West Germany’s Migrant Wildcat Strikes

Fifty years ago, diverse groups of workers began to connect anti-racism and class struggle


AUTHOR
Efsun Kızılay
Striking Turkish workers at the Ford factory in Cologne-Niehl, 29 August 1973. The wildcat strike was triggered by the firing of 300 workers who returned home from vacation behind schedule, but in reality, it was about a lot more than that.

Photo: picture alliance / UPI

Germany has seen a number of scandals and debates over the working conditions facing migrants from Eastern and Southern Europe in recent years. Hundreds of thousands travel to Germany each year to harvest vegetables, drive lorries, or work in factories. They generally are not represented by trade unions and earn less than their German colleagues. And frequently, they fight back, like the group of Georgian and Uzbek lorry drivers who, in early summer of this year, went on a wildcat strike after their employer refused to hand over their hard-earned wages.

Efsun Kızılay works on migration at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Yet poor working conditions for migrant workers in Germany is not a new phenomenon. These conditions have a long history — as do the struggles against them. Workers began protesting against unfair and inhumane conditions early on, demanding better working and living conditions as well as fair wages. They took labour disputes into their own hands, often carrying out wildcat strikes, independent of works councils, and in conjunction with struggles against racism and social marginalization.

These struggles first came to a head about 50 years ago, in the summer of 1973, when migrant workers in West Germany took a stand against over-exploitation and discrimination. To this day, their example continues to offer lessons on how anti-racism and class struggle can linked together.

West Germany’s Labour Agreements

West Germany’s expanding post-war economy faced a labour shortage that the federal government decided to combat through labour agreements with other countries. These were concluded in 1955 with Italy, in 1960 with Spain and Greece, in 1961 with Turkey, in 1963 with Morocco, in 1964 with Portugal, in 1965 with Tunisia, and in 1967 with Yugoslavia. These agreements, undertaken as the most cost-effective solution, did not anticipate the permanent presence in Germany of the workers they recruited; for this reason, they were labelled “guest workers”.

These guest workers were assigned primarily to “low-skill” jobs, often as contract workers on assembly lines, in construction, or in coal mines. The increasing affluence throughout all levels of West German society in the wake of World War II, known as the Fahrstuhleffekt (“elevator effect”), led to migrant workers’ being employed at the lower end of the hierarchy while Germans were able to ascend to higher-level occupations. The discrepancy between the two groups of workers was also apparent in their wages, which often diverged wildly.

The struggle over limitations on residence permits was successfully connected to the struggle over better housing conditions and industrial struggles and strikes, and a new anti-racist moment was born.

Resistance to poor and unfair working conditions began to grow among migrant workers. They began to unionize and take part in workplace demonstrations. Out of roughly 2 million migrant workers at the beginning of the 1970s, about one quarter were unionized. Many of these workers possessed a strong political consciousness. They came mostly from countries that were experiencing radical political upheavals. Greece, Portugal, and Spain had dictatorships until the mid-1970s, Turkey in the 1970s had a strong labour movement with countless strikes, and some of the workers arriving in Germany came from socialist Yugoslavia.

Workers from Greece organized resistance to the military junta from Germany, while workers from Turkey, where unions suffered state repression, started unions in Germany. From Italy, where the Communist Party was the second-largest party in parliament, workers brought extensive strike experience with them to Germany. In this way, migrant workers attempted to channel experiences from their countries of origin into labour struggles through union activity.

The Role of Unions and Autonomous Resistance

The existing trade unions initially perceived the recruited guest workers primarily as a new source of competition. This explains their reticence when it came to questions of being committed to and representing migrant workers. Since many migrant workers did not feel represented by the unions, between 1950 and 1970 they organized countless autonomous wildcat strikes independent of the unions. These wildcat strikes resulted both in schisms between German and migrant workers and successful solidarity-building between the groups.

Germans frequently met migrant workers with mistrust and scepticism. Many of the predominantly German works councils and trade unions refused to support migrants in labour disputes — their advancement within their companies was, after all, predicated on the fact that migrant workers would fill the lower ranks of company hierarchies. While German workers and unions were more interested in preserving company structures and so lent them their support, migrants frequently fought for changes to these structures and against their own exclusion. They criticized both racist conditions within the companies and poor housing conditions.

Their dissatisfaction eventually culminated in the waves of strikes that occurred in 1973. According to the editorial collective express, at least 275,000 workers at approximately 335 companies went on strike that year, spontaneously and independent of the unions. Spanish and Portuguese workers at the auto body manufacturer Karmann in Osnabrück, many of them women, stopped work to demand flexible working hours. Striking workers at John Deere in Mannheim were verbally berated and forced to protect themselves from physical attacks.

Although workers appealed to their employers primarily with demands for higher wages, they grew increasingly critical of the capitalistic structure of work as well. Workers at Valvo, a valve manufacturer in Aachen, and at the Hella automotive plant in Lippstadt, for example, demonstrated for a cost-of-living bonus and against wage discrepancies between German and migrant workers. The Lippstadt works council had previously won a cost-of-living bonus, but exclusively for German workers. Despite the fact that migrants included German workers in their demands, Germans rarely showed solidarity in migrant labour disputes. The Lippstadt Multinational Committee, which formed after the strike, openly opposed the company’s racist structures:

We are Greeks, Germans, Spaniards, and Italians; but regardless of our nationalities, we are all workers and we all face the same problems — or does the conveyor belt move faster for the Greek than for the German? We will not give management the satisfaction of seeing us divided because of the different colour of our hair and eyes.

