People wandered from place to place in search of work and, as a result, a better life has long been. Today it’s time to figure out who the guest worker is. Despite the long history of this word and the whole phenomenon, right now this topic is more relevant than ever.
Who is a migrant worker: definition
According to etymology, the word comes from the German Gasterbeiter, which means a guest worker and is formed by the merger of the components: Gast (guest) + Arbeiter (worker). However, in today's familiar meaning, this lexical unit has acquired a clear shade of neglect, and therefore today it belongs to the group of jargon. Its significance also partially transformed; today the word “migrant worker” (sometimes used in a distorted version of “migrant worker”) means a person who has been hired to perform certain duties on time. It is also identified with citizens from other countries who come to work.
Where do migrant workers come from and what do they do?
If it is clear who the guest worker is, the question of which territories they come from within Russia remains open. Usually migrant workers are immigrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, the countries of the Central Asian region, and in rare cases - from the Caucasus. Guest workers in Russia are traditionally engaged in construction (although they may not have the appropriate education at all). Sometimes, after putting an object into operation, a guest worker is not offered a new job, as a result of which he is forced to interrupt by casual earnings, become a handyman, a janitor, walk around summer cottages, offering his work for a pittance.
At present, Russia is the first country in the European region in the absolute number of foreign workers, and the second state in the world in this indicator after the United States.
Traditionally highlighted cons
In Russia today, perhaps, there is no person who does not know who a guest worker is, and certainly there is no one who does not have an opinion on representatives of this category of people. The public was divided into several camps at once: some are absolutely against visitors, others are neither warm nor cold, still others support the influx of workers within the country, and others think that they should do all the rough work, while the indigenous people will work in cozy, Warm, comfortable offices.
So, what are the disadvantages of migrant workers and the uncontrolled flow of migrants? These include:
- A situation in which local workers find themselves fired and are left without work.
- Hiring "in black." The fact is that the employer finds it tedious and unprofitable to formalize a visiting employee as a citizen of the country, because if the tax on personal income (PIT) for the second is only 13%, then for the first all 30%. Not only the federal, but, more importantly, the local budget suffers from workers who work without registration in accordance with the labor code of the Russian Federation.
- A guest worker practically does not bring economic benefits to the employing country, since its main goal is to save money for the purpose of exporting them abroad, to the homeland, to the family. There is nothing unnatural in this aspiration, on the contrary, it is even meritorious, but the state of the state where the guest worker works, as a result suffers: money is paid, but not spent within the country, there is no support for small business.
- Migrant workers undermine the demand for quality labor and skilled professionals.Despite the competence of the latter, the employer often prefers to pay the employee less and get a mediocre output than to pay for professional activities with dignity and secure a good future. As a result, this only plays into the hands of a migrant: he is ready to work for a low rate, because he does not need to pay taxes, school fees for children, etc.
- The last blow to the country's economy, resulting from paragraph 2, is the final and irrevocable export of funds outside the country. Rubles are exchanged for another currency, and as a result, they will never be paid for any goods, services or anyone else's work. If only one migrant does this, this will, of course, not be critical; but the circles of migrant workers are actually much larger, which means that the Russian economy loses enormous amounts of money annually.
In addition, the key problem remains that, together with migrant workers' flows, people with negative intentions enter the country, as a result of which there is an increase in the number of crimes committed: robberies and thefts, ethnic crime related to the incandescent atmosphere inside a country torn by contradictions, rape and expansion of the drug trade.
And what about the pros?
However, it would be wrong to think that this medal has only one, exclusively negative side. Migrant workers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novgorod, Kiev, New York, London and other cities in the world are essentially the same. This means that every country and city faced similar problems that needed to be somehow solved by the government. As a result, where it succeeded, the pros began to prevail over the cons. The first include the following:
- Having people ready to do the rough work. An indispensable condition for the stability of the country's economy in this case is a high salary and, of course, the registration of employees under an official labor contract.
- The willingness of migrant workers to do the job quickly, as they simply do not have another option.
- Migrants are the category that stabilizes the situation with a shortage of labor, especially in Russia, the country for which it is characteristic. If there is no such problem, then the phenomenon of "guest workers" will affect the process of development of the state negatively. By the way, not all countries support the policy of hiring foreign workers: for example, the countries of Scandinavia and Japan categorically approach this issue, where labor migration is absent in principle.
As you can see, migrant workers (photos of the usual situation for them are presented in this article) can serve as an auxiliary force to improve the economic and social situation in the country, and, conversely, turn into a real catastrophe. The greatest danger is the rise of national intolerance, which, if not taken in time by the government, can turn into bloodshed.
Who really benefits migrant workers?
It is obvious that migrant workers are a category of workers whose existence is beneficial to a very narrow layer of society, which includes bosses, officials and the oligarchy, one way or another connected with economic scams. Unpretentious visiting citizens can literally rob themselves because they do not know their own rights. This allows owners of large enterprises to hire cheap labor, and hide the rest of the money in their pocket. Small and medium-sized businesses suffer greatly from this, because managers who choose to run an official business and do not want to contact hired migrants illegally end up in the end: their less important competitors spend less and earn more and faster!
Russian migrant workers - are they there?
Yes, and Russian citizens often in search of a better life choose the path of migrants, however, they are already leaving for completely different countries: the USA, Spain, England and other developed states. However, the essence of their “migrant workers”, the actual lack of rights and the arbitrariness of employers, does not disappear anywhere: you have to agree to work for a penny, according to an irregular work schedule and overtime, in general, as the native would not agree.
"Wives of migrant workers"
In another deplorable situation are relatives and friends of migrant workers, their women and children. Anything can happen to a family without male support. Often, a migrant worker cannot provide his family with a decent existence and sufficient food, sends very little money or even leaves relatives without them. However, much more common are cases when a man simply did not return to his homeland due to the fact that he found a cozy corner, satiety, wealth, and possibly a new lover in a new country. Abandoned wives, as a rule, do not seek either the official division of property, or the payment of alimony from the unfortunate spouse. Today, “SMS divorce” is gaining in popularity when a husband informs his wife of a breakup over the phone. According to statistics, approximately 12 thousand young men who came from only one Tajikistan annually marry Russian girls and thus receive Russian citizenship.
What to do?
Of course, the population of any state in the matter of labor migration and resolving the tense situation inside the country can only rely on competent, rational actions by the authorities. This includes the allocation of special quotas for jobs for foreign citizens, changing public attitudes towards migrants, stimulating the influx of not only low-skilled specialists, but also first-class professionals. Many points need to be reviewed in the legislative framework itself. The key figure is to make the employer, who should have such personal qualities as an interest in the fate of any, including a newcomer, employee, responsibility. He must pay decent wages to employees, provide comfortable sanitary conditions, and be responsible for their medical commissions.
Summary
Of course, it is too early to talk about the absolute resolution of the migration issue. At the same time, the assimilation of visiting groups with the 144 millionth population of Russia does not seem an unattainable goal. An example is the historical formation of the United States: material and cultural values, following common laws and respecting the same traditions - all this once united people from the most diverse territories and parts of the world and as a result formed a country. The unification will also be helped by art that affects important areas now, for example, like the story of the modern science fiction writer Solomon Valery Afanasevich “Migrant Worker Upgrade”. Perhaps Russia and other countries where the topic of the existence of migrant workers is relevant today can follow the path of unification based on cultures and respect for each other.