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Foreign workers holding H‐1B visas gained recourse to federal employment rights under the Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) for the very first time when Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT90). This paper examines H‐1B employment rights enforcement under the INA as it has intersected with broader features of the American legal system: what political scientists call judicial retrenchment and the quasi‐judicial state. I first show how H‐1B rights, already limited by the domestic politics that shaped the IMMACT, became subject to judicial retrenchment when the federal courts confined H‐1B disputes under the INA to the quasi‐judicial state at the Department of Labor (DOL). I then use published data on DOL investigation outcomes, published and unpublished administrative case records, and judicial cases reviewing agency action to examine the extent to which and how H‐1B workers can use the quasi‐judicial state to solve workplace problems. My empirical findings contribute to a new understanding of the relationship between rights retrenchment, the judiciary, and the rise of alternatives to court in immigration and employment law and point to possible fine‐grained changes for future immigration reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have largely interrogated the challenges of workforce casualisation in Nigeria with sparse attention to the reactions of the trade unions to this work arrangement. The paper, therefore, explores the survival strategies of trade union to employment casualisation in the Nigerian beverage sector. It explores the narratives of trade union relevance amidst increased informalisation, and the efficacy of its strategies. The Marxist conflict theory was employed as a theoretical leaning to understand labour unions' position in contending with management exploitations in the workplace. A total of 12 trade union officials were selected for interviews through purposive and convenient sampling. The study found a diminishing trade union relevance with the increasing spate of informalisation, while the collective bargaining strategy of the union was hardly utilised in addressing employment casualisation, although education and (re)training programmes show a positive outlook. The study takes the position for a review of the Nigerian labour laws, specifically the Trade Union Act of 2005 as amended, as no provisions in this legislation give recognition to casual employment, an act that is further hampering trade unions' strategic effort in ensuring a decent workplace for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]