The cost-of-living bonus was won for all, although in the end it was less than workers had demanded.

Resentment against poor working conditions was growing in many factories, erupting into various forms of resistance and protest. Disappointment spread regarding the restrained behaviour of the unions, and workers eventually refused to let them represent their demands. Two strikes in 1973 were particularly prominent: the women’s strike at automotive supplier Pierburg in Neuss, and the Ford strike in Cologne.

The Strike at Pierburg

The labour dispute at Pierburg took place in August 1973. It was one of the first successful strikes in West Germany against worker classification and compensation practices that discriminated against women.

One crucial element of the strike, and one of the factors that led to its success, was solidarity among the workers. Only a few days into the strike, German women technicians joined in solidarity with striking migrant women to oppose employers’ attempts at intimidation. With the demand of “One More Deutschmark”, 1,800 migrant and 400 German women workers staged an indefinite, spontaneous walkout.

Employers, the media, and even politicians attempted to criminalize the strike. It all began when Greek workers distributed leaflets in various languages calling for a strike. In response, police moved in to arrest the activists. During a scuffle, one police officer threatened them with a drawn pistol and hurled racist insults. As word of the violent, racist dimension of the police’s assault made its way around the factory, a wave of solidarity with the migrant workers immobilized the entire plant.

Fundamentally, labour disputes are always about more than labour disputes.

Despite racist company structures and a repressive management supported by both the press and the police, migrant workers were able to successfully call for solidarity and forge alliances. In doing so, they specifically sought out contact with German workers, for example by going to pubs they often frequented and recounting the racism they had suffered.

The strike was successful: the discriminatory Lohngruppe 2 was abolished, the lowest pay grade to which migrant women workers were assigned, with wages raised by 65 pfennigs per hour. Importantly, there were no lay-offs following the labour dispute.

It is important to mention that Pierburg already had a very active left-wing workers’ association before the strike. Many migrants already belonged to this association, which was in opposition to the works council of the time. In 1972, after years of work, it succeeded in winning more votes in factory-wide elections than the works council.

Members of the association accelerated the pace of their organizing work, regularly distributing information sheets in all the languages spoken in the factory. Multilingual representatives guaranteed the flow of information among workers, and even the workers’ assemblies were multilingual. All these developments and activities contributed to the strike’s success.

The Ford Strike

The best-known strike of 1973 was also carried out in August, at the Ford factory in Cologne’s Niehl district, where, about 11,000 workers from Turkey were employed between 1961 and 1973. They represented the largest “society of [Turkish-born] industrial workers outside of Turkey” and were given almost exclusively “unskilled” jobs. A sharp division therefore developed between these workers and the German workforce, who were mostly employed in better positions. The employment structure was based on a hybrid system in which migrant workers had to perform worse jobs, received worse pay, and could even be fired more easily than their German colleagues.

The catalyst for the strike was the firing of 300 workers who had returned late from vacation. But it was really about much more: prior to the firings, migrant workers had compiled lists of signatures petitioning the representatives of IG Metall, Germany’s largest metalworkers’ union, to campaign for a pay rise — yet the list was completely ignored in the next meeting of the workers’ association.

In the end, IG Metall reduced the migrant workers’ demands to a single one: cancelling their collective bargaining agreement. As Serhat Karakayalı writes, “As workers on a conveyor belt, most Turks earned an hourly wage between 7.15 and 8.24 marks, while Germans, as skilled labourers, earned between 8.98 and 10.59 marks.”

One week before the strike, a workers’ assembly took place at which the Turkish workers showed solidarity with those who had been laid off, while the majority of their German colleagues greeted the lay-offs and disciplinary actions with applause. When, in addition, the extra work resulting from the lay-offs was to be passed on to the remaining workers, their growing discontent was given voice through a train of protestors marching through the entire factory on 24 August 1973.

The subsequent strike lasted for seven days. More than half of the 33,000 employees took part, primarily Turks, although some German and Italian workers also supported the strike. The strikers’ demands were as follows: “decrease in conveyor belt speeds, reduction of the pace of work, better working conditions, six weeks of vacation, one more Deutschmark for all, the reinstatement of all those fired, and payment for striking hours”.

In the meantime, the works council was in unsuccessful talks with company management. When it then announced, “referencing industrial relations law and the ban on industrial action specified in the collective agreement”, that it would not support the strike, the works council forfeited any legitimacy it had in representing the interests of migrant workers. The union subsequently pursued a policy of division, which it shored up with demonstrations of its own. As a result, many German workers broke off and sided with the union. An alliance of trade union representatives, company management, press, city government, and police agitated against the striking migrant workers.


Migrant workers took their struggles into their own hands and, as political subjects, resisted the working and living conditions imposed upon them.

One week after the strike began, company management decided to use all available means to end it. During a counter-demonstration by German workers, management called in the police, who cracked down violently on the strikers and arrested their supposed ringleader. Baha Targün, spokesperson for the strike committee, was deported to Turkey. Management laid off 100 Turkish workers without notice, putting pressure on a further 600 to “convert [their] termination without notice to ‘voluntary’ termination”.

The works council did not object to any of these lay-offs. According to historian Jörg Huwer, “In the suppression of the strike, German workers’ anger erupted over the fact that Turkish migrants had, for a short time, been able to take control of their workplace.” Günter Piening explains:


At Ford, it was about “one more Deutschmark” … but at the same time, any halfway serious analysis shows that the great strike of August 1973 addressed all the conditions of life — including living quarters, the health problems caused by the work, and how you can keep in touch with family and friends when you have rotating shifts and just a few weeks of vacation. Fundamentally, labour disputes are always about more than labour disputes.

