Development & Aid, Economy & Trade, Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Labour, Migration & Refugees, Population

EUROPE: New Punishment Planned for Hiring Migrant Workers

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Jul 16 2008 (IPS) - Efforts by the European Union to penalise employers who hire unauthorised immigrants have drawn criticism from both business lobbyists and trade unionists.

Next week the EU’s justice and interior ministers will consider a proposed legal directive that seeks to introduce common rules across the bloc to deal with the employment of foreigners lacking permission to be on the EU’s territory. Such people are described as illegal immigrants in official EU statements, even though few of them have been convicted of any offence.

When putting forward the original draft of the directive last year, the European Commission contended that because much work undertaken by immigrants is undeclared, it can lead to losses in tax revenues, harm general wages and working conditions, and result in many workers not benefiting from health insurance and pension entitlements. It advocated that financial penalties should be imposed on an employer for each unauthorised immigrant that he or she hires. Bosses would also be required to pay the cost of returning immigrants to their home countries in cases of expulsion.

Although Brussels officials concede that there is a paucity of reliable data about how many unauthorised immigrants are in the EU, it cites estimates ranging from 4.5 million to 8 million. Construction, agriculture, cleaning and catering are the main sectors in which they find work.

Trade unions are arguing that there needs to be a frank debate about the abuse of migrant workers, but feel that the proposed law is approaching the question in the wrong way.

“If Italian employers pay illegal immigrants far below the legal wage, they say they do so because in Spain they do the same thing,” said Catelene Passchier from the European Trade Union Confederation. “In Spain, they do so because they say that they pay below the minimum wage in the Netherlands. We are all consumers of tomatoes and strawberries that are picked below minimum standards, and this is something that needs to be addressed.”

Still, she noted that the proposed directive is designed as an anti-immigration measure, rather than as a blueprint for improving working conditions. “This is not about combating labour exploitation.”

The directive would also require that each EU country ensures that at least one-tenth of the companies they host are inspected annually. Passchier expressed concern that the emphasis is more on trying to track down immigrants than to check that labour standards are being upheld. “There need to be some safeguards,” she added. “This must not be at the expense of proper labour inspection. Proper labour inspection must protect workers without going into detail about their legal status.”

Steven D’Haeseleer, an adviser on social affairs with BusinessEurope, an umbrella group for large companies, said he doubted that the proposal would act as a deterrent for firms that abuse cheap labour.

He noted that EU governments already provide for sanctions against employers of unauthorised personnel, yet they lack the resources to monitor compliance. “There is a problem enforcing sanctions at national level,” he said. “Adding an extra layer at EU level will not solve this problem. The priority should be enforcing existing sanctions at national level.”

Jean-Louis de Brouwer, a Commission official dealing with immigration issues, said that the directive focuses exclusively on punishing errant employers rather than workers in an irregular situation.

But Jean Lambert, a Green member of the European Parliament (MEP), expressed fears that the directive could have a “potential racist effect”.

“Small-scale ethnic minority businesses could be targeted rather than food production bodies that are often the main employers,” she said. “It would be easier to target small businesses.”

According to Marco Barbieri, employment minister in the Italian region of Puglia, there is a “forced complicity” between bosses and immigrant workers.

It has proven necessary, he claimed, to use helicopters to monitor farm workers in Puglia because immigrants tend to flee as soon as they see inspectors approaching on foot. “Employers would sometimes ask for an inspection because they would be in an advantageous situation if workers run away, and they wouldn’t have to pay them,” he added. “If you do not break this forced complicity, it will be very difficult for the directive to reach its aims.”

Claudia Fava, an Italian MEP who has been tasked with drafting the Parliament’s official position on the directive, argued that the directive should be refashioned so that it recognises that migrants can make a positive contribution to the economy. By some predictions, he said, 50 million additional workers will be needed in much of Europe by 2050 to compensate for the declining birth rate in many of its countries and the ageing of its general population.

“Let’s use this directive to absorb them (immigrants) into the labour market,” said Fava. “Today, when a worker is found to be working illegally – as well as having been exploited – he runs the risk of being repatriated.”