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Chamber looks to aid foreign workers

Project promises to supplement flawed work visa system

By Claire Compton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
June 4th, 2008 issue

RENÉ JAKL/THE PRAGUE POST
Immigrant workers could be insured against losing their work visas.
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The Czech Economic Chamber is proposing a program that would relieve some of the problems inherent in the immigration of workers into the Czech Republic.  
Many of these workers come from Vietnam, China and Korea, together making up a large percentage of the 1,000 workers arriving in the country every month, according to chamber member Miloslav Zeman, who represents Plzeň, west Bohemia. A large number of immigrant workers also come from former Soviet states, such as Ukraine.
The influx of foreign workers has been prompted by the Czech Republic’s unemployment rate, which is at a historic low, and specifically the dearth of factory workers in areas such as Plzeň and Ostrava, north Moravia; Plzeň, a city of some 163,000, currently has 32,000 foreign workers.  
The volume alone means many workers fall through the cracks when they need visa help, and employers can get away with neglecting to pay their taxes and health insurance.
The chamber’s program would work with job agencies recruiting foreign workers to create a database of employees, with data on the worker’s address and place of employment, and whether the employer is contributing to social and health insurance. Zeman said the program is meant to benefit the workers as well as authorities.  
“When the police happen to check them, the officers have no idea where these people live and work,” he said.   
Zeman said the program was not meant as a watchdog for foreign workers, but rather as a support for an overwhelmed visa system that remains convoluted for both sides.   
“The employees themselves addressed us with requests for help when they found out the situation here is completely uncontrolled,” he said.  
Ideally, such a database would be shared with the state to enforce tax and health insurance participation by companies who employ immigrants.  
Employment agencies sometimes force immigrants to pay social and health insurance out of their own paychecks, “which seems at the very least unethical,” said Marcel Winter, president of the Vietnamese-Czech Association, which works to improve the social and work conditions of Vietnamese immigrants.  
Winter said he hopes the immigration process becomes more simplified as the demand for laborers continues to grow in the country.   
“Czech businesses are short 150,000 workers, and in Vietnam there are plenty of masons, miners and molders,” he said.  
Workers who came with the intention of working legally can often find themselves outside of the law when they lose their job, Zeman said. Corrupt employment agencies that fail to pay for social and health insurance can be shut down. Subsequently visas issued to that agency and its employees become void.  
“The big problem is when some state control clerk shows up, finds out about it and closes it,” Zeman said. “The agency then changes its name and operates again. But workers who got their permits from that particular agency all of a sudden find that it no longer exists.”
Return to sender
The second part of the chamber’s project would create a “guarantee fund” to which employment agencies would contribute either 15,000 Kč ($934) per worker or buy an insurance policy that can be used for return plane tickets. Zeman said 10 agencies are ready to sign the contract to participate in the fund.  
“Obviously, participation in the fund is optional, because it isn’t anything stated in the law. But I believe that companies will prefer to take workers from those agencies that participate in the project.”  
Libor Kučera, a lawyer with the Counseling Center for Integration, said the benefit of the chamber’s program would be a more structured and consistent enforcement of legal employment, as companies often take advantage of illegal workers. Recruitment agencies, in particular, often accept money from workers in foreign countries, but leave immigrants to fend for themselves once they arrive in the Czech Republic.
“A lot of employers prefer to hire foreigners illegally because they do not have to pay social and health insurance, and it is easier to give notice to illegal workers,” Kučera said. “Czech authorities should monitor the activities of employment agencies and, if they find that not everything is in accordance with the law, they should penalize the agencies.”  
The question of employment agencies may soon become moot as Parliament is considering amendments to the Employment and Foreign Residents Acts that would allow implementation of a green card program. The program has been proposed as a way to attract skilled manual workers as well as highly qualified workers with degrees.  
The program, which is expected to take effect later this year, does not address the question of illegal workers who are already in the country, however. Green cards would function as long-term residence and work permits, good for a maximum of three years.

Claire Compton can be reached at ccompton@praguepost.com


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[08:37 08/06/2008] : Very nice for Czech Republic
krrisu
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