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ABSTRACT
The protection of labor rights of temporary migrant workers in global supply chains requires further theoretical and policy research. Through the case of Serbian workers in Slovak electronics supply chains, we look at how the transnational recruitment of labor via temporary work agencies (TWAs) for globally organized production generates heightened forms of exploitation and unfree labor relations. We show that such exploitation occurs in a regulatory framework consisting of various instruments ranging from the Palermo Protocol specific to trafficking, to EU law addressing the mobility of workers, and corporate codes of conduct aimed at guaranteeing worker rights within supply chains. Paradoxically, despite an overregulated field, existing instruments fail to offer a straightforward avenue for redress. We suggest that this failure is an outcome of the current legal and corporate regulatory matrix that allows market competition through work practices that violate basic labor standards and produce the conditions that enable and sustain unfree labor relations, while normalizing exploitation in supply chains.
Notes
1 The project has been conducted by D. Sacchetto, University of Padua, and R. Andrijasevic, University of Bristol, 2013–2018 and involved fieldwork in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey, and Hungary.
3 See protests in Voderada (http://rs.n1info.com/a251475/Svet/Svet/Slovacka-Peticija-protiv-srpskih-radnika.html) and in Sered (https://mynitra.sme.sk/c/20702672/zamestnanci-fm-slovenska-protestovali-proti-uprednostnovaniu-srbskych-brigadnikov.html) .
4 E.g. SILIADIN v. FRANCE. (Application no. 73316/01). JUDGMENT. STRASBOURG. 26 July 2005. FINAL. 26/10/2005.
5 RANTSEV v. CYPRUS AND RUSSIA. (Application no. 25965/04). JUDGMENT. STRASBOURG. 7 January 2010. FINAL. 10 May 2010.
6 CHOWDURY AND OTHERS V GREECE (Application No. 21884/15). JUDGMENT. STRASBOURG. 30 March 2017.
7 Case C-341/05 Laval un Partneri v Svenska Byggnadsarbetareförbundet [2007] ECR I-11767 (Laval).
8 See C-113/89 Rush Portuguesa v Office national d’immigration [1990] ECR I-1417; [1991] 2 CMLR 818 [1990] ECR 1417, para 15.
9 Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16.12.96 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services [1997] OJ L18/1 (PWD); see also the supplementary Dir 2014/67/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 on the enforcement of Dir 96/71/EC concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012 on administrative cooperation through the Internal Market Information System (Enforcement Dir 2014); and Dir 2018/957/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 June 2018 amending Dir 96/71 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services (Amending PWD 2018). This amendment must be implemented by member states by 30 July 2020.
10 See Intra-EU Mobility of Third-country Nationals, European Migration Network Study 2013, at 28, citing inter alia Case C-43/93 Vander Elst, judgment of 9 August 1994; Case C-445/03 Commission v Luxembourg, judgment of 21 October 2004.
11 The interview is unpublished and the quote has been reproduced with the permission of MKC interviewers.
15 See the view of Emil Machyna, chair of OZ KOVO, the Slovak organization uniting trade unionists from the machinery industry quoted on 6 March 2017 in https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20470797/economy-seeks-new-blood-outside-eu.html.