Beyond the Strike

Unfair, discriminatory structures were denounced outside of factories as well. Countless “multinational centres”, where migrants organized into work and cultural associations, formed across West Germany in those years. Migrants demanded the right to vote and protested police brutality and media attacks. As migration scholar Manuela Bojadžijev argues:

Migrants’ self-organized struggles against racist working and living conditions in Germany should therefore not be seen as single-issue movements. They connected the legal, political, and economic aspects of oppression and exploitation. They expanded narrow perspectives on labour struggles to encompass the entirety of the migrants’ experience, everyday life, language and culture, and no less importantly to housing conditions, which constituted the crucial focal point of migrant struggle alongside the factory.

The phenomenon of migrant workers’ strikes was of interest not only to the public, but also to the majority of those in the “old” and “new” Left. Huwer argues that their agitation and organization began to focus increasingly on migrant workers, “in [whose] life circumstances a new level of capitalist exploitation was to be seen, and at the same time the seeds of active resistance. In the eyes of the press, they filled the gap left by the unions, which had not yet succeeded in incorporating foreign workers into West Germany’s social partnership system of industrial relations.”

Structures of solidarity could therefore also be built with left-wing organizations. The Proletarische Front (Proletarian Front) in Hamburg and Bremen, the Arbeiterkampf (Workers’ Struggle) in Cologne, the Revolutionärer Kampf(Revolutionary Struggle) in the Frankfurt Rhein-Main area, and the Arbeitersache (Workers’ Cause) in Munich developed ideas for “multinational company work”. They had connections to the migrant organizations within companies as well as to autonomous migrant organizations, and migrant and student milieus drew closer to each other.

Migrant workers at steel manufacturer VDM in Frankfurt and at auto manufacturer Opel in Rüsselsheim stormed the German-dominated works council meeting with the slogan (developed by the Revolutionärer Kampf) “One Deutschmark for all!”. During housing struggles in Frankfurt, in which residents — a majority of them migrants — protested displacement and poor housing conditions, banners were also hung addressing poor working conditions. Karakayalı explains: “With the slogan ‘Fiat-Opel-Autobianchi die padroni siamo stanchi!’ (We’re tired of those tossers, the Fiat-Opel-Autobianchi bosses!), they also took on the capitalist instrumentalizing of migration.” The struggle over limitations on residence permits was successfully connected to the struggle over better housing conditions and industrial struggles and strikes, and a new anti-racist moment was born.

In this way, migrant workers took their struggles into their own hands and, as political subjects, resisted the working and living conditions imposed upon them.

Translated by Anna Dinwoodie and Marty Hiatt for Gegensatz Translation Collective.

Dashed Korean Dreams: The Plight of Migrant Workers

South Korea’s handling of migrant workers is a blotch on the country’s reputation.

By Eunwoo Lee

THE DIPLOMAT
May 05, 2023

This year’s Labor Day in South Korea saw an outpouring of migrant workers denouncing forced labor and discrimination. As if in a pointed snub, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) renewed its commitment to ousting undocumented workers in a statement released on May 3.

Migrant workers in South Korea have lived on the edge for decades now. Although the government knows they are indispensable for harvesting agricultural produce and greasing the wheels of South Korea’s manufacturing base, it has neglected their grievances.

The countryside, hosting farms and factories, bears the brunt of South Korea’s uneven regional development and buckling demographics. Half the entire South Korean population lives in the greater Seoul area. A quarter of cities and towns – 59 out of 228 – are likely to disappear in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the working age population will shrink by half in the next 40 years, shedding around 17 million people.

Consequently, the South Korean government has turned to migrant workers to fill the void. Approximately 374,000 non-professional migrant workers are legally residing in South Korea. More than half of them hail from Southeast Asia, with E-9 visas reserved for laborers abroad without Korean ancestry. The visa limits their employment to agriculture, fishery, manufacturing, construction, and other arduous sectors. The South Korean government decided to issue 110,000 E-9 visas in 2023, the largest annual quota since their introduction in 2004. In addition, more than 410,000 undocumented workers toil in the shadows in such industries.

Their necessity notwithstanding, migrant workers have become easy targets of exploitation and social exclusion. It is a prevalent practice among Korean employers to lodge them in places unsuitable for accommodation. In one extreme case in March, a Thai worker died of hydrogen sulfide poisoning, having lived in a pigsty soaked in slops and excrement from a hundred pigs.

About 20 percent of migrant workers live in shanties, usually made up of corrugated steel sheets and shading nets. This is in spite of the government policy – instituted in 2021 after a Cambodian worker froze to death in a plastic greenhouse – that repeals employers’ recruitment applications if they quarter laborers in unauthorized constructions. The measure, however, allows temporary buildings approved by local municipalities to be used as accommodation. More than 60 percent of migrant workers currently live in shipping containers and panel structures.

The practice of letting out shabby dwellings is lucrative. The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL)’s directives permit Korean employers to deduct up to 20 percent of migrant workers’ paychecks in exchange for room and board. The less the employers spend on quality, the more they can save. Some workers pay almost $400 a month for a rickety shack.

Hence, almost all employers opt to house migrant workers, the majority of whom live on or right next to their work sites. Living in greenhouses on fields, containers on aquafarming infrastructure, or annexes to industrial plants, they are under 24-hour surveillance by their employers – and often forced to overwork.

