Thousands of migrant workers in Italy have gone on strike against alleged government mistreatment.

They say they work just as hard as native Italians and pay their taxes, but are not given equal rights and benefits. Some of them complain that at times they don’t even get paid at all for their work. The full story in the New York Times:

In an effort to heighten awareness about the contributions made by foreign workers to the Italian economy, the promoters of the first strike by immigrants in the country invited workers to stay home and to boycott shopping for one day.

Similar protests took place in other European countries on Monday (the initiative started in France and found supporters in Spain and Greece, as well). A comparable boycott, “A Day Without Immigrants,” championing full rights for immigrants living in the United States, took place in 2006.

But demonstrations Monday had a particular resonance in Italy, where anti-immigrant rhetoric has increased recently in anticipation of regional elections at the end of the month, and where foreign labor makes up nearly 10 percent of the work force.

While introducing one electoral initiative last week, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accused the left of “wanting an invasion of immigrants,” only to strengthen the opposition’s electoral basis.

Around Milan, electoral posters for the anti-immigrant Northern League party depicted a Native American Indian chieftain with the slogan: “They put up with immigration, now they live on reserves.”

But various studies suggest that immigrant labor has become a fundamental component of the Italian economy.

“Many Italians are convinced that immigrants are a burden, but in fact they have a very positive effect on our welfare system,” said Maurizio Ambrosini, a professor of the sociology of migration at the University of Milan, pointing out that Italian families have become increasingly dependant on foreign caregivers to look after their children and elderly parents. The construction industry, too, is heavily dependant on foreigners, particularly from East European countries, he added. “If anything, Italy constantly needs new waves of immigrants,” he said.

Statistics published last autumn by the Catholic Caritas Migrants foundation suggested that the 4.5 million legal immigrants in Italy (about 7.2 percent of the population) contribute about 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, often in jobs snubbed by Italians.

In its most recent annual report, issued last May, the Bank of Italy estimated that in 2006 foreigners “contributed about 4 percent to revenue from personal income tax, V.A.T. and excise duties, social security contributions, and the regional tax on productive activities.” More specifically, foreign residents contributed “around €4.5 billion in personal income tax and just under €10 billion in social security contributions, equivalent to 3 and 5 percent respectively of revenue from these two items,” according to the bank’s report, which also found that “the increase in the supply of labor resulting from immigration does not seem, on average, to have had negative effects on the wages or job prospects of the native population.”

“Immigrants come here to work, they’re funding our pensions, it makes sense to integrate them,” said Ciro Piscelli, a left-leaning municipal councilman for the town of Rozzano, in the Milanese hinterland. He was one of several hundred people who met in front of Milan City Hall on Monday morning in support of the strike. Like many other southern Italians, Mr. Piscelli emigrated to Lombardy from his native Naples in the 1970s, so he said he “spoke from experience.” Immigrants, he said, “are a resource.”

But such considerations seem to take a back seat whenever trouble involving immigrants arises. Calls to toughen up immigration policies multiplied last month, after rioting between immigrant groups disrupted a Milanese neighborhood last month.

And studies suggest that racist sentiments are rising in Italy, especially among the young. Research commissioned by the national and regional governments and presented to the lower house last month found that nearly half of Italians between the ages 18 and 29 express varying degrees of xenophobic or racist sentiments. “Young people themselves say that they perceive racism as increasing,” said Enzo Risso, the director of the SWG research institute that carried out the survey.

Jorge Carazas, one of the speakers at the rally Monday, came to Italy from Argentina 10 years ago. “We are the country’s new citizens and we want to send politicians a clear message,” he said. “No matter what racist tones the government chooses to adopt, we’re not going anywhere. This is our home.”

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Fleeing conflict and war, asylum seekers are risking everything they have for new lives in Australia. On this edition of 101 East, they examine Australia’s predicament and one of the toughest immigration policies in the world.

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For decades, over 20,000 documented Tibetan refugees in Nepal have been living in relative peace, a situation that may be about to change. Some in Nepal fear that China is stirring up tensions between their countrymen and the Tibetan refugee population.

