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The Modi government has proposed thatemployers will have to pay for migrant workers trip to home, which can be a train (not below Second Class Sleeper), bus or other modes of transport, once a year.

As per the new draft of labour lawspublished by the Union Labour Ministry, the employers can pay a lump sum amount every year to inter-state migrant workers to travel back home. To avail should have worked for that particular establishment for at least six months in the preceding year.

Along with this, the draft also states that the ministry will establish a toll-free helpline number.

With respect to contract labourers, the draft proposesthat a contractor shall fix the wage periods which will not exceed one month. Contractors are bound to pay wages before the end of the seventh day after the day of the wage period. It has to be paid through bank transfer or electronic mode only.

The draft also mandates that companies will have to conduct annual free health check-ups for every worker above the age of 45 years. It also states that a single electronic registration for licensing will be set up by the company.

The barrage of changes was made in light of the migrant crisis which saw lakhs of labourers struggling to get back to their home states during the nationwide coronavirus-induced lockdown.

The government faced criticism from all fronts after it was not able to provide data on how many migrants died or lost their source of income during the exodus where workers were forced to leave factories, business on foot in the absence of food, shelter and income.

The draft rules come under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Act, 2020, which deals with the safety, health and working conditions of construction workers, miners, inter-states migrant workers, audio-visual workers, journalists, salespersons, contract labourers and workers at the dock.

The ministry has sought objections and suggestions from the public on the draft proposals within 45 days.

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Employers may soon have to pay for migrant worker's trip back home once a year - Deccan Herald

Date Published: 19/11/2020

This year has seen a spectacular increase in the number of irregular migrants attempting to reach EU territory via the Canary Islands by making perilous Atlantic voyages from western Africa, and the migratory crisis has reached boiling point in the islands this week as the latest wave of small boats arriving has led to there simply not being enough room to hold the migrants.

By the end of October at least 400 migrants were known to have died while attempting to sail to the Canaries, but this week attention in the Spanish media has shifted to the problems caused by the numbers of people making the crossing successfully. By 15th November the number of unauthorized arrivals in the islands this year had reached 16,760, eleven times more than in the equivalent period last year and considerably higher than the total for the other Mediterranean coastlines of Spain.

During the first fortnight of this month migrants had been arriving at an average rate of 356 per day, and the total for the month between 15th October and 15th November was more than for the whole of the first nine and a half months of the year. As a result of this influx of unauthorized migrants, and with the figures rising still higher over the weekend, it appears that the overstretched detention centres facilities reached breaking point at the Red Cross temporary detention facility on the quay of Arguinegun in Gran Canaria, which was designed to hold just over 400 people.

In recent weeks Arguinegun has been acting as a temporary home to over 2,000 irregular economic migrants, many of them young men looking for work, crammed into a tiny area with basic food, inadequate sanitation and barely enough room to stretch their legs. Local residents were aware of the seriousness of the situation as the number of people on the quay exceeded the official population, but it did not become clear to the rest of Spain until the police, in what has now been described as an error by the Ministry of the Interior, released 227 migrants without alternative accommodation having been provided, effectively leaving them free to roam the streets. The officers concerned reasoned that the permitted 72 hours for detaining people without a charge being issued had elapsed and that the crowded conditions constituted a health hazard.

The local town hall of Mogn was horrified and put out a statement saying that the National Police had opened the port entrances to let them loose in the streets of the town without any kind of vigilance or anywhere to go. The Mayoress of Mogn, Onalia Bueno, chartered three buses to the Plaza de la Feria, an area close to the Government Delegation itself, various voluntary organisations and the Consulate of Morocco. She also supplied a translator so that the migrants understood what was happening.

"We had to address the situation because we cannot have all these people wandering around the municipality or Gran Canaria without means," said the Mayoress: "These people have the right to decent accommodation," she said.