Living in such close proximity to their workplaces, they fall prey to various forms of abuse by their employers and supervisors. Surveys of female migrant workers found that around 12 percent of them had been sexually assaulted at some point. Entreaties for better treatment are met with physical violence. Some employers flat-out refuse to pay salaries and severance packages after years of hard labor.

This is why the International Labor Organization advises that “it is generally not desirable that employers should provide housing for their workers directly,” recommending instead “the provision of housing for their workers on an equitable basis by public agencies or by autonomous private agencies … separate from the employers’ enterprises.” Otherwise, workers are isolated from local communities without recourse to external help, subsisting on the whims of their employers.

In addition, the Employment Permit System (EPS) that administers E-9 visas traps migrant workers in a vicious circle. They receive their visa only when certain employers decide to hire them. Therefore, their visa’s validity hinges on perpetuating this initial employment.

From the get-go, this subordinate relationship creates ample room for employers to tweak working and living conditions to their benefits. Despite abuse, workers still need to secure legal consent from their original employers to transfer their E-9 status to another employer or extend their stay. Otherwise the migrant workers lose their legal right to stay, which is why they still stomach abuse and “behave well” in front of their employers. Accepting deplorable lodgings is one example.

MOEL does allow migrant workers to find other jobs without their employers’ approval under proven circumstances of assaults, poor living conditions, and periodic payment default. However, when migrant workers enter a labor complaints center, the center often calls or summons their employers only to conclude all is well. Facing the language barrier, most workers forgo appealing. Even if they succeed in switching jobs, MOEL maintains a cap on the number of job transfers, which the United States Department of State cited as fueling human trafficking violations and labor exploitation in South Korea.

Undocumented migrant workers fare even worse. When they report cases of abuse to MOEL, the latter sends their dossiers to the Justice Ministry, which handles undocumented personnel with detention and repatriation. At times the ministry resorts to violence in rounding undocumented migrants up, even raiding cultural events and religious facilities to target nation-specific cohorts. Using such tactics, it has expelled 25,000 undocumented workers so far in 2023.

Running roughshod over migrant workers is hurting South Korea’s image as a cultural and economic powerhouse. Concerns have arisen over potential diplomatic fallout and reduced trade, as workers are forced to process food inimical to their religion and the South Korean media and politicians foment discrimination. More and more people are becoming disillusioned by the Korean Dream. The 2023 United Nations Universal Periodic Review exhorted South Korea to uphold migrant workers’ labor and housing rights.

The world is slowly waking up to the fact that Korean exports, in the end, come from migrant workers used up as grist for industrial mills.

Qatar: Labour reform unfinished and compensation still owed as World Cup looms

Amnesty International

NEWS  October 20, 2022

The Qatari authorities must re-commit to fully delivering on promised labour reforms now and beyond the World Cup, Amnesty International said today, as its final pre-tournament briefing on migrant workers’ conditions revealed that abuses remain rife across the country. With just one month until kick-off, the human rights organization again reiterated its call on FIFA and Qatar to establish a compensation fund for abused migrant workers.

Qatar’s overhaul of its labour system since 2017 has led to some noticeable improvements for the country’s two million migrant workers – hundreds of thousands of whom have been engaged in projects essential to the World Cup. However, a lack of effective implementation and enforcement continues to undermine their impact on migrant workers. Thousands of workers across all projects are still facing issues such as delayed or unpaid wages, denial of rest days, unsafe working conditions, barriers to changing jobs, and limited access to justice, while the deaths of thousands of workers remain uninvestigated.

“Although Qatar has made important strides on labour rights over the past five years, it’s abundantly clear that there is a great distance still to go. Thousands of workers remain stuck in the familiar cycle of exploitation and abuse thanks to legal loopholes and inadequate enforcement,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice.

With the World Cup looming, the job of protecting migrant workers from exploitation is only half done, while that of compensating those who have suffered abuses has barely startedSteve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice

“With the World Cup looming, the job of protecting migrant workers from exploitation is only half done, while that of compensating those who have suffered abuses has barely started. It’s also imperative that Qatar commits to improving conditions in the long term. Progress must not grind to a halt once the World Cup roadshow leaves Doha.” Last month, a global poll commissioned by Amnesty International revealed overwhelming support among both the general public and football fans for the compensation of migrant workers who suffered during preparations for the 2022 World Cup. The findings back the #PayUpFIFA campaign launched by a coalition of human rights organizations—including Amnesty International—fans groups and trade unions in May 2022, which calls on FIFA and the Qatari authorities to establish a comprehensive remediation programme to compensate workers and prevent future abuses.

“Despite huge and growing support in favour of compensating migrant workers among fans, football associations, and sponsors, Qatar and FIFA are still not budging. With only a month to go, time is fast running out for them to do the right thing,” said Steve Cockburn.

“Turning a blind eye to the abuses suffered by thousands of migrant workers over the years flies in the face of their respective international obligations and responsibilities. They must come together to ensure that those who suffered so much to make this tournament possible are not left behind.”

Reforms enacted by Qatar since 2017 include a law regulating working conditions for live-in domestic workers, labour tribunals to facilitate access to justice, a fund to support payment of unpaid wages, and a minimum wage. Qatar has also ratified two key international human rights treaties, albeit without recognizing the right of migrant workers to join a trade union. Qatar’s World Cup organizing body, the Supreme Committee, also introduced enhanced labour standards for workers, but only on official tournament sites such as stadia, although these cover just a small proportion of workers on projects essential to the World Cup, and just 2% of Qatar’s workforce.


