Non-EU seasonal workers could get special work permits
Proposals aim to make it more difficult for workers to be exploited.
Unskilled workers from outside the European Union could for the first time be granted a legal route to seasonal employment in the Union under controversial draft legislation currently before the European Parliament. MEPs on the committee on civil liberties have begun consideration of a directive on seasonal workers proposed by the European Commission last July.
Under the proposed rules, seasonal workers – primarily in agriculture and tourism – would be given easier access to work permits valid for up to six months for each calendar year and up to three years in a row. According to a provision that is supposed to make it more difficult for workers to be exploited, applicants would need a work contract or a binding job offer that includes a stated salary. Employers are also required to submit evidence of the availability of adequate accommodation.
‘Modest proposal’
Claude Moraes, a UK centre-left MEP who is preparing the Parliament’s report on seasonal workers, describes the proposed directive as a “modest proposal” that would regulate movements already taking place.
“If you don’t open up those legal routes, you are ignoring mass illegal migration, which is unhealthy for EU societies,” Moraes said, citing losses in tax income and the prevalence of exploitation and human trafficking. He said there was a danger that the centre-right in Parliament would allow fears of immigration to outweigh the economic argument for controlled
migration.
The European Commission’s home affairs department estimates that there are more than 100,000 seasonal workers in the EU – including irregular migrants – especially in Spain and Italy. The proposed legislation does not allow migrants already in the EU to apply for a permit, but creates incentives – in the form of the prospect of a multi-annual permit – to persuade applicants not to overstay their work visas.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) has criticised the draft directive for undermining the principle of equal treatment of workers. Once approved by the European Parliament in plenary, the legislation requires the backing of a weighted majority of member states, which are sensitive about any encroachment on their national prerogatives in immigration and labour law.
Fact File
A legal labour migration regime?
The EU’s 2005 policy plan on legal migration foresees five different pieces of legislation. In addition to the proposed directives on seasonal workers and intra-corporate transferees, these concern:
An EU-wide work permit (‘blue card’) for highly skilled workers, adopted in May 2009, which has to be transposed into domestic law by June;
A single, EU-wide work and residence permit for non-EU nationals. Parliament last month adopted its version of a draft directive which now requires the backing of the member states;
And rules for remunerated trainees from outside the EU (no legislation proposed yet).
The approval of MEPs is required because the Lisbon treaty and the EU’s Stockholm Programme for justice and home affairs treat seasonal working as a migration issue rather than a matter for employment policy (which would have required unanimity among member states and excluded the Parliament).
Intra-corporate transferees
The Parliament’s committee on civil liberties has also begun considering a draft directive proposed by the Commission in July on highly-skilled workers from outside the EU whose employers are seeking to transfer them to the EU.
The draft legislation on intra-corporate transferees would make it easier for multi-national companies to transfer specialised staff – managers, specialists and graduate trainees – from non-member states to member states for an initial period of up to three years.
Salvatore Iacolino, a centre-right Italian MEP who is in charge of steering the legislation through Parliament, has said that he hopes for a “smooth” passage.
The two draft directives form part of a wider programme on legal labour migration first announced in 2005.