Kathmandu has come under increasing Chinese pressure to clamp down on protests by Tibetan political activists, making the lives of some refugees increasingly difficult.

While Tibetans have prospered to a certain degree in Nepal, their position has always been precarious.

Nepal officially stopped receiving Tibetan refugees in 1989 and those arriving since have been funnelled out into India, home to some 100,000 Tibetans, with the help of the United Nation refugee agency, the UNHCR.
Tibetans who arrived before 1989 are allowed to stay. Officially they require identity papers, renewable each year, from the government. In practice, however, many do not have them.

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Mexicans abroad are sending less money home to their families as a result of the global financial downturn and rising unemployment levels. These remittances are the country’s second largest source of foreign currency — after oil sales- – and their rapid decline has hit the Mexican economy particularly hard.

More background from CBS News:

Money sent home by Mexicans abroad plunged a record 15.7 percent in 2009 as migrants worldwide struggled to find work during the global economic slowdown, the central bank reported Wednesday.

Remittances – Mexico’s No. 2 source of foreign income after oil exports – totaled $21.2 billion in 2009, compared with $25.1 billion in 2008, the bank said.

Since the bank began tracking remittances in 1996, it has recorded just one other annual decline – a 3.6 percent decrease in 2008, as the world financial crisis exploded.

Central bank president Agustin Carstens attributed the latest drop to the weak economy in the United States and the increased difficulty Mexicans are having securing employment there. More than 11.8 million Mexicans live in the U.S.

Carstens said a 1.3 percent uptick in remittances in December, compared to the previous month, gave some hope for a recovery.

“It is just one figure, but it could indicate the beginning of a relative stabilization in the drop in remittances, and it would be congruent with the fact that economic activity in the United States is about to go from negative to positive,” Carstens said.

An analyst was less optimistic, saying that employment levels in the United States “remain very bad” and remittances to Mexico will probably continue to decline through the first half of 2010 when compared to the same period of 2009.

“It is important to remember that many Mexicans are employed in very volatile sectors that remain depressed, like construction, manufacturing, restaurants,” said Hector Rodriguez, a researcher at the Graduate School of Public Policy and Administration in the northern Mexico city of Monterrey.

Experts blame a crackdown on illegal immigration that has stemmed the flow of those heading north to seek work as well as the U.S. recession, in which many Mexicans, especially construction workers, have been laid off.

Mexico receives the largest amount of remittances in Latin America and the third largest in the world, after India and China. The country was also the hardest hit in Latin America by the U.S. economic slump with a drop of about 7 percent in Mexico’s GDP.

While remittances represent less than 4 percent of GDP, their decline is being felt in towns across Mexico, where lines at Western Union counters have all but disappeared. New businesses financed by migrant money are no longer opening and construction has stopped on homes that have been built in stages as cash arrived from those working abroad.

In the first part of the decade, Mexico’s remittances grew rapidly – from $9 billion in 2001 to $26 billion in 2007 – because of swelling migration and better record-keeping.

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Australia has announced a shift in its immigration policy to attract more highly skilled workers.

The government says the change will help fill shortages in the healthcare, engineering and mining industries. But the new rules will also impact the foreign student market which earns Australia billions of dollars every year.

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Every month, thousands of economic migrants flee Zimbabwe and cross the border into South Africa in search of a better life.

However, many become victims of rapists and robbers waiting on the border. Medical workers say they have seen an average of 15 abused women and girls a week since the beginning of the year.

With most cases going unreported due to fear, it is impossible to know the exact number. But with unemployment in Zimbabwe at 90 per cent, desperation will keep driving people to make the journey, no matter how treacherous it may be.

From IRIN News:

To the untrained eye, the human tide surging through the South African border town of Musina is just that: a mass of people leaving behind Zimbabwe’s collapsed economy to seek job opportunities and a better life, or refuge in a neighbouring country.

