Migrant workers' knowledge of their rights and obligations in the Irish workforce is weak, uneven or erroneous, according to a new survey.
Exploitation of workers documented in the report includes non-payment or delayed payment of wages, compulsory overtime and payments significantly below the minimum hourly wage.
The negative experiences detailed include a Filipino hospital worker who was often asked to shower patients who had soiled themselves, as this was "his" work, and a Lithuanian mushroom-picker who was sacked after receiving a workplace injury.
The research, which has not yet been published, is the first such snapshot of the varied experiences of non-EU skilled and unskilled migrant workers, who account for some 2 per cent of the Irish labour force.
The study focused on sectors where many migrant workers are employed, namely agriculture/horticulture, hospitals and health services, the service industry and the computer or information technology sector. The survey of 36 migrant workers from countries including the Philippines, Russia, India, the Czech Republic and Lithuania was carried out in autumn 2002. Some held work permits or work visas while others were undocumented.
The research was commissioned by the Equality Authority, IBEC, the Congress of Trade Unions, the Construction Industry Federation and Know Racism as part of their annual anti-racist workplace week initiative.
"The study suggests that migrant workers do not experience a strong support infrastructure," say the authors, Dr Pauline Conroy and Ms Aoife Brennan. "None of those interviewed had received materials in their own language. Knowledge of their rights and obligations in the Irish workforce was weak, uneven or erroneous."
It also found that:
Information provided by some employers or some recruitment agencies at the point of recruitment was too limited.
Employees who had intensive and organised supports from large employers reported the least frustration and difficulties.
Manual workers who worked exclusively with their own nationality in non-unionised environments reported few difficulties, but appeared to be unaware that they were working below minimum standards of pay and conditions.
Some workers said their employers had proposed irregular, even illegal, working conditions.
The fact that there was considerable use of overseas diplomatic and consular missions to resolve workplace disputes and express grievances suggested migrants were poorly supported.
Migrants on work permits reported difficulties in leaving undesirable employment, raising issues of employers holding passports and/or work permits.
None of the workers interviewed had seen an information leaflet available from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in a range of languages outlining their rights. While some migrants doing manual work said they had received information about minimum pay, others were told only about their own working conditions.
The rates of pay of those surveyed ranged from "piece payments" for fruit-pickers to between €1.25 and €2.50 an hour for forestry workers and €14 for a nurse. Most of those in the information technology/com- puter sector were happy with conditions and terms of employment, while experiences in the health sector were mixed.