Despite huge and growing support in favour of compensating migrant workers among fans, football associations, and sponsors, Qatar and FIFA are still not budgingSteve Cockburn

While recognising the importance of these reforms, Amnesty’s briefing provides an action plan to address ongoing failings across ten areas. To this end, the organization urges the Qatari authorities to enforce and strengthen labour protections, empower workers, make work pay, and guarantee access to justice and remedy.

Forced labour and unexplained deaths

Migrant workers on both World Cup and non-World Cup related projects continue to face abuses on a significant scale in Qatar. Many workers, particularly in the domestic and security sectors, continue to be subjected to conditions that amount to forced labour, with domestic workers still typically working between 14 and 18 hours a day without a weekly day off, isolated in private homes.

Security guards are often also repeatedly denied their rest days and forced to work under the threat of penalties, such as having their salaries arbitrarily deducted or sometimes their passports confiscated, despite such practices being in violation of Qatari law. Joshua,* a private security worker from Kenya who recently left Qatar before the end of his contract due to the working conditions, told Amnesty International:

“It was unbearable to stay on in the company I was in due to the treatment and overload of work. In four months, you get just two days off. There’s late salaries and too many fines deducted unnecessarily…The company has withheld my visa such that I can’t go back [to Qatar] if I get a job with another company.”

The deaths of thousands of migrant workers over the past decade and beyond—on World Cup-related projects or otherwise—remain unexplained. At least hundreds of these fatalities were likely a consequence of working in the extreme heat. New heat legislation is an improvement but must be strengthened to bring it into line with international standards and adequately protect outdoor workers. Despite clear evidence that heat stress poses a huge risk to health, the Qatari authorities have done little to investigate, certify or remedy migrant workers’ deaths, contrary to international best practice.


It was unbearable to stay on in the company I was in due to the treatment and overload of work*Joshua, private security worker

It is not just the devastating emotional impact on victims’ families but also the loss of a family’s main breadwinner coupled with the lack of financial compensation that leaves many in even deeper poverty. Bhumisara,* whose husband’s death in Qatar remains unexplained, told Amnesty:

“Now everything is shattered… Life itself has become like a broken mirror…I have cried many times in emotion. Being alone is very difficult…I feel like I’m burning in oil.”

Migrant workers remain unable to form or join trade unions in Qatar, contrary to their fundamental right under international law to do so. Instead, Joint Committees formed and led by employers, cover only 2% of the workforce. These committees provide workers with some representation, yet remain beset with serious flaws, as they lack mechanisms for collective bargaining and fail to provide workers with crucial legal protections.

Extortionate recruitment fees and elements of kafala remain

The payment by prospective migrant workers of extortionate recruitment fees to secure jobs in Qatar remains rampant. Fees of between US$1,000 and US$3,000 leave many workers needing months or even years to repay the debt, trapping them in cycles of exploitation. While workers on some World Cup projects under the purview of the Supreme Committee, Qatar’s tournament organizers, are able to claim some reimbursement of these fees, this option is unavailable to the vast majority of workers in the country.

Crucial changes to the kafala system—which made workers entirely dependent on their employer—mean the vast majority of migrant workers are now legally able to leave the country and change jobs without permission. Migrant workers, however, still risk being arrested or deported if their employers cancel their visas, fail to renew their residence permit or report them as having ‘absconded’ from their job.

Despite the government saying that it approved more than 300,000 migrant worker job transfer applications since October 2020, Amnesty International has documented several cases over recent months in which unscrupulous employers used their powers to cancel visas, renew residence permits and report workers for ‘absconding’ to exploit and punish those who complained about working conditions or wanted to change jobs. For instance, in one case, Geoffrey*, a delivery driver who complained to the Ministry of Labour about withheld wages and a lack of food and sanitary accommodation, was detained by police on “runaway” charges and held for three weeks.

Background

*Real names not used

The briefing, Unfinished Business: Roadmap for Qatar to fulfil promises on migrant workers’ rights, is available here.

PHOTO Warren Little/Getty Images

Migrant workers face racism and rampant human rights violations across the Gulf

Migrant workers face COVID-19 with no medical care or unions

Posted 17 June 2020


Anti-kafala demonstration in Lebanon. The sign in Arabic reads “I'm a [female] human and I have a right to live.” Photo by International Domestic Workers Federation, licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0.This post was written by Khalid Ibrahim, executive director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the MENA region.

Migrant workers in the Gulf region and neighboring countries have been subjected to fierce campaigns calling for their deportation that is riddled with racist speeches and hatred. They have been left alone to face the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic with no access to medical care or unions, according to research by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR).

Over the years, migrant workers in Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Bahrain have been subjected to massive human rights violations through the notorious kafala (sponsorship) system that strips them of their basic civil and human rights. They lack the right to move, travel or change work, the right to health care and the right to union representation or formation of organisations. In addition, migrant workers are denied the right to citizenship — even if they spend their whole lives working in these countries.

The kafala system, which enshrines discrimination and exploitation, contradicts the principles of human rights and modern work systems that are guaranteed under the International Convention on the Rights of Migrants and Members of their Families, signed in 1990. This convention entered into force on July 1, 2003, after being ratified by 20 states, but has not been signed by the Gulf states and Lebanon.
Lebanon

With the collapse of the Lebanese pound and the stress of COVID-19, migrant workers — especially domestic workers — face extremely harsh conditions. The Lebanese labour law does not protect domestic workers — who are usually women — because they are subject to a sponsorship system that links their legal status with a contractual relationship with employers. At the end of this contract, workers lose their legal status and face possible detention and deportation. Likewise, they can only change their place of work with employer consent, which exposes them to exploitation, forced labour and human trafficking.

