Migration

Several power companies are constructing new coal fired power stations in the Dutch port of Eemshaven. It is the biggest construction site in the Netherlands. One of the companies building is the German company RWE, that has contracted out some of the work to the Polish company Remak. Remak has sent over around 800 Polish workers, but they are not paid according to the collective agreement applicable for this work. They are receiving 9 euros an hour, instead of 11.50.

In Italy the financial crisis has delivered a double blow to migrant workers. There are at least 500,000 job losses, but the immigrants have not only lost their jobs. They have also lost their right to live in the country.

A new law will give 300,000 domestic workers in the Dominican Republic a better life. ”This will make a huge difference to the lives of both migrant and Dominican women working hard from dawn to dusk without any rights and protection,” says Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the ITUC.

The Civil Society Days of the annual Global Forum on Migration and Development will be held in Mauritius in November.

Today, as we commemorate International Migrants Day, we amplify our call to defend decent work and quality public services for all, so that for every worker, migration will only become a choice, and not a dire necessity.

PSI activists joined the trade union delegation to the Fifth Global Forum on Migration and Development Civil Society Days and parallel events that took place in Geneva on 29 November to 2 December 2011. Working on the theme Taking Action on Labour Migration, Development and the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families, PSI, together with the ITUC and the Global Union Federations, joined forces with civil society organizations in questioning governments for their lack of leadership in addressing the exodus of migrants from North Africa, the rising xenophobia, and the failure to apply the rights-based normative framework embodied in the UN and ILO Conventions to deal with migration flows.