Employment of migrant workers: Assumptions, requirements and limitations

Although the need to provide decent working conditions is at the heart of the labour law rules on protection of migrant workers, a significant challenge for modern countries remains to create such conditions for their decent employment. The article discusses assumptions (legally entering a country), requirements for employment of foreigners (stay visa and work permit), as well as the employment limitations (quotas for employment of foreigners, limiting the catalogue of jobs that can be entrusted to foreigners, etc.). Regulation of these issues is closely related to the needs and the state of the domestic labour market (general and/or in specific professions), as well as the goals of migration, demographic, economic and employment policies. The author concludes that by establishing certain assumptions and special requirements for establishing employment relationships with foreigners, a number of diferent migrant positions are established for migrant workers, some of which are extremely precarious. Implementation of the relevant legal regulations should therefore be accompanied by (legal and extralegal) measures aimed at efectively protecting the dignity of migrant workers and preventing their labour exploitation. Among much else, this can be facilitated by establishing authorizations for employment of foreigners, as a special condition to be fulfilled by the employer, which can only be issued to the employers who respect labour and immigration regulations. Although this prevents employers who violate the rights of migrant workers from hiring new workers, there are no instruments in place to protect vulnerable categories of persons from labour exploitation in the period until the application for renewal of the employment authorisation or the application for a new employment authorisation is submitted. This is especially true as the dependence of migrant workers on the employer often discourages migrants from initiating the proceedings for protection of rights.