The number of migrant domestic workers in Lebanon stands at 250,000, most of them women, who immigrate from different countries — notably Ethiopia. On June 5, Ethiopian domestic workers gathered in front of their country's consulate in Beirut, waiting to return home. Some left work after being paid in Lebanese pounds, which was inadequate to meet daily needs and made it impossible to send any money home to their families. Others left work who had not been paid in the past several months. Their status has become illegal and they need a speedy resolution from authorities.

The crisis in Lebanon has cast a shadow on all migrant workers, according to this BBC report. In 2012, Stop Violence and Exploitation, a civil society organisation, published a study on the sponsorship system, calling for the end of exploitation of women migrant workers and an alternative system that provides legal protection and freedom to choose their workplace.
Kuwait

On May 28, blogger Reem al-Shammari posted a video on Snapchat, verbally attacking Egyptians working in Kuwait. She said:


Kuwait is for Kuwaitis, not for Egyptians. … You are hired. Understand … Egyptians are not partners with Kuwaitis in the homeland.

The video met widespread opposition from Kuwaiti citizens, but hate speech is still a growing phenomenon on social media sites, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of this hate speech has illogically linked migrant workers to the spread of COVID-19. However, moderate voices have defended migrant workers and their achievements as a result of their hard work.

Due to COVID-19, a sharp decline in oil prices has led Gulf countries to reassess their policies regarding migrant worker numbers — many companies have laid off thousands and started deporting those who work illegally.

On June 3, in a press interview, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khalid al-Hamad al-Sabah noted that 70 percent of the 4.8 million population was foreign, and said that this amount should be reduced to half in stages. He concluded that “we have a future challenge to address the demographic imbalance.”
Saudi Arabia

In May 2020, in an episode of “We Are All Responsible,” presented on the official Saudi TV channel, the host, Khaled al-Aqili, said:


Unfortunately, the control of expatriate workers over the economy has become a real threat to national security and not only on the economic side but beyond much of that.

He concluded:


We ​​must stop making the Saudi employee a scapegoat with every crisis, and make the expatriate workers, who replaced Saudi workers — who are more efficient than them, the first to be dispensed of, not the sons of the homeland.

This was preceded by a ministerial decision issued on May 3, to regulate labour contracts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting discourse that directly targets foreign workers and portraying them as a national security threat definitely stirs up racist, hostile feelings. Justifying this sentiment only fans these flames.
United Arab Emirates

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, press reports have confirmed the prevalence of the disease among migrant workers, due to a lack of protection and lack of social distancing. Most migrant workers live in crowded common areas and in densely populated commercial neighborhoods.

On April 10, a letter sent by a coalition of 16 nongovernmental organisations and trade unions to UAE Minister of Human Resources and Emiratisation Affairs Nasser bin Thani al-Hamli states:


Low-wage migrant workers remain acutely vulnerable to severe human rights violations, that increase their risk of infection from COVID-19.

On March 26, the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation issued an arbitrary ministerial decree that allows private companies to amend migrant worker contracts, force them on unpaid leave, or to accept permanent or temporary salary reductions. This decision legally protects companies 100 percent — expatriate workers have no right to complain or resort to the courts.
Qatar

Migrant workers in Qatar are not allowed to form unions. Many are exploited doing heavy work for long hours with low paying salaries. COVID-19 has revealed another chronic problem — a lack of health care and adequate housing. The drop in oil prices has led to the layoff of thousands of migrant workers, forcing many onto the streets.

In an April 15 statement, Amnesty International said that Qatari authorities had arrested and expelled dozens of foreign workers after informing them that they would be tested for COVID-19.

On May 23, 100 foreign workers demonstrated in Doha, to protest non-payment of their wages by Qatari authorities.

Local sources confirmed that migrant workers who work for World Cup 2020 suffer from widespread human rights violations, including low pay and long work hours under the harsh sun. They can not terminate their contracts or return home. A recent report issued by Amnesty International UK on June 10 confirmed these conditions and mentioned workers who have not been paid for seven consecutive months.
Bahrain

Bahrain also targets migrant workers. On June 5, Member of Parliament Ghazi al-Rahma announced that he and a number of deputies would present a proposal to amend the labour law in the private sector, favoring Bahraini citizens in the private-sector recruitment process and prioritizing terminations for foreign workers.

Gulf states must abolish the kafala system, ratify the International Convention on the Rights of Migrants and Members of their Families and allow equal civic rights for all migrant workers.


Written by Gulf Center for Human Rights

New regulations on migrant farm workers should tackle employer/employee power imbalances


Janet McLaughlin, Associate Professor of Health Studies, Research Associate, International Migration Research Centre, Wilfrid Laurier University,

 C. Susana Caxaj, Assistant Professor, Nursing, Western University,

 Stephanie Mayell, Doctoral Candidate, Medical Anthropology, University of Toronto

THE C ONVERSATION
Wed, February 1, 2023

A temporary foreign worker from Mexico works on a berry farm in Mirabel, Que., in May 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

The government of Canada recently amended the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations to include new employer obligations. These amendments are intended to enhance protections for migrant workers and ensure the integrity of the government’s temporary foreign worker program.

While a step in the right direction, the changes side-step the root issues that make temporary foreign workers vulnerable to abuse in the first place.

More than 61,000 migrant workers were employed in Canada’s agriculture sector in 2021, an increase of almost 12 per cent from 2020, marking the greatest proliferation since 2016.

In fact, migrant workers comprised nearly one-quarter of all agricultural workers in 2021.