Space was hurriedly found for 139 of those who were evicted from Arguinegun at a tourist bungalow complex a few kilometres away in Maspalomas, but owners of the apartments and tourism representatives are voicing their concern about the situation: other tourist accommodation has already been called into use for the same purpose, and the owners are keen to keep rooms free as they hope to salvage something from the winter tourist season, although they are also concerned about the humanitarian implications of the situation.

ngel Vctor Torres, the president of the regional government, has denied any knowledge of who gave the order to allow the migrants to leave Arguinegun and requested that at least some of the burden be lightened by the transport of migrants to other regions of Spain, but those who wanted to sail to Huelva on the Spanish mainland have been denied permission to travel due to their having no official paperwork: again a rapid solution was found for their predicament as the Red Cross relocated them to a hotel in southern Tenerife, as they are permitted to travel from island to island.

However, the migrants are unable to leave the islands through their own means as the ferry companies have all said that they will not take anyone across to mainland Spain who does not have a valid passport. Tonight at least 20 migrants ( mainly Algerians and Moroccans, who are economic migrants, not refugees) are sleeping rough by the ferry port and refusing to move elsewhere, protesting that they want to go to Spain, even though they have no legal right to do so.

Further difficulties are caused by the fact that no other region is keen on taking the migrants in, and the Canaries Government has appealed for other areas of Spain to help them relocate the migrants.

In this context, and looking further ahead, Sr Torres has called for the EU to define the migratory model which it hopes to achieve in the long term, while in the meantime he demands stricter measures to deal with what has developed this year from a problem into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. Among the steps he hopes for are greater vigilance on the part of coastguards and other authorities, support for the countries of origin of the migrants and the provision of more adequate facilities for those who do succeed in reaching the Canaries, as well as more help in transferring the migrants from the islands.

The regional president expressed optimism that immediate action can be decided upon this Friday, when the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, travels to Morocco for a meeting with his counterpart in the north African country.

Sr Torres also points out the Canaries already provide a home for over 2,000 minors who have travelled to the islands unaccompanied by an adult, and that the deportation process for other migrants has been made more complicated by the Covid pandemic. But at the root of his calls for urgent action is the remote, and economically fragile nature of the Canaries, which means that it is just not possible to take in so many people and home them.

This attitude came to the fore on Tuesday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, when most of the migrants who had been released were removed from Arguinegun to the Plaza de La Feria in the island capital: while it is true that a few people insulted them in the streets, far more showed their support and concern by offering them food and water.

Although this gesture shows the genuine sympathy felt by the townspeople for the situation in which the migrants find themselves (recently there have been at least two protests in the town of Mogn against the conditions in which the migrants are living) , but the feeling in the Canaries is that is should not be necessary and that the warnings which have been repeated throughout 2020 by the regional government and groups such as Human Rights Watch have been largely ignored. Since March the Red Cross and other organizations have not only been offering first aid and sustenance to the growing numbers of migrants but have also been ensuring that they are tested for Covid-19, and there have been numerous reports of new arrivals spending up to 24 hours sitting on the quay at Arguinegun before receiving any kind of attention due to the resources available being totally overwhelmed.

Over 70 people currently in the docks in the care of the Cruz Roja are reported to be observing quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19.

The majority of the recent wave of irregular migrants are coming from Algeria and Morocco, and are young men in search of work, so are referred to by the EU as irregular immigrants and are economic migrants, not refugees.

Neither country is an EU member, so although nationals from both countries may legally enter Spain with a valid passport, they are not permitted to cross the border without valid documentation.

As Spain is an EU member, it has to follow EU guidelines on migration and cannot "send the migrants back" without going through a repatriation process which has been impossible to implement due to the covid situation.

In the last few months, most of the migrants who have reached the Spanish mainland have simply been released to continue their journey, which takes some of them into France or Belgium, whilst others join the throngs of migrants attempting to reach the UK. These "sin papeles" are not allowed to work legally in Spain, a situation which opens many up to exploitation as they are forced to work "under the radar illegally" if they stay in Spain.

The Spanish government cannot legalise these irregular migrants and enable them to work without encouraging potentially hundreds of thousands more people looking for a better life who would themselves attempt to get into Spain due to the current economic situation in Morocco and Algeria.

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Migrant Crisis In The Canary Islands As Detention Facilities Spill Over - Murcia Today

Congratulations from Latin American leaders continue to arrive for President-elect Joe Biden, with the notable exceptions of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico. For many people, the incoming Biden Administration brings hopes of a shift in the United States relationship with the region.

Many Latin American migrant rights advocates and analysts hope the incoming Biden Administration will address the migration crisis, which the Trump Administration exacerbated by attacking the asylum process and shutting down the borders.

It opens the possibility of new options, for new changes, Ernesto Paz Aguilar, Hondurass former foreign relations minister during the administration of Carlos Roberto Reina Idiquez (1994-1998) and current advisor to the Libre Party, tells The Progressive.

The new Biden Administration needs to reformulate the policy toward Central America and the Carribean, he says. In the case of Honduras, we hope that the administration will no longer support the government of Juan Orlando Hernndez, and that itll make changes in the issue of migration and a different approach to the war on drugs and against corruption.

As Vice President, Biden made a number of trips to Latin America, especially Central America, with which he expressed special concern. In 2015, during the emergency caused by the arrival of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors, Biden announced plans for the Alliance for Prosperity, a project intended to invest millions of dollars to combat corruption, improve the rule of law, and promote investments in key infrastructure projects.

The Biden Administration will also face a region that has been devastated by COVID-19, tropical storms, and economic crises. Biden has presented a plan for $4 billion of aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, seeking to resolve the causes of migration and increase investment in the region.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 marked an abrupt shift from the Obama Administrations multilateral approach to foreign relations with Latin American nations. Trump essentially reversed Obamas policy that marked an end to the Monroe Doctrine, a move which led to outcry from conservatives.

The time of the United States dictating unilaterally, the time where we only talk and dont listen, is over, Biden declared during a 2009 visit to Santiago, Chile.

The Trump Administration re-embraced the Monroe Doctrine as the principal foreign policy toward Latin America. The doctrine, which dates back to the early 1800s, argues that the United States has the right and responsibility to shape the destinies of the Central and South Americas.

This shift emboldened the far rights authoritarian dreams and contributed to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of migrants seeking to reach the United States.

In Central America, the Trump Administration propped up conservative governments, empowering the far right in Guatemala, and bolstered the illegitimate administration of Juan Orlando Hernndez in Honduras following the 2017 elections. Trumps efforts also led to the moving of the Guatemalan and Honduran embassies in Israel to Jerusalem, and the weakening of anti-corruption efforts in those countries, among many other impacts.

Without the support of the administration of Trump, Juan Orlando Hernndez would not be in power because he was supported in a fraudulent election, Paz Aguilar says. He adds that Honduras was later utilized as a client state in international relations, especially in the relation with [Benjamin] Netanyahu in Israel.

Many Latin American migrant rights advocates and analysts hope the incoming Biden Administration will address the migration crisis, which the Trump Administration exacerbated by attacking the asylum process and shutting down the borders. But doing so will be difficult.

The Trump Administration signed Asylum Cooperation agreements with the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, which would send asylum seekers to these three countries to apply for asylum there. Only Guatemala implemented the agreement, and more than 900 Hondurans and Salvadorans were sent there before it was suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Analysts in the region, including Paz Aguilar and Marielos Chang, a political science professor at the Universidad Rafael Landvar in Guatemala City, hope the Biden Administration will change or annul the agreement. But the massive deportations are likely to continue.

The deportations will occur with a serious face, like with Trump, or with a smile, like with Biden, Chang tells The Progressive. We have to remember that it was Obama who dramatically increased the number of deportations, only the way he did it was more charismatic.

Biden is also poised to return to the Obama Administrations anti-corruption efforts in Central America.

In Guatemala, the Trump Administration gave a tacit green light for the dissolution of the famed United Nations backed anti-corruption organization, the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG. The attacks against CICIG came after attacks from conservatives and elites in Guatemala, which were echoed by conservatives in the United States, including Senators Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and The Wall Street Journal. CICIG finally closed its doors in Guatemala on September 3, 2019.

In the months that followed, State Department officials returned to expressing their support for Guatemalas Special Anti-Impunity Prosecutors Bureau, known as FECI. Biden has signaled his intent to escalate anti-corruption efforts in the region. But these efforts will not mean the return of CICIG.

