Czech Ministry Proposes Re-Patriation of Unemployed Foreigners

Prague - The Czech Interior Ministry has drafted a plan enabling the state to send the foreigners, who lost their job in the Czech Republic and have no money, back to their homeland, says weekly Tyden in its issue to appear on Monday, adding that the state would pay 500 euros for voluntary return.

The proposal reckons with the state giving the air tickets to the foreigners concerned. Those who would opt for return voluntarily, could gain an additional 500 euros, Tyden writes. The ministry expects 12,000 foreign employees to be made redundant in the Czech Republic by March-end. If the state did nothing, the threat would arise that up to 15 percent of the unemployed foreigners would be absorbed by the underworld, up to 80 percent of them would try to circumvent the law and create an illegal labour market, and up to 15 percent would move to other EU states, Tyden writes, citing the ministry.

The first to have been afflicted by the financial crisis are mainly the Vietnamese and Mongolian workers in the Czech Republic.

"It is really a big problem, which also poses a threat to state security," said Tomas Haisman, head of the ministry's department of asylum and migration section. The ministry's proposal, reckoning with the departure of about 2,000 foreigners from the Czech Republic, requires approval from the government. If it receives the green light, the government would also earmark over 55 million crowns for the voluntary returns.

At the same time the Interior Ministry proposes a temporary restriction of issuing long-term visas. It also wants to check the agencies that mediate jobs for foreigners, and to make the agencies cooperate with state authorities.

"They have to bear responsibility for the people whom they bring to our country," Haisman is quoted as saying.

The number of foreign workers in the Czech Republic grew by 44,300 last year, a 20 percent decrease against 2007. As of end-December 2008, a total of 284,551 foreigners were legally employed in the Czech Republic.

Author: ČTK

Agencies keep secret foreign work force numbers in ČR

Brno - Officially, the Czech Republic has 1,800 agencies mediating jobs for thousands of foreigners employed by Czech companies. But more than 1,300 agencies licensed by Czech authorities do not disclose the number of workers they have brought in.

Fine?... Never mind

The agencies ignore the fact that failure to report the required data may result in a fine of up to CZK 500,000. The Labor and Social Affairs Ministry has already launched administrative proceedings against some of them.

Agencies declining to specify how many people they have employed highlights the chaos in this field, which unions say costs the government billions of crowns.

Agencies have mediated jobs for more than 250,000 people, mostly from abroad. Some of them operate without a license: Agencies without a Czech or Vietnamese license have allegedly brought in thousands of workers from Vietnam. Others import workers from abroad and then shut down as their representatives disappear.

"We wanted to work with an agency on worker imports from Vietnam, but their conditions were so shameless that we decided to arrange everything without an intermediary," said the owner of a smaller engineering company based in southern Moravia.

Another problem is that workers hired through agencies often live in unsatisfactory conditions. On the other hand, the agencies earn big money: They charge companies over CZK 200 per hour of work, but the workers receive less than CZK 100 per hour.

Tighter oversight?

Unions have strongly criticised the labour agency market. They say the government is losing billions of crowns.

"Tax evasion from agency jobs may reach CZK 5-10 billion a year. But this is only a gross estimate calculated on the basis of data from HR agencies," said Josef Středula, chairman of the KOVO union.

Unionists also point out that workers hired through agencies often earn much less than regular employees for the same amount of work.

To combat the situation, the government has promised stricter oversight. The best-known case in which the state has sanctioned an agency is the employment of Polish workers at Škoda Auto.

The labor inspectorate fined the Zetka Auto agency CZK 500,000 for a breach of labor regulations, but only after ombudsman Otakar Motejl stepped in.

Controllers complain about limited powers, saying they cannot even enter workers' dormitories.

The Chamber of Commerce is planning to create a special guarantee fund to improve the conditions of foreign workers, without whom local companies could not exist. The fund, to be supported by contributions from local employers, should serve thousands of workers from Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, China, and Mongolia, according to Hospodářské noviny.

Adapted and republished by Tomáš Fránek @ the Prague Daily Monitor

Employment Of Illegalls Gets You Five Years In CZ

Prague - The illegal employment of foreigners can carry up to five years in prison as from next year compared with a maximal fine of two million crowns now, under the new criminal law that the Senate approved today and that the president is yet to sign.

Aiding in securing illegal stay of foreigners in the country can be punished with up to eight years in prison.

Justice Minister Jiri Pospisil said on the other hand the law decreases the upper level of punishment for certain economic delicts from 12 to 19 years.

"We wanted to find a compromise between those who would completely leave out a half of economic criminal offences, or largely restrict them, to whom I belong, and those who would introduce further economic criminal offences and would further tighten the punishment," Pospisil said.

The lowering of the maximal rate includes theft, fraud and embezzlement.

The law tightens the punishment of breach of industrial rights and copyright to up to eight years in prison. The forgery and imitation of a work of art is to be punished with up to ten yars in prison.

The conclusion of cartel agreements on prices is to be punished with up to eight years in prison.

The law authors say the tighter punishment of illegal employment and immigration aims mainly against organised gangs that profit form illegally mediating work and immigration.

It is mainy Ukrainians who illegally find jobs in the Czech Republic. In the first half of the year check-ups exposed almost 1200 illegally employed foreigners, or one-tenth of the checked persons. (USD1=19.809 crowns)

Přečtěte si v češtině na ČTK:

Za nelegální zaměstnávání cizinců má hrozit až pět let vězení