Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Migrant Workers Can Boost Czech Trade Unions

Marek Čaněk 17th October 2016

Marek Čaněk

Marek Čaněk

“The Pardubice region without immigrants” was one of the billboards used in the recent Czech regional elections of 8 to 9 October. Most of the small anti-migrant parties were largely unsuccessful apart from the coalition led by the MP Tomio Okamura. Jaromír Dušek, Pardubice Region deputy head, who ran a harsh anti-immigrant campaign, was one of those unelected. The billboard slogan is absurd in view of the role migrant workers have played in the regional economy.

Labour migration from non-EU countries to Czechia almost stopped after the 2008 financial crisis. But now, in a move to reduce the political barriers to immigration, the Czech Government approved in July measures to ease the entry of Ukrainian migrant workers. The Ministry of Industry and Trade claimed that it would entail only up to 5000 workers. In the new regime certified employers would still have to go through the usual application for visa and work authorisation, but they could bypass visa quotas. The trade unions have been wary of what they see as a “cheap labour” policy. They fear much larger numbers of migrant workers could be brought onto the Czech labour market and often for low-skilled positions.

When this new labour migration policy was discussed in the summer by Czech MPs, Josef Středula, the head of the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (ČMKOS), was accused of standing in the way of the current economic boom by being against the filling of vacant positions by migrant workers: “Now Czech companies have the chance to develop but you block [this potential] with your social romanticism”. The supposedly naïve trade unionist had, however, grounds for scepticism regarding the motives of employers. Ivan Pilný, a MP (ANO party), was even blunter than the employers present at the same meeting: “It´s not possible to push businesses into respecting certain wage principles,” thus refusing to put Czech and Ukrainian workers on the same foot.

Is it possible to combine the “anti-immigration” stance with the perceived labour shortages in the growing economy? Employers’ associations, politicians and high-level representatives of the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Industry and Trade think so: let’s make “white” Ukrainian workers come. They saw the Ukrainian workers as a compromise that could be more acceptable to the public than (im)migration of refugees and Muslims. According to the head of Asylum and Migration Department of the Ministry of Interior, “[it’s] important for this country that Ukrainians come here because this means that other people won’t be coming. We know that the integration of these people into Czech society will be unproblematic”.

The Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions, however, refused to endorse this political compromise. First, it saw it as a measure that would compromise its ‘End of Cheap Labour’ campaign for higher wages for Czech workers because the import of new workers would weaken their marketplace bargaining power and slow down wage increases. It used cultural arguments – no to bringing Ukrainian workers from ‘culturally different areas’ – to oppose this governmental move. Second, it saw such an employment policy as one buttressing the re-Fordisation of the Czech economy via simple and low value-added “assembly-line production” and “cheap labour”: “The Czech Republic and other countries of central and eastern Europe are considered as the China of the European Union and we don’t think this is okay”.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

To promote the social protection of those damaged by the market’s evolution, trade unions can either reduce the competition coming from migrant labour by restricting immigration, or guarantee the same rights to all workers. Both positions are represented among Czech trade unions. On one hand, there are migrant workers who have joined a union. This has been especially the case with migrant workers that are close in their employment and social characteristics to the “average” Czech trade unionist. Such was for example the experience of trade unions in one manufacturing company: “Those who are here permanently enter the trade unions in a normal way like any other member who’s a core worker. Speaking as head of the local trade union I can say that we have had Ukrainians, Vietnamese and Poles as members”. On the other hand, many migrant workers are over-represented in economic sectors with a lower trade union density and vice versa. They are over-represented in construction or retail, which have a lower than average density, and under-represented in the more organised public administration or education sectors. There is no data available regarding the unionisation of particular jobs but migrant workers are again likely to be more represented in jobs with a lower unionisation rate. Likewise, they tend to be more exposed to insecure contracts or various forms of indirect employment, which some trade unions do not organise at all.

Last year the head of the ČMKOS made a clear statement against xenophobia: “We´ll call for a decidedly rational discussion [on refugees], we’ll remind of the danger of xenophobia and the potential misuse of [this topic] by some radical movements”. In this, his position is opposed to the one promoted by Jaromír Dušek, who is a former trade unionist.

There are signs of a reinvigorated trade union movement with higher numbers of new members. For example, the ČMKOS trade union affiliates have recruited 13,000 new members in the last year as opposed to 11,000 the year before. For the trade unions to be stronger, migrant workers should be part of them. Without them it is hard to regulate individual workplaces and to improve the wages and working conditions not only in workplaces but also across entire economic sectors. However rightfully suspicious the Czech trade unions may be with regards to particular employers´ efforts to bring in new workforces, migrant workers are already an integral part of the Czech economy and society. ČMKOS has recently prepared a set of leaflets on workers’ rights in four languages most commonly used by migrant workers in Czechia. This is welcome but we need more – we need a call to migrant workers to join trade unions.

This column is part of a project Social Europe runs with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung offices in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Marek Čaněk

Marek Čaněk, Ph.D. is director of Multicultural Centre, Prague. He specialises in labour migration policies and labour enforcement of migrant workers' rights in the Czech Republic.

You are here: Home / Politics / Migrant Workers Can Boost Czech Trade Unions

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

Nagorno-Karabakh,European Union,EU,Azerbaijan,Armenia Azerbaijan exploits vacuum on Nagorno-KarabakhGeorge Meneshian
Abuse,work,workplace,violence Abuse at work: who bears the brunt?Agnès Parent-Thirion and Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune
Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model: celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl
social democracy,nation-state Social democracy versus the nativist rightJan Zielonka

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube