FOR SOME IMMIGRANTS, says Olga Dubyna from Ukraine, Ireland’s work permit system amounts to “bonded labour”.
Dubyna, who came to Ireland in September 2001, has had her own rough experiences with the system that ties workers to one employer, and says many friends are also suffering varying degrees of exploitation.
“One woman became so unhappy about workplace conditions, in secret she had to see a psychiatrist,” says Dubyna of a friend who experienced bullying in the workplace, and couldn’t easily move jobs because of the system.
“The situation is so unhealthy... I was helpless, I couldn’t help her.”
Dubyna herself became undocumented after an employer promised to apply for a permit that never materialised, and says the wait of four to six months for a permit to be issued puts employers off.
She is now working again, still in the work permit system, but says being tied to one employer is deeply frustrating.
The Ukrainian recalls: “I had a successful interview, and [the interviewer] said, ‘What else would you like to tell me?’ I was explaining about the work permit... he didn’t want to listen. Even if I was very fit for the job, they don’t want the hassle, what employer waits four to six months for a new permit?”
The drawn-out process restricts career advancement, and Dubyna, a mother of two teenage sons, wonders about the reasoning behind this: “What is the point of keeping a person in that situation?”
She says people on work permits are “not asking for special treatment”, but for Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe to “give those in employment the right to change employer in our sector”.
According to Dubyna, it is “a fundamental right” to choose freely who to work for. Indeed, Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights refers to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) is currently launching a campaign to improve the work permit system for the approximately 25,000 immigrants involved.
According to Helen Lowry of the MRCI, over 80 per cent of work exploitation cases it encounters are perpetrated against work permit holders, ranging from breaches of the minimum wage to severe cases bordering on forced labour”. Such situations can lead to people becoming undocumented, and at risk of deportation.
Lowry says the MRCI is calling for “practical, common sense” adjustments to the system.
At present, work permits can only be issued within certain sectors. For those who’ve applied for a work permit for the first time on or after 1 June 2009, a labour market needs test is required both for the first application and the renewal.
Those on an existing work permit before 1 June 2009 can continue to work until it expires, the list of ineligible categories applying only to new applications for work permits, and a labour market needs test is not required.
New permits for jobs with an annual salary of less than €30,000 are no longer issued, notwithstanding “exceptional cases”.