Migrant agricultural workers are exposed to various physical and psychosocial health risks that are compounded by the precarious circumstances they face in Canada.

Our research shows that the conditions of employment under Canada’s temporary foreign worker program generate significant challenges to workers’ health, the protection of their rights and even their survival.

Repatriated if injured, sick

Workers are hired on temporary contracts that bind them to a single employer, and these contracts include a repatriation clause that allows employers to terminate and deport workers without a grievance process. Injured and sick workers are often repatriated before they can access health care and/or workers’ compensation.

Consequently, migrant workers are often unable to refuse unsafe work and are reluctant to raise health concerns or report situations of abuse.

While acknowledging some of the issues facing migrant workers in Canada, the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations fail to address the power imbalances at the heart of the temporary foreign worker program. In fact, they risk further cementing some of these systemic problems.

Employers as health mediators

First, the federal government continues to entrench the role of the employer as an informal mediator of basic health care for workers.

Migrant workers in Ontario are eligible for provincial health care, but they experience many barriers to accessing such services, in part because of a reliance on employers.

Under the new amendments, the government of Canada once again normalizes this role. Employers are obligated to cover the waiting period before provincial health care eligibility by providing private health insurance to migrant workers upon arrival.

By imbuing the responsibility of “reasonable access to health care services” to employers when a worker is injured or becomes ill at the workplace, the government is wilfully denying the power imbalance and obvious conflict of interest posed by such an arrangement.

Consider, for example, the history of medical repatriations faced by this workforce, in which injured and sick workers are prematurely deported. At minimum, workers need independent access to health care that is unmediated by employers.

A farm worker tends to asparagus plants near Vittoria, Ont., in Norfolk County in June 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Labour abuses

Second, the risk of labour abuses and exploitation are addressed only through paperwork, and again, delegated to employers.

To illustrate, the new amendments require all employers to provide migrant workers with an employment agreement on or before the first day of work, and they are to be drafted in English or French.

The agreements must match the initial offer of employment and include information about the job offer, wages, including overtime pay, and working conditions. Many migrant workers do not read English or French. Our research has also shown that workers’ rights on paper are almost never recognized in practice.

Therefore, there is no substitute for meaningful oversight and regulation.

More promisingly, the definition of “abuse” under the new amendments has been updated to include “reprisal.”

We support this definition, as we have previously advocated for this and other actions to address workers’ risk of reprisal.

A seasonal migrant worker picks cherries at an industrial cherry orchard in British Columbia. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Vulnerable worker permit

As has been the case since 2019, if a worker can prove they’re being abused, they may have access to an Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers.

However, that permit is an ineffective mechanism to report workplace abuse because it places the burden of proof on the worker. What’s more, it doesn’t guarantee future re-employment via the temporary foreign worker program, nor does it provide workers with the housing or support they require to find new employment.

To seriously respect the rights of migrant workers, Canada needs to transform the structure of the temporary foreign worker program to curtail the power and impunity of employers and embed rights and protections for workers.

This can only be done by providing truly structural changes, such as open work permits and permanent status — measures long called for by migrant workers and their allies.

To do any less is merely making cosmetic changes to a fundamentally flawed system.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Stephanie Mayell, University of Toronto; C. Susana Caxaj, Western University, and Janet McLaughlin, Wilfrid Laurier University.

Read more:

Migrants don’t cause crime rates to increase — but false perceptions endure anyway

Migrant workers face further social isolation and mental health challenges during coronavirus pandemic

Stephanie Mayell receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). She is affiliated with the Migrant Worker Health Project, and the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group (MWHEWG).

C. Susana Caxaj receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). She is affiliated with the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group

Janet McLaughlin receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She is affiliated with the Migrant Worker Health Project and the Migrant Worker Health Expert Working Group (MWHEWG).

Jamaican workers expelled from Ontario farm after protesting poor conditions: advocates

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Canadian and Jamaican governments looking into 

allegations of worker mistreatment

Sheena Goodyear · CBC Radio · Posted: Aug 25, 2023 

Chris Ramsaroop is an organizer with the group Justice for Migrant Workers. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

The Canadian and Jamaican governments are investigating allegations that an Ontario farm sent a group of Jamaican migrant workers home after they held a one-day strike to protest what they described as substandard living conditions.

Pearnel Charles Jr., Jamaica's minister of labour, says he met four of the five workers in question after a local newspaper reported they'd been expelled from Canada as "payback" for their work stoppage, and for blowing the whistle about their treatment to the media. 

"They expressed to me that they were disappointed with being returned early, which I think is normal and understandable. And they had some questions as to exactly what the reasons were," Charles Jr. told As It Happens guest host Katie Simpson.

"One of the young men said he was going back to the same farm for six years and that in that time he had been told that he operated very efficiently. So he was shocked that he was sent back."

The men were in Canada as part of the federal government's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. Maja Stefanovska, a spokesperson for Employment and Social Development Canada, says the Canadian government is working with its Jamaican counterparts to investigate the allegations. 

"We take our responsibility to protect the health and safety of temporary foreign workers and the integrity of the [temporary foreign worker program] very seriously," Stefanovska said in an emailed statement.

The farm in question, which is located in southwestern Ontario, has not responded to a request for comment from CBC.

Videos show overflowing toilets, flooded living quarters 

The Jamaican Observer first reported the allegations in June. The newspaper quoted workers at the farm who said their boss had berated them for refusing to work after their already cramped living quarters flooded with wastewater from overflowing toilets. 

The newspaper described cellphone videos, surreptitiously filmed by the workers, which showed a flooded bunkhouse and a man who describes himself as the farm's owner yelling at migrants who refused to work.

