The draft Foreigners Act, which the government presented for public consultation on Thursday, has been criticised by parts of the opposition. The opposition said that the draft did not address the social integration of foreign workers and called for the reintroduction of quotas to prevent a reduction in labour costs.

“The issue of importing foreign labour and its integration is an important political, social and economic issue for our country, but the way the government is dealing with it is a recipe for disaster,” MP Anka Mrak-Taritas (GLAS party) said at a press conference.

In 2023 alone, 160,000 work permits were issued, and according to some estimates, Croatia will need up to 400,000 foreign workers in the near future, she said, adding that the issue therefore cannot be dealt with only by the Ministry of the Interior, which primarily responds to employers’ demands.

Foreign workers need to be fully integrated into Croatian society and the government has no plan for this.

“The government has no systematic plan and does not want to deal with this issue at all. So we do not know how it feels about foreign workers and whether it even wants them to be part of the process of demographic revitalisation,” said Mrak-Taritas.

She noted that the National Development Strategy for the period until 2030 does not mention Croatia’s need for labour import and integration of foreign workers, adding that the adoption of an immigration strategy and its implementation must be one of the main tasks of the next government.

Quotas for the import of labour

Katarina Peovic (Radnicka fronta party) called for the reintroduction of quotas for the import of labour. “Uncontrolled imports reduce labour costs for domestic workers,” she said, adding that there has been a clear trend in the past year to replace domestic workers with foreign ones.

She warned that the bill would allow a ratio of local to foreign labour of 1:6 for jobs where there is no shortage and 1:12 for jobs where there is a shortage, further displacing local workers and allowing the import of foreign labour where there is no need.

Delivery services are definitely an activity where there is no need for such an increase in foreign labour, she said.

The government’s draft law proposes to further liberalise the import of foreign labour instead of reintroducing quotas for foreign labour, which would allow the import of labour only for shortage occupations, Peovic said, adding that her party is collecting signatures for a motion to the government calling for the reintroduction of import quotas for labour.

The reintroduction of quotas is a way to get the government to explain the necessity of importing foreign labour, because it is obviously not true that labour is imported because there is not enough domestic labour, she said.

The introduction of 21st century slavery

Instead of restricting the importation of foreign labour, the government boasts that it will allow employers to import labour even for jobs where there is no shortage, she warned, adding that this would allow employers to reduce labour costs and increase the exploitation of workers.

Importing foreign labour means the introduction of 21st century slavery in Croatia. Employers exploit the hard work of others to enrich themselves while the government supports them.

Peovic emphasised that foreign workers are not a problem, but that their numbers indicate “brutal exploitation” and the introduction of the same conditions for domestic workers as well. She added that the government had only accepted her party’s proposal to regulate the accommodation of foreign labour through the application of regulations for seasonal workers.

Nader Wahech, a representative of the ReWolt initiative, who is a Croatian Syrian, affirmed that foreign labour is not a problem, but that the problem is the working conditions, which deteriorate with the import of foreign labour.

In this context, he said that the income of temporary workers has decreased by 30%, while wages for other workers in the country have increased.

His colleague Mladen Brajak warned that aggregators are circumventing the rules and making huge profits by importing foreign labour and making working conditions more difficult for local workers by using a non-transparent application that discriminates against them, with platforms hiring local workers just to be able to employ foreigners.

“They often give foreign workers two mobile phones, one of which belongs to them and the other to a former employee with their profile. As a result, the foreign workers get better and more frequent delivery orders and work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week,” he said.