Launch of Conference Report: Migrant Worker Rights

Prioritise the rights of vulnerable workers, economic planners urged.

The report comes days before
Anti-Racist Workplace Week

South Tyrone Empowerment Programme (STEP) has joined forces with Dungannon and South Tyrone Council’s ‘Animate’ project and the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), to prevent exploitation and abuse of migrant workers.

Launch of the report

Launching the report of their joint conference entitled ‘Promoting the Rights of Migrant Workers’ outside the Invest NI Headquarters in Belfast, the three organisations were keen to stress the importance of preventing a future climate of anti-migrant racism. The conference itself was a great success, with more than 200 delegates participating.

North-South dimension

Joe Lenaghan of the NCCRI’s Synergy initiative spoke of a need to redouble efforts to tackle exploitation on a North-South basis:

“We all need to take into account the context of migration in Ireland, North and South, which means the basic human needs of migrant workers particularly when planning public service provision”

Responsibility

Bernadette McAliskey, of STEP, stressed the need to hold those benefiting from cheap labour responsible for helping meet the need of provision of services to migrant workers:

“It is not unreasonable to suggest that the recruitment agencies, gangmasters, employers and landlords making significant profit from the new dispensation should have an enforceable social responsibility to contribute from those profits towards meeting the new needs created.”

Legislation

Speaking for the Animate Project, Daniel Holder, considered enforcement and tightening of employment rights legislation central to the cause against exploitation, and said:

“Exploitation disadvantages everybody – primarily the migrant who is exploited but there is a knock on effect on the working conditions of others, the correct reaction to this needs to be the strengthening of employment rights and not the scapegoating of migrant workers.”

The launch of the report comes on the eve of Anti-Racist Workplace Week, run jointly by the Equality Authority in the Republic of Ireland, and the Equality Commission in Northern Ireland