Eastern Europeans who work in Western Europe, are your working conditions legal or are they actually much worse?

10 comments

1. Yes. Legal. Technically 🙈.

   I’m in France now and I’m starting to think it’s actually an eastern country doing it’s best.

   I signed my contract *after* I started working. My file is absolutely not complete. I did *not* sign the work safety thing yet, but I’m already working with dangerous substances.

   I think it may be more because it’s scientific research and I’m foreign, so there’s a bit of leeway. But I also have issues with the bank (they spelled my host’s name wrong and she’s French…) and my work is using my Romanian bank account for my first salary.

   Also, because I’m a EU citizen, the employer has to register me for the health insurance first and then I have to contact them, but they haven’t done this yet…

   Edit: added a word.

2. Well, I work in multi billion $ corporation, I signed my work contract on day 1, I had to do a medical check before starting and I can take my OT as days off (my previous company was paying it, but it’s a different company policy). So I guess things are pretty legit.

3. > working conditions and wages that do not align with the official legal conditions like overtime rules or minimum wage.

   Depends on where they work.

   Engineer at Volkswagen in Wolfsburg? Everything is legal and the conditions are great.

   Picking asparagus as a seasonal job or working in those industrial slaughterhouses? You are basically a slave and will get ripped off.

4. This is probably not what you want to know because in my job category (software engineering) there is very little opportunity for exploiting immigrants, at least in Europe. So the conditions are perfectly legal.

   Although because my visa depends on being employed I’m in a disadvantaged position. For example negotiating for a raise or promotion. Or if I get into a conflict with someone. Can’t just quit if I don’t like it.

5. Absolutely legal. But also I think it depends what is your goal. I’m just living my life in a western country, so everything has to be legal. I’m sure, if I wanted only to make some money fast, so I can be “rich” when I come back to eastern europe, I could find jobs that are paying more for less skilled work, but they would probably be less legal.

6. The illegal work is mainly in agriculture. Mostly seasonal work, like vegetable or fruit picking. They usually contract a company that gathers people from Eastern Europe and sends them to Germany or Spain for a month (with minimal pay as well).

7. Recently they were offering job here as “Electrician” for German min. wage in Germany.

   It was kinda sus ngl.

   I know quite a few people who work in more skilled manual labor jobs(like plumber) in Germany and earn the big money, aka 3000 €/net/month(that is few times more than our average wage). No idea about the working conditions though.

8. I’m surprised to see no message about Spain, considering that many of our nationals don’t work with all the required legality in tourism, agriculture, construction, cleaning services and care of the elderly and children, among others. The most common frauds are registering for fewer hours than they actually work, not reporting overtime, registering in a lower professional category, or not registering at all.

9. I’m not eastern European but I live in an area with lots of fruit and veg farms and up until *the thing* there were lots of seasonal workers from eastern Europe coming to pick fruit and veg who were absolutely being exploited, housed in overcrowded, rotting static caravans, sometimes with only an outside cold tap as water and dodgy wiring. Often being paid piecework rates that it would be difficult to make minimum wage at. Anecdotally ive also heard of EE steel erectors being exploited and paid below minimum wage with employers not meeting basic health and safety requirements too.

   Conversely I also have met eastern Europeans who have done very well for themselves in plumbing or electrical industry.

   Obviously the landscape has changed here since *the thing* and it has become difficult for farms to get people to pick fruit or veg, turns out when you are fluent in English and familiar with our employment rights you’re difficult to exploit.

10. One Eastern European immigrant I know used to work “black” when they first came here, sewing curtains and other home textiles for hotels at night on a little sewing machine. They made a 100k this way, but their back is now ?-shaped. I think they had a dayjob, too, and that one was legal, but poorly paid.

    Later, of course, they landed a better payed job with a real labour contract.