The migration of transport labour presents risks and opportunities for workers, and a challenge for international solidarity. Kay Parris reports.

For as long as they have travelled, people have migrated in search of more or better work. But in the last 20 years the global workforce has become more fluid than ever. This is due to a multitude of factors, including the development of faster, cheaper transport, industrial deregulation and globalisation, and the easing of border restrictions within free trade areas.

The transport sector, like many others, has felt the impact of enormous growth in global trade volumes in this period. Private transport companies are vying to move more and more goods, parts and services around the globe. On the one hand some are struggling to find enough skilled workers to meet their needs. On the other, they are endlessly searching for ways to cut costs and compete. In this environment it is not surprising that skilled workers in some poorer (or from the employer’s point of view, cheaper) countries are in great demand.

Transport companies are now found to be outsourcing functions, setting up operations in lower cost countries – and recruiting migrant workers from those countries to work in wealthier nations.

Of course the employment of foreign workers has for many years been a mainstay of the global shipping industry, where formal migration is not a necessary condition of gaining a job at sea, on board a ship owned in another country. In the case of ships carrying “flags of convenience”, these workplaces are not even bound by the national laws of the employer’s country. This situation presents many opportunities, and risks, for the thousands of seafarers who take up foreign postings each year.

The maritime workplace is unique in many ways, but some of the difficulties it presents to the application of labour standards are now being replicated in other transport sectors as employers find ways to take advantage of the abundant cheap labour on offer.

Ease of legal migration has increased particularly following the liberalisation of the borders between countries within regional trading blocks – such as the European Union, and to a lesser degree the Economic Community of West African States and the Southern American Common Market (Mercosur).

Thousands of transport workers from poorer countries inside these blocks have gained access to the labour markets of other member countries. They have secured new jobs, often at better rates of pay and with better conditions than in their home country. However many others find themselves open to exploitation, with fewer rights and worse conditions than domestic workers. This problem is much worse for workers outside of open border areas who migrate illegally and have no voice or recourse to protection at all, though relatively few such migrants are found in the transport sector.

Meanwhile nationals in the host country may lose jobs to their cheaper foreign peers, or may find that their pay and conditions are driven down by the influx of cheap labour.

Organising across borders Should trade union organising follow the lead of global trade and transport employment – and break down the borders? More>>

Working together

Trade unions have a vital role to play in this difficult situation, even though the potentially conflicting interests of members in different countries may present a challenge for international solidarity. By remaining true to the fundamental goals of representation and protection from exploitation for all workers, many unions are finding that they can work together for the common good of migrant and domestic labour.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) notes that bilateral and multilateral agreements between trade unions from sending and receiving countries are generally on the increase, and that such agreements have helped to regulate labour migration, thereby protecting standards for all.

ITF-affiliated transport trade unions are beginning to strike up these kinds of cross-border agreements. In Central America, civil aviation, road transport and dockers unions from Guatemala, El Salvador and other countries are working together to strengthen their education and organising activities. They have created a coordinating body and are planning to launch a bulletin to inform transport workers of their activities and encourage them to join a union.

In Europe, the German union ver.di is strengthening its cooperation with Solidarnosc in Poland and OSD in the Czech Republic.

Ver.di and Solidarnosc are also partners in a “Baltic Road Transport Trade Network” which includes other ITF affiliates from Great Britain, Sweden and the three Baltic states.

It has produced a joint organising and information leaflet in the eight languages represented and hopes to develop a joint strategy for improving working conditions.

“The first results can already be seen,” says Holger Rossler of ver.di. “Thanks to quick joint measures, it was possible to help some drivers from Latvia when they were experiencing problems while driving in Scandinavia. Our task is to prevent or at least push back wage dumping in the transport sector.”

While these are joint initiatives, each member union is of course continuing to look out for the interests of its own members. Unions will always put their own members first, even while understanding that in the long term, cooperation will be essential to help both their own members and union

The Motor Transport and Road Workers Union of Russia has signed a federal industrial agreement with the Employers’ Association, under the terms of which, employers have to consult with the union if they plan to recruit foreign workers. The union has agreed to cooperate with the employers’ body to help prevent the illegal employment of foreign workers and to encourage stricter controls over their engagement.

One of the union’s ongoing concerns is that specialist training in parts of the transport industry in Russia may need to improve if domestic workers are to compete for jobs with skilled foreign workers. “At the same time,” says Mikhail Lyakov of the ITF Moscow office, “the presence of a cheap workforce from other countries doesn’t encourage employers to increase wages. This may create problems in the future.”

Migration can also create problems in the “sending country”, where pay and conditions may be kept at a low level in order to ensure that workers remain competitive in the international market. The National Union of Transport and Allied Workers in Zambia for example reports that it has seen its members recruited in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. As Andrew Banda of NUTAW says:

“Employers in those countries are convinced that hiring Zambian workers is cheaper. They don’t accrue any long term benefits, most of their employment is on short term contracts and they can be fired at any time without any representation.

These drivers are denied union membership as a condition of employment using threats and intimidation.”

In Great Britain, the Transport and General Workers Union has many years’ experience of working with migrant workers and is keen to acknowledge the contribution they have made to the British economy and transport system.

Following enlargement of the EU, the union reports a new influx of bus drivers from eastern European countries, which has been successfully organised. The union disputes employers’ claims that skills shortages have led it to recruit from outside the UK. As T&G press officer Andrew Dodgshon explains:

“This is because the bus operators have taken advantage of privatisation and deregulation to drive down pay and conditions. Equally our negotiators have warned that recruitment from low-cost labour areas is no reason to hold pay down.”
The T&G has vigorously taken up the cases of migrant workers it believes are being exploited and is calling on government to conduct a broader enquiry into their treatment.

Replacing workers

Recently a string of high profile cases have shown employers actively attempting to replace existing workforces – either partially or wholesale – with cheaper migrant labour. These cases, including Gate Gourmet in the UK, Irish Ferries and North West Airlines in the US, show how extreme market principles have been allowed to wipe out what were social or moral norms.

All the company need do, it seems, to side-step any obstructive national labour legislation if it exists, is to plead financial difficulty and demand wage cuts and redundancies. Existing workers are shown the front door, while cheaper migrant replacements are ushered in the back.

Gate Gourmet, the catering company serving British Airways, had been struggling with financial difficulties for years, and was in talks with the TGWU over threatened redundancies, when news came in August 2005 that around 130 temporary workers from Eastern Europe were to be brought in. Nearly 700 employees gathered in the canteen, demanding an explanation from managers. According to the union, they were kept in for four hours by security guards, then ushered out into the car park and sacked by megaphone.

Documents later leaked to a leading newspaper suggested the company had been planning to shed workers by orchestrating an unofficial dispute, and then replacing them with migrant, mostly Polish labour. A settlement saving 400 jobs was reached following strike action backed by solidarity from ITF affiliates, including the Teamsters representing Gate Gourmet workers in the US.

Some companies have seen the advantage of being more upfront about their plans, and offering generous redundancy packages in order to ease out expensive domestic staff without creating industrial unrest. Many workers took up such an offer from Irish Ferries in 2005, which originally entailed their working out an extended period of notice. However union protests about the outsourcing of jobs and the precedent this was setting made management nervous – to the extent that they attempted a bizarre storming of one of their ferries by security guards, in order to force out crews and replace them immediately with hired labour from Latvia. A compromise was eventually reached, but problems are ongoing.

At the time of writing, employees of North West Airlines in the US were still awaiting the outcome of a bankruptcy court hearing. The airline had requested permission to throw out its collective bargaining agreements with the unions and pave the way to replace 30 per cent of flight attendants with foreign workers.

The airline says it needs to make US$1.4 billion in cuts in order to emerge from bankruptcy and compete with low costs carriers. It argues that the language and cultural skills of foreign workers would improve its service to international flights by better reflecting the demographic of its customer base.

“What one carrier does, all carriers will surely follow,” said Dianne Tamuk, a United Airlines attendant and president of the AFA New York local. “This would result in the loss of tens of thousands of US flight attendants’ jobs.”

Need for rules

Workforces are not commodities to be exchanged in bulk for a cheaper variety. The rules of competition and the migration of labour must be regulated in such a way as to ensure basic employment protection, and the respect for service and experience that go with it. The creation of opportunities for migrant workers need not be at the expense of such standards, without which all labour is vulnerable to exploitation.

Recognised international standards – two ILO conventions, number 97 (Migration for Employment) and 143 (Migrant Workers Convention) and the UN convention on migrant workers – provide for the right of migrants to equal treatment at work and need to be more widely promoted.

Migrant workers make an enormous contribution to the economies of both their host countries and those of their country of origin. According to the ILO, these workers contribute eight million US dollars a day to US taxes alone, and send 120 billion dollars more per year to their countries of origin than the total of overseas development aid by richer countries.

Trade unions in the sending countries must educate their members about their rights overseas, and the need to retain their links with the movement. Those in the host countries must find ways to recognise, welcome, include and protect migrant workers – for the sake of social decency, in the cause of international solidarity, and in the longer term, to protect their members at home.

On the move: comments on migration from the movement "There are companies in Honduras that hire Nicaraguan affiliates with the same pay – which is already low – as those from Honduras, but they take advantage of the fact that they are foreign manual labour and make them work more. Honduran law protects workers but it is not obeyed. They are only supposed to drive 400 kilometres per day, but some drivers have to cover one thousand." Erasmo Flores, Sinameqiph, Honduras "The actions of Sicotra and the department of work succeeded in reducing the hiring of Nicaraguans in the bus industry, who were paid less, with fewer rights and longer days. Because of their illegal status in the country, they were exploited without being able to do anything about it. " Eduardo Porras, Sicotra, Costa Rica "In a region like the Arab region, which has the Gulf countries among them, with the economic boom due to the oil prices increase, most of the drivers are non-Gulf citizens – South Asian, Turkish and a few East Europeans. It is a real mix of drivers employed by non-unionised companies, sometimes in countries that do not recognise the right of freedom of association." Bilal Malkawi, ITF Arab office "Employers in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe are convinced that hiring Zambians is cheaper as they don’t acccrue any long term benefits. Most of their employment is on short term contracts and they can be fired at any time without any representation – they are denied membership of the union as a condition of employment. "We face a battle to sensitise members on the dangers of poor rest and long working hours. However where we have managed to recruit members, things are improving somehow." Andrew Banda, Nutaw, Zambia "Every worker should be equal before the law. Migrant workers should be entitled to a safe workplace, protection from employer-led fraud including unfair deductions from wages, regulated working hours and holidays, and to be treated with dignity and respect at work. "All migrant workers should have the right to organise trade unions where they work." Two principles guiding the organisation of migrant labour by the TGWU in Great Britain (from The T&G Record, December 2005)