Foreign workers – a vital and neglected pillar of Europe’s economy

“With out international labour, some industries can’t survive.” The remark made by France’s solidarity minister Aurore Bergé in early September 2023 brought on a stir. As France debates a brand new immigration invoice, the thought of regularising undocumented staff in short-staffed industries is creating controversy. And but the French authorities’s plan is way from any opening of borders. As a substitute, it defends the concept that some types of migration have to be drastically diminished, however that this doesn’t essentially concern labour migration. The road may be very a lot in vogue, if the debates below approach in different European international locations are something to go by.

“Politicians try to strike a steadiness between labour shortages on the one hand and immigration restrictions on the opposite”, emphasises a report revealed in June 2023 by the European Commerce Union Institute (ETUI). The examine analyses the social-security methods of 26 European international locations. On this context, the employees most affected are irregular. “So far as employment legislation is worried, undocumented staff have, in precept, the identical rights as another worker”, explains Marie-Laure Morin, a labour-law specialist and former volunteer with a migrant assist affiliation.

“Nevertheless, if the employer terminates the job contract as a result of the worker is in an irregular state of affairs, that termination is by its very nature justified and the worker shouldn’t be entitled to any compensation. Equally, the worker doesn’t profit from maternity safety, or the safety of a commerce union towards dismissal if she or he is a workers delegate or elected consultant. The irregularity of his or her state of affairs takes priority over the authorized protections.”

Standing is the primary supply of rights for foreigners, and it’s usually linked to employment. This case creates a excessive degree of dependence on the employer.

A two-tier coverage

Above all, the European Union has launched into a coverage that differentiates in line with staff’ occupations and {qualifications}. The goal is to spice up authorized immigration of highly-skilled staff – and to crack down on the irregular selection. “We would like those that work, not those that take”, was how France’s inside minister Gérald Darmanin summed it up in December 2022. Among the many key measures: the creation of a residence allow for “jobs in brief provide”, resembling in lodges and catering, building, cleansing or dwelling assist.

‘I by no means spent greater than three months with out working. However now that I’ve a piece allow, many employers don‘t need to take me on, as a result of it prices them extra’ – Drissa , an undocumented employee

At European degree, on 7 October 2021 the European Council adopted the “blue card” directive for extremely certified staff from third international locations. This admission system, which has regularly been rolled out within the member states, is designed to draw and retain staff in sectors the place there’s a scarcity. To realize this, guidelines have been loosened in order to facilitate mobility inside the EU, make household reunification extra versatile, and simplify procedures for employers. One other current reform is the one work and residence allow. In March 2023, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties adopted a textual content to replace the directive in query. This would supply for a single administrative process for issuing permits to third-country nationals. The permits would then be prolonged to seasonal staff and people benefiting from temporary-protection standing.

In its report revealed shortly afterwards (in June 2023), the ETUI identified that “sure parts of EU legislation, such because the Single Allow Directive, permit sure staff (e.g. these staying within the nation for lower than six months) to be exempted from their scope, and the Fee has recognized no fewer than 18 member states as exercising this feature”.

Based on the researchers, migrants from third international locations who come to work within the European Union for brief durations are disadvantaged of healthcare, unemployment insurance coverage and pension rights. As a basic rule, social-security advantages are reserved for individuals who have been resident in a member state for a minimum of one 12 months. In Germany, for instance, employers will not be obliged to pay social-security contributions – as required by nationwide legislation – for seasonal staff who don’t work for greater than 102 days. Nevertheless, seasonal agricultural staff from Ukraine, Georgia or the Balkans are not often lined by social safety in their very own nation of origin.

European aspiration vs. nationwide insurance policies

The ultimate say at all times lies with the member states, given the discretionary energy they’ve over immigration and labour legislation. “Even in areas the place there are European devices regulating immigration (seasonal work, blue playing cards, intra-company transfers), third-country nationals are confronted with all kinds of conditions by way of their social-security rights”, say the authors of the report. But regularisation and entry to a long-term residence allow are removed from commonplace. In Italy, as in France, protest actions by international staff typically result in waves of regularisation. In France, round 100 undocumented staff on the Olympic Video games building websites had been lately regularised by the Seine-Saint-Denis prefecture, with the assistance of a neighborhood department of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT). Having arrived in France fourteen years in the past, Drissa had beforehand been working below a false id that prevented him from paying contributions. “I by no means spent greater than three months with out working. However now that I’ve a piece allow, many employers do not need to take me on, as a result of it prices them extra.”

In opposition to this background, one resolution is perhaps to organise migrant staff collectively and defend them at European degree. In follow, nonetheless, commerce unions level to the issue of implementation. The ETUI report mentions the case of the Swedish labour market, the place staff are protected by collective agreements and trade-union membership. “However third-country nationals are sometimes employed in sectors with a low protection charge, or in firms that aren’t affiliated to employers’ organisations, and subsequently fall outdoors the scope of collective agreements. This doubtlessly exposes these staff to substandard working circumstances”, level out the authors.

A related textual content has existed for many years: The Worldwide Conference on the Safety of the Rights of All Migrant Staff, 1990 is a reference treaty on this situation. “Nonetheless, the Conference is without doubt one of the most uncared for texts in worldwide human-rights legislation and no main Western vacation spot nation has ratified it”, wrote Matthieu Tardis, co-founder of the Synergie Migrations affiliation and a specialist in European migration and refugee insurance policies, in 2019. Based on this specialist, Western international locations see the settlement as a pro-immigration instrument that undermines their sovereignty.

Political exploitation

The migration pact introduced by the European Fee on 23 September 2020 has not modified the state of affairs both. It establishes a legally non-binding framework for cooperation, and proposes a sequence of actions from which member states can select to attain the goals they deem to be priorities. Whereas the pact is described as “comfortable legislation”, it might have a progressive impact by encouraging international locations to cooperate. Nonetheless, the states proceed to dominate migration insurance policies at nationwide, regional, bilateral and subsequently worldwide degree.

“This domination is fuelled by the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, but additionally by the declining religion in multilateralism as a way of resolving worldwide issues”, feedback Matthieu Tardis. He believes that Europe has slipped “from an method primarily based on human rights to at least one that focuses on the administration of migratory flows”.

“An increasing number of politicians are blaming the legislation for being too protecting of migrants”, observes the researcher. “Regardless of welcoming 4 million Ukrainians in 2022, the EU is unwilling to think about any coverage apart from the one which has not labored for 20 years. The acute politicisation of migration points in a context of polarised societies is producing the institutional impasse we’re in”, he concludes.