Labor migration Luhansk-style

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the phenomenon of guest workers. Poles have traditionally traveled to neighboring Germany in search of jobs, even when Poland was still a “country of the people’s democracy.” There they earned good money and were paid in a respected currency; they paid taxes in Poland and everybody was happy. Yugoslavs, Chinese, and Vietnamese are found all over the world. These people mostly find jobs in the service sphere, opening restaurants and cafes, working as drivers and farm hands, paying taxes, and enjoying social benefits. There are, of course, illegal immigrants, but special agencies are consistently combating this problem.

In Ukraine, everything is different. In a time of changes, when living at home became absolutely unbearable, tens of thousands of Ukrainians left this country, in search of a better life abroad. Some settled in Cyprus, Greece, and Italy. Smart and beautiful Ukrainian girls traveled abroad in order to get married in prosperous countries. Most, however, headed for Moscow. This large and rapidly developing city, where everyone speaks Russian and no one demands foreign passports and visas, attracted Ukrainians with its huge opportunities.

Incidentally, people from Luhansk proved to be more energetic than many other citizens of Ukraine in mastering the Moscow labor market. For example, Mykola Stepanovych, a bricklayer by training, once worked for a building and assembly enterprise in Luhansk: “I didn’t choose my occupation. My father was a construction worker and I also entered a vocational-training school. I became a bricklayer and then learned other construction trades. I built homes and stores. And then everything came to an end. Even private homeowners were no longer hiring manpower, and tried to make renovations themselves to save money. A friend of mine suggested a trip to Moscow, saying there were rich people there who were looking for people to build new homes quickly and professionally, and that they paid well. One of them hired us to build a dacha, a big suburban home actually. Everything turned out well; we earned lots of money and were paid in full. Later, we learned how much they were paying local workers, but at the time we thought we had made a small fortune. Even while we were building the dacha we had other job offers, so we decided to stay for a while, keep working, then come back home with the money. We went through a lot, they would often gyp us, pay us one-third of the agreed sum, in installments, and accompanied by a lot of problems. In some cases they would simply throw us out without paying. There was little we could do since we were illegals, with no official registration. We would have to give bribes and the militia would collar us now and then, and they did not treat us politely. Sometimes our employers would treat us like slaves, giving us bad food and making us live in a pigsty, like tramps. And everyone demanded the best quality, so we had to redo our work two or three times at first, at our own cost, because we weren’t used to such requirements. But we do not plan to leave Moscow. There are many Ukrainians here. Families are the greatest problem. How can you keep a family going by staying in Moscow? Many men have found other women here, mostly migrants; many have taken to the bottle. It’s a good thing that I’m healthy, because we can’t get treatment at a city hospital, only at a private clinic.”

Mykola’s story is boringly banal, as well as tragically hopeless. Even though Ukraine is recording a certain degree of economic growth, local construction workers cannot earn as much money here as they can in Moscow, and people have gotten used to this. True, the price of taking advantage of this opportunity is very high, as many families fall apart, people often become alcoholics, and contacts between parents and children are severed. Mykola didn’t just recount his own story. Many of his acquaintances have encountered such problems. Physicians at a local addiction clinic hear such stories almost every day. They see a lot of guest workers among their patients. When they find themselves in a very big and indifferent city at best, these people encounter dozens of problems that they try to solve by forming ethnic communities of sorts. Fatigue, depression, and loss of work and money are extremely painful experiences, and people often seek consolation in the bottle. Alcoholism is a widespread guest workers’ disease, as is drug addiction among the younger workers. Natalka is sixteen years old. When she was six, her mother was jailed for theft. The girl grew up in an orphanage, then in a boarding school. After serving her term, her mother took the girl home, but she and her stepfather did not get along. It was mostly her grandmother who raised her. Now she takes drugs and does not study, although she has potential. And she does not want to work. Her mother went to Moscow a few years ago, selling things at a stadium, finally opening a kiosk of her own, and hiring several fellow countrymen. In time she seemed to have established herself, but when her daughter visited her, the woman said, “I don’t give a damn what you do, I’m not your nanny.” Natalka tried to settle in Moscow several times, but only made friends with junkies and marginal people. Still, the Russian capital attracts her like a magnet.

Meanwhile, all attempts to obtain even provisional statistics on guest workers from regional state administrations are rebuffed by tight-lipped personnel; no one wants to discuss the problem. Neither the regional employment center, nor the migration department of the Luhansk RSA, not even the labor directorate seems to be prepared to discuss labor migration. All agree that every year several dozen thousand residents leave the oblast in search of jobs outside Ukraine, and that only 2-3% have legal employment contracts. Everyone complains about the absence of a legal framework for regulating work migration processes. Valeriy Novykov, head of the oblast migration department, says, “There must be a single migration service in this country that would undertake all controlling functions. There is a bill at the Verkhovna Rada and it is being discussed, but it still has to be passed. The Ministry of Labor of Russia, the country to which more Ukrainians flock in search of jobs than anywhere else, and the Ministry of Labor of Ukraine have an intergovernmental agreement on labor migration, but the range of issues it covers is along the lines of wishes and intentions, rather than concrete resolutions. Although ten years ago the Luhansk employment service tried to cope with these problems and started circulating questionnaires, it ended right there and then.” Mykhailo Poloshko, head of the oblast wages and employment department, echoes his statements: “We have no official statistics. A seminar and conference took place in Luhansk last year, organized by the labor ministries of Ukraine and Russia, on problems of labor migration. A plan of measures was outlined, but so far nothing has been specifically done in that direction. There is still no employment agreement between the two countries, which means that we are unable to influence the situation. We have sent inquiries to the border guard service and the militia, requesting information about the number of people crossing the border in search of jobs, but have received no responses. Because there is no such registration.”

SOME FACTS

Experts estimate that one in every five economically active Ukrainians is earning a living abroad. Ministry of Labor and Social Policy statistics indicate that most Ukrainians work in Greece (7,249 individuals), Cyprus (2,914), Liberia (2,266), Great Britain (1,287), UAE (703), Germany (551), and Russia (543). Unofficial sources, however, claim that only 5% of this manpower exodus is reflected in the labor ministry statistics. The Parliamentary Ombudsperson’s Office has information showing that only 14% of Ukrainians working in Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey are registered somewhere.