In an effort to prevent homelessness from becoming widespread among foreign workers, the state wants to make agencies responsible for the employees they have brought into the country. The proposal is pending government approval.
Employment agencies for foreigners have been a lucrative business for years. The stories of foreigners who came to the Czech Republic to find work are a testament to this success. They all sound the same. “I paid EUR 1,500 to the go-between,” says Enkhtur Byambajau, a car mechanic from Mongolia. The initial investment in the client system, as the mafia-run entreprises are called, wasn’t the only investment.
When he eventually started working for a Czech agency based in Mladá Boleslav, which loaned out agency workers, he received a quarter of the promised salary. The rest went to the agency. With the arrival of the financial crisis, he lost his job, without having any right to a severance pay. He has been looking for a new job in vain for three month now.
But the Interior Ministry wants agencies to take more responsibility for the imported foreigners. “The recent development, coupled with the economic crisis, has shown weak spots in the system of imported labour,” the ministry writes in a report it wants to hand over to the government.
Ministry workers note that the go-betweens are still bringing more foreigner workers to the Czech Republic, although there is no work for them here. “This development is unfavourable not just for the foreigners, who are at a high risk of forced labour and human trafficking, but also for security of our country,” the report warns. The majority of foreign workers, moreover, lack the resources to return to their native country, so they are reliant on the aid of the state. “This is a significant financial burden,” the report says.
Experts propose a solution: They want to create a law that would force agencies to take care of the workers who lost their jobs and thus lost their legal status in this country. “It is necessary to put laws in place that would make the agencies and the employers responsible for the costs of enabling the foreigners to leave the country in case they are laid off and lose their legal status,” the report says.
In the past, similar proposals have failed. The business lobbyists were always too strong. But employment agencies are, for now, not opposed to the ministry’s plan. “We are negotiating with the ministry about this issue,” says Petr Skondrojannis, vice-president of the Association of Employment Agencies. “I can imagine the introduction of some sort of mandatory insurance that would be a required condition for registering with the ministry. Something similar exists with travel agencies.” The agencies would use the insurance to cover the costs of sending the foreign workers back to their native country.
Ministry workers point to a similar system used in the case of natural persons or research institutions. If a foreigner who was invited to work in the Czech Republic loses his legal status, they are obliged to pay for his return.