It is completely outside of all possibilities that CICIG returns, Chang says. We have to remember that CICIG was a vision of the government of Guatemala that was accepted by the Guatemalan Congress. We are in a completely different scenario where the government would not ask for it and the Congress will not approve it.

Chang believes that the Biden Administration plans to work directly with the FECI, strengthening Guatemalas capacity to fight corruption.

But some things will remain the same with the entering administration.

Biden expressed concern over Chinese influence in the region and has proposed promoting subsidized investments in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, similar to the Trump Administrations Amrica Crece initiative.

We need to be realistic, I dont think there will be any grand changes, Chang says. The interests of the United States with Guatemala and the region continue to be the same: migration, security, and the economy. This isnt going to change with whoever is President, because interests dont change from night to day.

Read the rest here:
The Other Americans: What Joe Biden's Win Means for Central America - Progressive.org

This article was originally published here

Indian J Labour Econ. 2020 Nov 12:1-21. doi: 10.1007/s41027-020-00290-x. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Migration and mobilities are vastly underestimated in India. In particular, circular migration remains poorly captured as circular migrants move back and forth between source and destination regions. Based on survey data from rural Bihar, an important source region of migration in India, this paper finds that a vast majority of migrants work and live in precarity in predominantly urban and prosperous destinations across India. However, those at the lowest rungs of the social and economic ladder in source regions-the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, other backward classes I and the labouring class-are the worst off at destination; they are part of the most precarious shorter-term migration streams, earn the lowest incomes, have the poorest conditions of work, and live in the harshest circumstances. The paper shows that social and economic hierarchies, and in turn, precarity in source region is reproduced at destination, and, thus, there is little evidence that spatial mobility is associated with social mobility. Focusing on migrants location, work, employment, income, housing, and access to basic services at destination, the paper foregrounds migrant precarity and adds to a small body of empirical literature that is significant in understanding the spatial and structural elements of circular migration in India and in turn, the migration crisis that emerged as a result of the economic shock of the COVID 19 pandemic.

PMID:33204054 | PMC:PMC7659404 | DOI:10.1007/s41027-020-00290-x

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Circular Migration and Precarity: Perspectives from Rural Bihar - DocWire News

At 7 am every day, Vala Ram Gameti, 32, sets off from his home at Koviya village in southern Rajasthan to the nearest market, about three-km away. He takes an hour for the days prep chopping onions, carrots, cabbage, and stewing sauces. By 9 am, he pulls up the shutters of Bankyarani Chinese Corner, the first-ever Chinese food stall in the area as he proclaims it to be. He set it up after losing his job as a cook in a fast-food restaurant in Gujarat and returning home in March, when a national lockdown was announced.

Gameti is one of estimated 10.5 million migrant workers who returned to villages after the national lockdown, according to data submitted by the government in parliament. More than half a year after the reverse migration from cities during the lockdown, how are migrant workers coping?

In a three-part series on how the Covid-19 crisis has impacted livelihoods, we examine how workers are adapting to the changing circumstances. In this first part of the series, we look at workers who have stayed back in villages, focusing on southern Rajasthan. The state has reportedly witnessed the return of 1.3 million migrant workers, engaged mainly in construction, manufacturing, daily wage and hospitality sectors. In the next, we will report from Odisha on workers who have returned to cities. In the final part, we will explore how the lives of women have changed due to the pandemic in Uttar Pradesh.

Of those workers who have stayed back in villages, most are waiting to go back to cities but have not found employment there yet. They are expecting the situation to change after Diwali, IndiaSpend found in the course of numerous interviews. Some said they are still fearful of the novel coronavirus, so they do not want to go back but to earn their livelihood at home instead. Although it is too early to analyse how this will change the nature of work in the long term, two trends are clear: workers are being forced to change their trade out of desperation and some were learning new skills. Returnee migrants are setting up small enterprises in rural areas to provide services thus far only available in cities.

A yet-to-be-published study by Aajeevika Bureau, which visited five districts in southern Rajasthan in April and May to survey 426 migrant workers who had returned home from different parts of the country, found the workers facing multiple vulnerabilities. Many had large families to support, but only one working member was in paid employment per family. The lockdown had left the workers jobless and cashless, and many had not been paid their last wages, the survey found.

