Over the first six months of this year, the representative office of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population (MoLMEP) in Russia has reportedly negotiated the payment of 18,023,987 Russian rubles (RR) of unpaid back wages to Tajik labor migrants working in the Russian Federation.
The MoLMEP representative office’s press center says the reasons for non-payment of wages to migrant workers are varied, but most often they are associated with the lack of an employment contract with the employer and insufficient control over the fulfillment of obligations on the part of the contractor.
“Disorganized and unclear verbal consultation with the employer can lead to situations when the report on the work performed is not agreed upon between the parties, which makes it difficult to confirm the work performed,” says the MoLMEP representative office’s press center.
With each passing year, labor migrants from Tajikistan in Russia come up against new difficulties in securing work permits and formalizing their right to live in the country.
In some regions, local authorities have introduced restrictions on where migrants can work. Thus, in some oblasts, expat laborers are prohibited from working in the production of baby food and dietary food products. Other off-limits areas are public transportation, the hotel industry, education and healthcare at all levels, and beauty and massage parlors.
Where they are able to work, labor migrants often run the risk of not getting paid.
Employment contracts are often nonexistent and it similarly common for workers to be hired off the books. Workers can be employed by people whose names they do not know and companies whose legal address is a mystery. The option of going through the legal system to press employers to pay back wages is usually only available when all the rules have been followed.
