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- Not only remittances from abroad are increasing but also from Croatia – foreign workers sent over a billion euros to their home countries last year
- The state has not resolved the living conditions for about a hundred thousand foreigners, but at the same time, questions arise about why domestic workers do not have such rights?
- Due to the large gap in the labor market, the knowledge and skills of foreigners are not being questioned, which are certainly required from domestic workers
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Emigrated Croats working temporarily or permanently abroad, as well as foreign labor arriving in Croatia, are becoming increasingly important economic variables. At all levels, from companies to macroeconomic indicators of the state, and in both directions.
According to the latest data from the Croatian National Bank, remittances from abroad have rapidly increased in recent years, rising by almost one billion euros between 2021 and 2022, to 5.1 billion. In comparison, the entire country earned 14 billion euros from tourism last year. The third quarter of last year (for which there is no data yet) was cumulatively at 4.2 billion, so it is hard to believe that it will not exceed the previous year.
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At the same time, the amounts of remittances that foreign workers send to their families in their home countries are also rapidly increasing. In 2022, they sent about one billion euros from Croatia, while that amount was sent in just the first three quarters last year. As the labor market remains hungry for workers, and there are no domestic ones – 134,000 work permits were issued in 2022, around 170,000 last year, and estimates for this year are around 200,000 – there is no doubt that outgoing remittances will quickly catch up with incoming ones.
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Meanwhile, as the state still does not come out with a concrete strategy, not only for attracting foreigners but primarily for retaining them, so that we do not become just a transit station for a better life somewhere else in the EU (how could we not when the minimum wage for obtaining an EU blue card, a work permit that allows the settlement of highly educated or specialized individuals with their families, is four thousand euros per month in Germany, while in Croatia it is only 2.3 thousand), and Western countries rarely or never prevent the work of foreigners with Croatian work permits issued for Croatia, but also with their integration into society, numerous questions arise, primarily about their rights, but also about equalizing those rights with those of domestic workers. Again in both directions.
Forgotten Holidays
Specifically, lawyer Danijel Pribanić says that the state has legally resolved working conditions quite thoroughly. For example, the Regulation on the Stay of Third-Country Nationals in the Republic of Croatia states that no more than six seasonal workers may reside in the space designated for living, sleeping, and preparing food; the equipment and devices in the facility must not be worn out or damaged and must be in functional condition; the height of the rooms in the facility (height from floor to ceiling) must allow for unobstructed and safe movement of seasonal workers; the rooms intended for sleeping male and female persons must be physically separated, unless they are family members who are seasonal workers, and the space for preparing food must be arranged so that independent food preparation can be carried out; the minimum guaranteed area for the accommodation of a seasonal worker is 14 square meters per person (including space for sleeping, food preparation, and sanitary facilities).
– If the accommodation is provided by the employer or is an intermediary in providing accommodation, the accommodation cost must be appropriate to the seasonal worker’s salary and must not exceed 30 percent of the net salary and must not be automatically deducted from the salary; the employer must provide the seasonal worker with a lease agreement or an equivalent document clearly stating the rental conditions for accommodation.
If the employer provides accommodation to the seasonal worker free of charge, they must issue a document to the seasonal worker clearly stating the accommodation conditions. Along with the application for a residence and work permit for seasonal work, the applicant signs a statement that the accommodation complies with Articles 47, 48, and 49 of the Regulation – Pribanić specifies, adding that on religious holidays, members of certain faiths have the right to a non-working day, namely Christians who celebrate Christmas on January 7, Christians who celebrate Easter according to the Julian calendar on Easter Monday, members of the Islamic faith who celebrate the holidays of Ramadan and Kurban Bayram one day of their choice for each of those holidays, and members of the Jewish faith who celebrate the holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah one day of their choice for each of those holidays.
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However, the holiday law has ‘forgotten’ that these three groups are no longer the most numerous and that more and more workers are arriving from countries with completely different religions and cultural foundations, different from those listed above to which we have become accustomed.
But another catch-22 lies in the fact that the Regulation only prescribes conditions for – seasonal workers! And Croatia needs far more those who will stay here for at least a few years, preferably settle permanently. The state has not actually resolved the living conditions for about a hundred thousand foreigners, but at the same time, questions arise about why domestic workers do not have such rights?
It is not, therefore, just about foreigners not having sufficiently defined rights but also about domestic workers not having such a level of rights. Therefore, Pribanić asks: can an employer devise a system whereby workers who are not Croatian citizens are accommodated in organized accommodation at the employer’s expense, while at the same time paying those workers the same salary as workers with Croatian citizenship? This concerns work in the same jobs.
Why is accommodation not paid for domestic workers?
The Ministry of Labor responds that foreign workers have the same rights from employment relationships as domestic workers. – Regarding the conditions in which foreign workers live (organized accommodation or otherwise), we draw attention to the fact that there are no regulations within the jurisdiction of this ministry that govern such matters. The Labor Law does not prescribe the employer’s obligation to take care of the accommodation of workers either at a general level or specifically for foreign workers.
However, if the employer has taken on the obligation of accommodation or feeding workers, in fulfilling that obligation, in accordance with the provision of Article 28, paragraph 4 of the Labor Law, they must take care of the protection of the life, health, and morals of the workers, as well as their religion. Given that the inquiry relates to the accommodation of third-country nationals, we draw attention to the fact that the Regulation on the Stay of Third-Country Nationals in the Republic of Croatia regulates the issues of appropriate accommodation for foreign seasonal workers, and it was adopted as a subordinate act of the Aliens Act and is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.
Furthermore, the Labor Law prescribes equal pay, including income based on employment relationships, only in relation to the equality of men and women, thus not equal pay among the same gender under the same conditions. Therefore, we believe that a worker who claims not to have received equal pay could demand the same from the employer only if that differentiation among workers is conditioned by one of the discriminatory grounds from the Anti-Discrimination Act (for example, race) – the Ministry states.
Rights are clearly not equal, primarily for domestic workers with employers of all sizes who do not pay for accommodation or food, or, why not – a loan installment, as part of the rent for an apartment.
Pribanić also warns that due to the large gap in the labor market, the knowledge and skills of foreigners are not being questioned at all, which are certainly required from domestic workers. – When it comes to foreign drivers, for example, no one questions how different their culture is and how different the customs of driving or using sirens are there, consequently how much higher the probability of traffic accidents and unusual situations is. Language knowledge is still a big problem. All workers in the same jobs should have equal material rights, but domestic workers do not have them, and this will increasingly become a problem, which is why even fewer domestic people will want to work for Croatian employers or will start seeking their rights to equal pay – concludes Pribanić.
The growing number of questions, uncertainties, and problems arising from the ‘import’ of labor is being addressed by the state at approximately the pace at which Croatia is catching up with the EU average. After a whole decade of membership, it will take about another 20 years to achieve convergence at this moment. Hopefully, we will not take that long to figure out how to equalize the rights of all workers and how to integrate foreigners into society so that we do not repeat the experiences of France or Sweden.