By the end of April, 57% of workers said, they had no money left at all. In all, 22% said they were down to their last Rs 100 to Rs 500, forcing them to take out loans even to meet their basic needs. About 38% reported they had received no help from the government such as food and ration during the lockdown. With no regular work currently and little government support, 69% of workers said they wanted to get back to the cities to work, the survey found.

The unavailability of work for a long time will reduce the workers available resources which might ultimately affect their bargaining power and mobility, the study predicted.In the absence of resources, the workers might not be able to return to the city or take a credit on high-interest rates and get trapped in the debt trap. This also will highly impact the bargaining power of the workers who will be accepting the wage lesser than they deserve.

Gameti had worked in a restaurant in Vapi for more than a decade. When the lockdown was announced, the restaurant shut down and he was not paid for the month. He made his way back to his village along with two of his brothers who worked with him. They took a bus to the Rajasthan border and then walked for two days to their village of Koviya. After the lockdown was eased in June, his brothers returned to Vapi but he decided he had had enough of city life.

The city was very difficult, said Gameti, now home with his wife, three daughters and his parents. My employer refused to increase my wages. I would worry about my family. I feel safer here and there is less chance of falling ill. In August, he opened the food stall with aid from Aajeevika Bureau, a Rajasthan-based non-governmental organisation that supports migrant workers. He used to earn Rs 13,000 a month in Vapi while the Chinese stall makes close to Rs 1,000 a day and on some days a little more which he finds quite satisfactory. Besides, he likes working for himself. Main high level ka Chinese banata hun [I make top quality Chinese food], he said.

Men from Gametis village, which falls in a tribal zone, have traditionally engaged in rasoi work across India, mostly in Gujarat. The southern Rajasthan-Gujarat migration corridor provides workers for three sectors: construction, textiles, and small hotels and restaurants. A research paper from 2018 found that the adivasi community of southern Rajasthan was subject to super-exploitation in Gujarat where employers take advantage of their historically low socio-economic conditions, which perpetuates the communitys disadvantaged position across generations, even when they have jobs.

Between early April and the end of May, over 1.3 million workers returned to the districts of Udaipur, Dungarpur, Sirohi, Jalore, Nagaur, Barmer and Bikaner, according to the Rajasthan governments Labour Employment Exchange portal.

After the lockdown, workers from this region were either out of work or forced to take up any work that came their way. Many had found the cities more hostile than before.

Parta Ram, 33, from Ajaypura, not far from Gametis Koviya village, has worked in hotels and restaurants for nearly 25 years. When the lockdown was announced, Ram, along with 35 men from his village, was employed as a cook at a school in Chotta Udaipur in eastern Gujarat. He was not paid his wages when he returned home during the lockdown, and has not found any steady work since. He said he had invested his lifes savings of Rs 2.5 lakh to install a tubewell in his farm before the pandemic. With no savings and no work coming his way, he could barely meet his daily expenses. He found work for a few days under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and at private construction sites, earning Rs 100 to Rs 200 a day, which is lower than the minimum wage rate of Rs 225 for unskilled workers in Rajasthan.

Rajasthan accounted for 6.57 million of 60 million households that have availed MGNREGS since April this year. This was the second most, after Uttar Pradeshs 8 million households. There were gaps in implementation, the wages paid were below the daily wage stipulation, work was stalled and supervisors pilfered material and money, according to labour rights groups. These issues have been noted across the country.

MGNREGS has been a shock absorber in the post-lockdown period, said PC Kishan, state commissioner for MGNREGS in Rajasthan. We employed 5.4 million persons per day in the month of June this year, compared to 3 million last year in the peak months of summer. The state has revised its budget from 300 million person days for this year to 370 million.

We are anticipating more demand for MGNREGS in January and February, since migration has started but only in certain sectors and people are on the brink of poverty, he added. We will revise the budget again to 400 million person days.

