4.2 Non-Governmental Avenues for Redress

In the absence of effective Russian governmental mechanisms, Human Rights Watch research found that migrant workers in Russia primarily turn to other entities in hopes of obtaining redress for abuses, most often for non-payment of wages. These entities include local diaspora groups, embassies and consulates, and, to a lesser extent, NGOs. Most of these entities use informal methods to try and help migrant workers, most often simply by calling employers in order to attempt to resolve disputes. In their efforts to assist migrant workers, rarely do these entities appeal to official government structures, and they themselves have no legal enforcement mechanism for ensuring employers comply with the law.

Trade unions are an important potential avenue for workers to receive assistance, although trade unions do not currently provide a meaningful role for migrant workers. The response of embassies and consulates is discussed in the next chapter, Labor-Sending Countries' Government Response.

National Diaspora Groups

In the absence of accessible legal means to resolve labor disputes, many migrant workers turn to diasporas in order to settle labor disputes, particularly disputes over unpaid wages. Diaspora leaders may attempt to negotiate with employers on behalf of migrant workers. Such negotiations may involve appeals to the employer to act "out of the goodness of his heart" (in Russian, chisto po chelovecheski) and pay the worker.[284] In other instances, diaspora leaders may issue threats to employers.[285] One diaspora leader stated that when employers refuse to pay his compatriots, he calls upon some criminal bosses who go to the employer and threaten the employer with violence unless he pays the money owed to the worker. The cost for this "service" is 50 percent of the money owed.[286]  In a unique case in November 2008, a Tajik diaspora leader in Ekaterinburg, Farukh Mirzoev, helped organize approximately 250 workers from Tajikistan employed on a construction site in Ekaterinburg to strike over their employer's non-payment of wages for three months. As a result, the employer paid some of the money owed to the workers.[287]

Non-Governmental Organizations

Numerous diaspora organizations that are officially recognized as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assist migrants in employment and legalization. Only a handful of other NGOs provide services to or protect the rights of migrant workers. The organization Fund Tajikistan/Migration and Law in Moscow is by far the most active and best known among migrant workers from Central Asia, as well as among international organizations, diplomats and others working on issues relating to migrant workers' rights. Fund Tajikistan most frequently receives complaints of wage violations, but also has documented numerous cases of forced labor, and torture and ill-treatment by private actors and government agents. When the staff of Fund Tajikistan receives a complaint, they try to speak to employers who hired the worker in order to convince the employer to pay the worker. Fund Tajikistan may indicate to the employer that it will pursue an official complaint or court action should the employer not respond. In the majority of cases, this approach is effective, although in some instances employers deny that the worker in question was ever employed by him and refuses to pay.

Civic Assistance (Grazhdanskoe sodeistvie), one of the most well-known Russian human rights organizations, with years of expertise assisting asylum-seekers, refugees and displaced people, expanded their services beginning in December 2007 to provide legal aid for migrant workers. They have not received large numbers of migrant workers for consultations, likely because many migrant workers are not aware of the organization and the services they can provide. Civic Assistance is involved in litigation of a handful of cases representing migrant workers in labor disputes. [288]  

Few NGOs in sending countries are actively engaged in migration issues or protection of the rights of migrants. However, in Tajikistan, at least three organizations the Human Rights Center, the Bureau on Human Rights, and Imran, have taken a substantive interest in migrant workers rights. The Human Rights Center representative office in Khujand and Isfara  frequently receives complaints from workers in Russia who are seeking redress for abuse, but the director told Human Rights Watch that the organization is rarely able to respond to these requests because a lack of partners in Russia to whom they can refer victims. [289] Both the Human Rights Center and the Bureau on Human Rights are representing victims of abuses in court cases (see Labor-Sending Countries' Government Response.)

Trade Unions

Around the world trade unions are in general the most important vehicle for workers to negotiate with employers, communicate grievances, and seek structural reforms or policy changes on behalf of workers. Russian law guarantees the right to form and participate in a union and the right to strike, [290] yet, in practice, workers' ability to exercise these rights is severely limited. Trade unions do not currently play a meaningful role for workers in many sectors of the Russian economy, due in part to laws limiting enterprise-level unions from forming unless they have at least 50 percent of workers participating. [291] According to the head of the Construction and Building Materials Industry Workers' Union of the Russian Federation, the primary union for workers in the construction sector, migrant workers rarely participate in trade unions. [292] Human Rights Watch did not interview any migrant worker who had attempted to or even considered joining a trade union in Russia. Most migrant workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch were not even aware that trade unions exist.

A Trade Union of Migrant Workers Working in Construction, Municipal Services, and Related Industries was formed in 2007 and provides services to some 10,000 migrant worker members. [293] Because its members are not sufficiently concentrated with particular employers to achieve the legal requirement for union activity that 50 percent of an employer's workers be members of the union, the Trade Union of Migrant Workers is not able to support collective bargaining or similar traditional union activities for its members. Instead, the union supports its members by providing information about their rights and services available to them, assisting them with residency registration, work permits, and other services, and addressing workers' complaints. They also have programs to distribute information to migrant workers in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan before they depart for Russia. [294]

Upon receipt of a complaint, most often with respect to non-payment of wages, the union's lawyers will call or visit the employer and attempt to resolve the conflict. According to the head of the union, this method is effective in about 90 percent of cases. Although the union prepared two lawsuits for migrant workers, one against an employer for non-payment of wages and one against a police officer for illegal confiscation of a workers' documents, in both cases the complainants withdrew their complaint before filing the court petition out of fear of retaliation by those named in the lawsuits. The union has yet to file any complaints with the prosecutor's office. [295]