Underpaid and Unrecognized

Abstract This book examines a growing yet overlooked sector of workers whose labour is characterized as ‘informal’ due to limited or lack of access to labour rights and protections despite being initiated, organized, and regulated by the state. Focusing on prison workers, workfare participants, immigration detainees, and interns, the book argues that these forms of labour constitute a system of state-organized ‘unfree’ labour that benefits both public authorities and private corporations. Rather than existing outside state oversight, these labour relations are actively produced through intersecting regimes of welfare, immigration, criminal justice, and labour market policy. Using a socio-legal and jurisprudential approach, the book interrogates how and why these workers are formally denied recognition as ‘employees’ or ‘workers’. It explores the boundaries between free and unfree labour, analysing the structural conditions and coercive pressures that compel individuals to accept exploitative work. The book also addresses the broader political economy of privatized state functions and their reliance on cheap, unregulated labour. Finally, it advances legal, institutional, and collective strategies to reduce exploitation, including reconceptualizing work and worker status, expanding labour rights, and securing basic needs beyond the wage–work bargain.