However, the situation is worsening as MGNREGS work has dwindled since August, said Saloni Mundra, a knowledge and programme support executive at Aajeevika Bureau: When the workers returned in April and May, they came back without any wages. Some found work under MGNREGS and at the local level between June and July. But from August onwards that work has depleted. A lot of workers have changed their trade out of desperation, she said those who worked in textiles or hotels were taking up work in construction, a sector that has picked up while others had shrunk.

This shift in occupation has been noticed across the country. A report on the impact of Covid-19 on the urban poor conducted in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region by the non-governmental organisation Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action said, Some skilled workers reported shifting to other unskilled work in an attempt to earn. Those who have gone back to their villages to farm reported being unable to do so. In such situations, the dependence on state-provided welfare is high.

Workers have had to adapt due to loss of income, said Marina Joseph, associate director at Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action. Those who did skilled work in a sector like construction like plumbing or electrician would have moved to lifting and loading, she said, Many others have taken up street vending.

Diamond cutting in Gujarat employs a large number of youth from Rajasthan and these are skilled workers who are paid good wages. [They] are taking up unskilled work like loading and unloading to earn a few hundred rupees a day, said Madan Vaishnav, a field officer at the workers rights collective, Centre for Labour Research and Action.

It is a process of deskilling, said S Irudaya Rajan, an expert on migration at the Centre for Development Studies in Kerala. As we get closer to Diwali, sustaining livelihood in rural areas will become more challenging as people will borrow money for spending during the festive season. The government needs to recognise the crisis and make direct cash transfers to the bank accounts of those who have lost their jobs to help them tide over this period, so that the workers are not compelled to return immediately to cities, where they could face exploitation given the state of the economy.

Forming cooperative societies where groups of migrant workers come together could be a way for them to protect their rights and to develop their services, as most development economists have recommended.

In August, Ram, the cook from Ajaypura, was offered work at Mundra, a port town in Gujarat. When he reached there with 27 men from his village, they realised that the contractor had misled them. They had been promised work in a utensils factory, but on reaching there they found that the factory manufactured iron pipes. They had to work 12-hour shifts loading and unloading pipes. We are not trained for this work, each pipe was almost 50 kg, said Ram, adding, I felt my body was breaking. We returned to our village in three days. Before the pandemic, loading and unloading, work that is considered hazardous, was handled mostly by migrants from Bihar.

Ram is back in his village now, tending to his maize crop. The terrain is hard and rocky and difficult to cultivate. His one bigha (0.25 hectare) of land is not enough to sustain his family of six. But there is no fear of the novel coronavirus in these parts, Ram said, unlike in the city. The hills in the area keep the virus away, he insisted.

The crisis here is one of economic survival as the uncertainty stretches on. But Ram did not want to risk searching for new work in the city again and hoped that schools would open after Diwali so he could get back to his job cooking in a school canteen.

Amid all this, there are signs of resilience too. Some workers, supported by NGOs or of their own initiative, are trying to upgrade their skills to fit into the rural economy.

Lokesh Khorwal, a trainer at Aajeevika Bureau working on their livelihood programme, has been training young people from rural Rajasthan to repair mobile phones to enable them to set up shops in villages. There has been a steady uptick in demand for these workshops over the past few months, he said. Since this crisis we have had the highest interest in this workshop, every batch is full, said Khorwal. Every person in the village has a mobile phone but not every village has a mobile repair shop and they all have to travel far for it.

On a weekday afternoon in late September when IndiaSpend contacted them, 31 men from different districts had been attending the training for two weeks and were preparing for an exam.

Mahendra Dhodiya, 20, who was learning how to repair the motherboard of a mobile phone, said there was a lot of pressure to study and practice in the workshop. Dhodiya, who had been stranded for two months before returning home during the lockdown, used to work at a tea shop in Pune. He had already thought of a busy spot in the village market where he would set up shop.

It is possible to earn anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 a day from a mobile repair shop, said Khorwal, adding that it was more than the wages the trainees would earn in the city. The workshops for two-wheeler repair and electrical wiring for houses skills that can be used to set up small enterprises in villages were also running full, he said.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

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Migrant workers returning to Rajasthan are learning new skills to survive in a post-lockdown world - Scroll.in