Protection gap for migrant workers in the EU

Focus on working and living conditions for migrant workers and their families

Bucharest, 19 and 20 October 2017

Organisation: Euromf vzw
Financially supported by the European Union

Two years ago, during our seminar on 1 and 2 October 2015, we looked into the migration flow and its consequences for host countries and countries of origin. The lectures and discussions quickly made apparent that we had to expand on working and living conditions of labourers migrating within Europe and the effects on their families, and especially the children, who stayed behind. Consequently, we organised this seminar to deepen and broaden our knowledge.

Marianne Thyssen (European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility) spoke to those present by way of a video message. She went into the EU proposals that should be a first step to improvement and wished the participants a productive seminar.

Maria Mihaela Darle (Head of Social Department CARTEL ALFA) opened the seminar with a first challenge. She alerted us to the necessity to give foreign employees a voice too in the social dialogue via the labour unions, but she also raised the question how these employees can be motivated to join.

Dirk Coninckx (ACV Union of Construction and Industry, Belgium) demonstrated in his lecture the ingenuity of the complex systems that are set up to exploit Eastern European employees in Western European construction and transport companies by underpaying them and excluding them from social security. As a result, migrant employees who have an accident are often literally dumped into the street. Real video testimonies of lorry drivers added to the authenticity of his presentation.

The Belgian province of Limburg has a long history of labour migration, at the start mainly miners. Erwin De bruyn (Stebo) pointed out how the government at first took on a constructive role in providing social security and housing and how this led to a rapid improvement of the fate of the immigrants. The last decades however, the authorities stay completely at the side-line and the consequences of this attitude are detrimental, as becomes clear in -among other things- the lamentable housing of these new migrating employees.

The academic input was provided by Johan Wets, who, as a researcher connected to HIVA-KULeuven, already studied this topic very thoroughly. Presenting a lot of numbers and data, he gave an insight in the constantly increasing migration flow and showed that, when looking at various countries, one notices both rising and falling inclinations among them. He also went into the difficult question for a clear definition of who is a labour migrant. Or, on the other hand, are they often just European employees? The motives were analysed and the lack of policy was exposed.

The first day lectures were concluded with an insight in the Romanian everyday reality by Cristina Chert (Coordinator of the Open Network in Romania –an NGO supporting community development), who collaborates in the European RE-InVEST research programme. She explained the reasons for migrating, the exodus of villages and its consequences, and the observation that in the meantime a large return current has originated.
This speaker, by means of a number of examples, made us contemplate on how to look at these people. Are they parasites, victims or survivors?

In a final workshop a lot of time was spent at digesting the contents of the lectures in a participative and interactive manner and a goal-driven search for specific proposals to further expand a European social policy. A red thread in this matter surely is the necessity to also provide the necessary means for a permanent exchange of information about migration and the associated working and living conditions across country borders.

On Friday 20 October all attention was focused on families and especially children who remain behind. This part of the seminar was launched by a presentation by Ilze Trapenciere (researcher of The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia). She expanded upon the consequences for the children left behind and the influence on their upbringing and education. She also mentioned some positive initiatives. Her presentation was supplemented by the Ukrainian delegation who gave a draft of the problem in their country, but also stated they experienced that when parents are able to return to their family on a regular basis, far less problems can be identified. The Slovakian delegation contributed to the topic too, by explaining migration from their country.

Dr. Annik Lampo (Head of Department Child and Youth Psychiatry) described, based on her daily work and research, the consequences for children of being left behind by their parents working abroad. The importance of bonding and being together was expertly underlined and clarified from a psychiatric perspective. This speaker as well stressed the importance of creating possibilities to create regularly returning close contact opportunities. Having video talks is not a fully-fledged solution.

Arktos vzw is a Belgian NGO that has a considerable experience in dealing with youths and children who are somewhat abandoned by school, parents, the system. Dirk De Rijdt explains, based on practical experience, how he and his colleagues, step by step, and dealing with the most difficult youths, nevertheless travel a positive trajectory. This is a trial and error process that implies giving a whole lot of trust. The most effective way to keep on going is clearly to get the youths to start from what motivates them.

The second day as well was closed with a plenary workshop in which, based on the content of the lectures, a number of constructive proposals were drafted. The red thread surely was acknowledging the importance of addressing the problem of left behind children and make proposals to the EU to certainly start a policy on this issue. Among other things, this could be done by greater efforts in the host countries to keep the families of migrant employees together.

You can comprehensively re-read all the presentations on this website. Moreover, you can find accompanying documentation, videos, reports and specific proposals of the workshops.

Download this brief report in various languages:

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Protection gap for migrant workers in the EU

Focus on working and living conditions for migrant workers and their families

19 and 20 October 2017, Bucharest

Organisation: Euromf vzw
Supported financially by the European Union

Owing to the European unification we notice a continuously growing stream of labour migrants from low-wage countries to the richer countries of the EU.
This puts considerable pressure on pay and labour conditions and protection by social security in the host countries, resulting in quite some uncertainty and unrest, which in turn give cause for strong protest. As a result these issues are getting moved higher up on the European agenda.

But apart from these direct consequences there are lots of side effects that are less in the spotlights.
For example, in the countries of origin a lot of professional and technical knowledge disappears, which slows down the local economic development. Families are being separated and children grow up without role models (Euro Orphans). Often, in the host countries systems of exploitation come into existence in the fields of housing, health care and payment of wages and compensations.

The aim of this project is to map all components that determine the life of a labour migrant and to use this to bring about an awareness in the social partners and the EU policy makers to approach this issue from a broader perspective than just taking some measures for equal pay and labour conditions.
The side effects should be taken along in the further social dialogue.

At the moment the core business of the labour unions is still too much and too exclusively aimed at pay and labour conditions and protection by social security. However, labour should be seen as a part of life as a whole, and should serve as a lever for the social and economic development of the employee (in this case, the labour migrant) and his or her family.
The accompanying measures are equally important to the pay and labour conditions.

With this project we want to present an overview of the various components that play a part, directly and indirectly, in the life of a labour migrant in the EU. These elements concern both pay and labour conditions and protection by social security, and the accompanying consequences resulting -not always voluntarily- from this choice.

In the course of the project, experiences from the working area, research results and results of ongoing talks, will be listed and exchanged, also between the various host countries and countries of origin.
Issues being attended to will certainly be pay and labour conditions, mechanisms of exploitation, protection by social security, housing, health and protection, family issues, loss of economic developing power, etc.
As regards the various project themes, we want to cooperate with academics, field workers and trade union activists from the broad labourer’s movements.
A clarifying real-life example will be incorporated in the project.

During the seminar there will be ample time for participation and discussion in the plenary group. Discussion will take place in the plenary group because of the limited translation possibilities. We hope that discussion in the groups can lead to solutions, which we can present afterwards to the EU policymakers.

Download the invitation and the programme: