Towards Transnational Labour Rights? Temporary Work Agencies and Third Country National Workers in the EU.

Descripción del proyecto

Proteger los derechos de los trabajadores migrantes

Los migrantes constituyen una parte significativa de la mano de obra europea, con más de veintidós millones de nacionales de terceros países y más de diecisiete millones de ciudadanos europeos que trabajan en un Estado miembro de la Unión Europea (UE) que no es del que provienen. Al encontrar trabajo a menudo en sectores informales como la agricultura, la construcción y el trabajo doméstico y de los cuidados, los migrantes han pasado a cubrir la creciente demanda de la UE de mano de obra flexible y barata. La contratación de migrantes no europeos a través de agencias de empleo temporal es una solución común para permitir la oferta fácil de trabajadores tanto en los Estados miembros principales como en Europa central y oriental. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos RightsLab estudiará las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores transfronterizos y propondrá formas de proteger sus derechos en tanto que trabajadores. Concretamente, proporcionará una investigación empíricamente fundamentada sobre la contratación de trabajadores ucranianos en Polonia, Hungría e Italia, país clave de destino para los migrantes ucranianos desde finales de los años noventa del siglo XX.

Objetivo

The last two decades have seen the EU grappling with a direct conflict of interests; the securitization of its external borders and the demand for a low-cost flexible workforce which in various sectors of the economy, has been increasingly occupied by migrants. Employment of third country nationals (TCNs) through temporary work agencies (TWAs) became a common solution to allow for the smooth supply of workers both in core EU member states, and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, which is in itself effected by considerable emigration and labour mobility. RightsLab will look into the employment conditions of transnational workers employed through TWAs and ask: how can we develop mechanisms of effective transnational labour rights protection for agency workers? It will provide empirically grounded research into the employment of Ukrainian workers in two CEE countries – Poland and Hungary plus Italy. Both Poland and Hungary, recently has become a laboratory for TWA forms of flexible employment, and Ukrainians represent a large segment of the TCN workers there. Italy – a key destination country for Ukrainian migrants since the late 1990s – offers an important perspective into female employment.The novelty of RightsLab’s contribution is threefold; 1) existing research on the TWAs predominantly focuses on registering labour rights violations: RightsLab makes a step further by exploring the possibilities of creating better mechanisms for cross-border labour rights protection; 2) methodologically, RightsLab combines several qualitative methods, and takes an engaged, participatory stance, actively searching and connecting various participants of the research for a possible social dialogue; 3) by focusing on various levels (national ( labour inspectorates), meso (trade unions, workers’ associations, NGOs) and local (TWAs and workers themselves)) it provides a multidimensional picture of emerging transnational employment regimes and transitional labour struggles.