The footage later circulated on social media, and parts of it were published earlier this week by CTV News.

CBC has obtained the videos in question from an organization called Justice for Migrant Workers. Organizer Chris Ramsaroop says workers on the farm shot the footage in late May or early June, and shared it with the organization. 

One video shows a row of clogged toilets in wooden stalls, with shower curtains as doors. Another shows water flooding into an adjacent room. 

Screenshots from videos provided by Justice for Migrant Workers shows a worker bunkhouse flooding with wastewater from overflowing toilets. The centre image shows a toilet stall with a shower curtain as a door. (Justice for Migrant Workers)

A third video shows a man in a baseball cap who identifies himself as the property's owner. He is swearing at a group of workers, berating them for refusing to adhere to their schedule, and accusing them of clogging the drains themselves by pouring grease down them. 

When the workers try to deny the accusations, he repeatedly interrupts them.

"That's bullshit," he can be heard yelling. "This is costing me a f--king fortune."

He later tells them: "If you choose not to work today, that will be a problem.… You don't pick and choose the day you want to work. Anyone have a problem with my schedule?"

WATCH | Migrant farm workers berated by boss:

This excerpt from a longer video provided by Justice for Migrant Workers shows a man berating Jamaican workers for refusing to work after their bunkhouse toilets overflowed and flooded their living quarters. Five of those workers have since been sent home early. The Canadian and Jamaican governments are investigating.

CBC is withholding the farm's name at Justice for Migrant Workers' request. Ramsaroop says the workers did not give the organization permission to name the farm, and doing so could expose the remaining workers to further repercussions.

Asked how he felt watching the videos, he said: "There's anger, just frustration [and there's] outrage, because this is pretty much the same story that I've been seeing for years now."

"A further kick to the gut, too, is that, you know, workers who did the right thing to try to assert their rights in the workplace have been sent home."

Labour minister meets with expelled workers

Charles Jr. says the workers he met told him they did not speak to the media, and that the issue with the toilets was later resolved.

He said the farm's owners told the ministry, through a liaison, that it sent the workers home because of "weather-related issues that might have contributed to them having lower production."

It's not just power, but it's power coupled with racism. We see the situation of Black and brown workers who feed us and that's that they're treated very differently than other groups of people in our society.- Chris Ramsaroop, Justice for Migrant Workers

This isn't the first time workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program have sounded the alarm about poor treatment and substandard living conditions. 

In April 2022, Jamaican migrant farm workers in the Niagara Region wrote an open letter to Jamaica's Ministry of Labour describing the program as "systematic slavery."

The workers described being "treated like mules" by their Canadian employers, who force them to live in cramped, rat-infested quarters with no privacy and with cameras installed. They said that if they complain, their bosses threaten to send them home.

• Q&A
  Migrant worker who took on boss and won is a 'very brave, exceptional man,' says lawyer

• Migrant worker says he was fired from Ontario farm, faced deportation after voicing COVID-19 fears

Stefanovska says the Liberal government made changes to the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program in its 2022 federal budget "improving the quality of employer inspections and holding employers accountable for the treatment of workers."

According to federal guidelines, employers must provide temporary foreign workers with "adequate, suitable and affordable housing." If they fail to comply, they can face a $1 million fine, and a temporary or permanent ban from the program.

Stefanovska urged migrant workers who feel they are being mistreated to call the government's toll-free tip line at 1-866-602-9448.

Provincial and federal responsibility

Ramsaroop says that at the end of the day, the farm owners still wield all the power. 

"The program is operated by the employer groups.... When the employers lobby the federal government, they get what they want," he said.

"It's not just power, but it's power coupled with racism. We see the situation of Black and brown workers who feed us, and that they're treated very differently than other groups of people in our society."

Pearnel Charles Jr. is Jamaica's minister of labour and social security. (Jamaican Ministry of Labour and Social Security)

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) has urged the provincial government to step in and include migrant workers in the Ontario Labour Relations Act, which would guarantee them the right to freedom of association.

"If these workers were unionized, they would have been able to exercise their right to strike," Santiago Escobar, UFCW's national representative, said in a press release.

Ramsaroop agrees, and says migrant workers should also be given full protections under the provincial Occupational Health and Safety Act, Employment Standards Act, Residential Tenancies Act and workers compensation program.

"We've got to hold both levels of government, their feet to the fire," he said.

• Rift between migrant workers reinforced by program design and employers, researcher says

• These migrant workers say they need better health-care access and language supports

The Ontario government did not comment on the expelled Jamaican workers. But Connie Osborne, a spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, said migrant workers are guaranteed protections under the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (AEPA), which allows workers to join employees' associations.

Those associations, according to the AEPA, can "make representations respecting the terms and conditions of employment." Ramsaroop noted they are not the same as labour unions and cannot engage in collective bargaining.

"The AEPA protects the rights of agricultural employees while recognizing the unique characteristics of agriculture, including, but not limited to, its seasonal nature, sensitivity to time, the perishability of agricultural products and the need to protect animal and plant life," Osborne said in an emailed statement.

An official visit to Canada

Charles Jr., meanwhile, says he's planning an official visit to Canada to personally inspect the working conditions on the farms.

"If it is that we find conditions that are favourable and that are, you know, upholding the standards that we desire, then I will not be hesitant to congratulate those farm owners and farm managers and farm workers," he said.

"But if we find conditions that are not favourable and that do not meet the standards, we should also be equally as determined to make sure that those conditions are exposed."

Interview with Pearnel Charles Jr. produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes