Last week, the chairman of the Moscow Committee for Interregional Relations and National Policy, Alexei Alexandrov, presented to journalists a project to create a city-wide migration labor exchange and "simplified" hotels for foreign workers. Summarizing the first results of the liberalization of migration legislation, Alexandrov noted that thanks to the simplified procedure for issuing work permits, a system for accounting for foreign labor has started working in Moscow. But the problem of employment and finding housing is still left to the migrants themselves. "Legalizing the stay of migrants without providing them with a minimum social package and housing leads to the fact that they are still found in collapsed emergency houses," Alexandrov reported. "And the abolition of registration at the place of stay allows them to register at the location in the form of a workplace, basement, or telephone booth." For the same reason, according to the committee chairman, medical examination of migrants is hindered. "A person comes to Moscow not for a medical check-up, but to earn money. And the examination is a paid thing, so he will go for it last, after finding work," stated Alexei Alexandrov.
Meanwhile, according to Alexandrov, dangerous diseases are detected in a significant number of citizens who have applied to medical institutions. Thus, according to the data he cited, over two months of the current year, doctors issued about 45,000 reports, of which 750 recorded the presence of infections (hepatitis – 479 cases, syphilis – 168, tuberculosis – 69, HIV – 34). The rest of the nearly 180,000 citizens who arrived in Moscow and received work permits have not yet contacted medical institutions. Statistics on illegal migrants are naturally absent. Current legislation allows only HIV carriers to be deported to their homeland. "What to do with leprosy, tuberculosis, syphilis, and hepatitis is not stipulated in the legislation," Alexandrov stated. "We only have the right to treat such patients at the city's expense. But to do that, we still need to find them."
According to the official, the lack of a coordinating body between the host party, employer, migrant, and registration services makes it impossible to track the whereabouts and all further actions of an employee who has received a work permit. "After the expiration of the job search period or a short-term employment contract, the foreign worker becomes an illegal migrant and must leave Russia. But there is no system to track whether he has left or not," the official stated.
According to Alexandrov, today there is no clear concept of state policy in the field of labor migration, and the Federal Targeted Migration Program that existed until 2001 should be restored. "That program had an interdepartmental government commission, and the relevant department dealt with issues of medicine, employment, law enforcement, and social protection. Solving all these issues within one Federal monopoly service is difficult and ineffective," he noted.
For their part, the city authorities propose creating a "migration terminal" – a city center for distributing foreign workers that would coordinate all migration processes in the city. According to Alexandrov, the new service will consist of an information center with a database on each foreign citizen arriving in Russia, a distribution center that will handle resettlement or deportation of migrants, and an employment center for finding suitable vacancies. The "Terminal" will interact with all services necessary for working with migrants – the FMS, the GUVD, Rospotrebnadzor, medical services, and deportation centers. In addition, it could handle tax registration and filling out tax returns.
It's no secret that now employers house their hired workers wherever they can – some manage to rent a dormitory in Moscow, others live directly on construction sites in trailers. Therefore, for the accommodation of foreign workers, the construction of temporary hotel modules like those used by shift workers is proposed. "These quickly erected inexpensive structures are not ordinary sheds; they meet sanitary requirements and have a minimum set of amenities," Alexandrov believes. And it is planned to place such "simplified" hotels on the territories of large planned construction sites.
As the committee chairman stated, the state "Terminal" should drive out of the market the shadow structures that currently play the role of the host organization. "No one comes to Moscow to an empty place," he believes, "there is always a prior agreement with employers or intermediaries. To supplant them, the state must simplify the life of a migrant in the capital, including providing him with a minimum social package." In his opinion, conscientious employers will also find it easier to work with a state structure than with shadow firms providing intermediary services.
At the same time, according to Alexandrov, taking into account the specifics of the capital, Moscow should retain a permit-based rather than a notification-based registration system. And also to carry it out not at the place of stay, but at the place of residence. "Moscow is interested in foreign labor, but not in faceless and unskilled labor," he stated. "It would be more correct to conduct an organized recruitment of workers under an agreement with the country of origin. The requested specialists would then come under the guarantees of the Moscow government and immediately fall under its care and control. And after finishing work on one site, they would be centrally transferred to another."
According to the head of the human rights committee 'Civil Assistance' Svetlana Gannushkina, registration at the place of work, rather than residence, is one of the strongest aspects of the updated legislation. 'People should register exactly at their place of work,' she told Gazeta.Ru. 'By separating the registration of foreign workers from their place of residence, the responsibility of the host party is legalized: the employer invited people, so must provide them with acceptable conditions.' While citizens did not have the opportunity to register and remained in the shadows, Moscow authorities could ignore them, believes Svetlana Gannushkina. 'Now the situation is changing. Yesterday, a high-ranking representative of the Moscow authorities stated that the new legislation forces the city to build housing for migrants. I consider this a very high assessment of the new law,' she noted.
According to Vladimir Lakeev, member of the Moscow City Duma commission on interethnic and interfaith relations, in any case we are talking about a very small number of migrants. 'The problem is not labor migration itself, but its illegality,' he stated. 'Whatever advantages are offered for migrants to come out of the shadows, it is not beneficial for employers. They are interested in squeezing the maximum out of the worker, while avoiding social packages and tax payments. And workers will accept their conditions.'
What is in the law on migrants
The law 'On Migration Registration of Foreign Citizens and Stateless Persons in the Russian Federation,' which came into force on January 15, 2007, and also