailed information about how these programs operate and how their operations change over time. Hence, the reader is often presented with a denunciatory argument that lacks sufficient supporting evidence. When Ness does present evidence from his two case studies focused on Indian and Jamaican workers, a question also remains about whether the undeniably powerful and revealing stories he relays about cases of exploitation do reflect a larger trend. A more thorough explanation of his methods complemented with data about these programs, the workers that participate in them, and reports about abuse across time would strengthen the book's argument about the negative effects of guest worker programs.

Most critics of guest worker programs generally focus on those that target less skilled workers, but Ness makes a valuable contribution by focusing on both less skilled and highly skilled guest worker programs, building the case that onerous work arrangements and exploitive conditions exist in a range of occupations that hire foreign labor through these programs: from Internet technology and nursing to construction and hospitality. Through an ethnography of Indian workers in the IT industry and Jamaican workers in the hospitality industry, Ness brings to light examples of employer abuse and the vulnerability that some of these workers face as a result of the lack of oversight over their conditions of employment and the fact that they have limited access to options to defend their rights against such employers, either because they are afraid that they might be deported or not hired again, or because they have limited time available to engage in organizing or establishing ties with other workers given their temporary contract. As he develops these two case studies, which are rich in interview materials and, as a result the most compelling chapters of the book, Ness also engages with arguments about migration and development. His critique of the guest worker program scheme extends to the idea that these programs do not even promote development in the workers' home countries through remittances and do not improve living standards for the workers or their families, thus building on his larger point that neoliberalism is only benefiting capital—defined here as “a constellation of international upper-class interests and their corporate institutions” (p. 48)—while diminishing conditions for workers globally.

Although for all these reasons Ness suggests that guest worker programs should be eliminated and is critical of national labor organizations that have recently favored this policy, the alternatives he proposes for the protection of workers' rights are presented in the context of the continuation of these programs. Leaving aside solutions focused on state institutions such as improving monitoring mechanisms of these programs or creating options for guest workers with a path to permanent residency, Ness examines new forms of resistance outside of unions, such as IT workers using new technologies to create solidarity and denounce exploitation. He also explores the option of global labor solidarity through transnational labor organizations, drawing from the example of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), which other authors have analyzed more fully. Although he refers to this as a global issue, the author misses an opportunity to draw even brief comparisons with other cases. For example, are there are any guest worker programs in other countries that can be seen as positive examples, particularly with regard to unionization, or are there alternative modes of organization that have worked in other contexts? Are the trends Ness identifies in the US similar in other countries that rely on guest workers? What are the alternatives to guest worker programs in the short or long term?

As discussions about comprehensive immigration reform move forward in the wake of Obama's second term, Ness's book is a reminder about the need to critically evaluate each of the components of what is now commonly assumed as a package deal that has to balance the interests of businesses, unions, immigrant rights advocates, religious organizations and nativist groups, among others. This provocative work adds to the scholarly literature and policy-oriented research that warns against the implementation of guest worker programs without proper oversight or full consideration for all workers' rights. Moreover, it helps frame a much needed analysis about the alternatives to guest worker programs, taking into account the local, national and global conditions that create a demand for them in the first place.