Sebelo Sibanda, of Lawyers for Human Rights in Musina, is a more acute observer; he sees changes taking place in a migration that is believed to number between one million and more than three million people.

“A trend started in the last two or three months, where you see more and more women coming in with groups of children – the children are too numerous and often too similar in age to be from one mother,” he said.

The Zimbabwean migration, comprising asylum seekers fleeing political persecution, economic migrants from a shattered economy, traders, shoppers and unaccompanied minors, provides ample camouflage for human traffickers.

The border between South Africa and Zimbabwe is a fertile ground for criminal gangs. The “magumagumas” prey on migrants, robbing and raping them as they make their way to South Africa, while the “malaicha” arrange safe passage for migrants, but do not always keep to the contract.

Nde Ndifonka, the southern African spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, told IRIN: “The conditions are there. We believe there is a high incidence of human trafficking happening there [the South Africa-Zimbabwe border]“.

Parents living in South Africa often pay a malaicha to bring children across the border, Sibanda said, and it was a “small step” to becoming a human trafficker.

Ndifonka said the malaicha were part of trafficking rings and targeted “specifically, vulnerable young children, as there is a demand for labour and sexual exploitation in South Africa”.

In mid-April 2009, during a spot check, police found two unaccompanied minors – boys aged about four and five – in a car en route to Johannesburg. “The woman at first said they were her children, but when I interviewed the children separately they said they did not know who she was,” Sibanda said.

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The textile industry is one of the main pillars of the Mauritian economy. In order to fight unemployment, which was rampant, the government created the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in 1971. It has undergone many changes in its almost forty years of existence. Equipped with a high skilled labour force and efficient management practices, Mauritius manufactures products for Boss, Ralph Lauren, Gap, Arrow and other Western clothiers.

Migrant labour underpins industry: Mauritius’ booming textiles industry is having to depend more and more heavily on imported labour, mostly from India and China. Foreign workers in Mauritius now number some 22,000, among whom 10,850 are Chinese, 7,310 are Indians and 720 are from Madagascar. These are the men and women who make machines work in the textile industry in Mauritius. Without them, many factories would be unable to manufacture the required quantity of garments and clothing to supply European and American buyers on time.

Foreign labour was first brought to the island in 1989 at a time when Mauritians had plenty of jobs. The alien workers were only a few hundred, recruited by a few factories having difficulties in attracting local people. Since then, they have been coming in their thousands, attracted by the prospects of making and saving small fortunes before returning home after a few years of hard work.

Foreigners are paid the same wages as Mauritians–a minimum of Rs6,000 per month (about 200 euros). With overtime, they can earn much more. They have their air-tickets paid for by the employers, receive free accommodation and transportation and meal allowances. Leisure facilities are also provided.

However, life is not a bed of roses and there are reports that a great deal of confusion surrounds their working conditions and accommodation and the roles played by recruiting agents.

Workers often complain of exploitative contracts signed in ignorance and the flouting of rules in terms of work conditions.

Food can also be a major problem for migrants facing unfamiliar dishes. In many cases, local factories have imported cooks from the countries of origin of the workers in a bid to satisfy them. But, during the past few years, there have been several demonstrations by workers complaining about the food they say they are forced to eat.

The latest incident took place at a textile factory near Port-Louis, when 15 Indian workers out of the 186 employed by this factory were expelled after going on strike for a week. They were asking for better wages, working conditions and accommodation.

While some of the factories manage the problems of foreign labour very well by offering good accommodation and good food to their employees, others are blamed frequently by the authorities.

In 2000, a special unit was set up at the Labour and Employment Ministry to monitor factories employing foreign labour in a bid to prevent industrial conflicts. “Our job is to check that the contracts signed by the employees are in the languages written and spoken by the foreign workers, Hindi or Chinese for most of them, or an exact translation of the one in English,” one official at the ministry said.

A code of ethics detailing official procedures regarding recruitment, salaries, payment of overtime, medical treatment, disciplinary measures and the foreigners’ responsibilities, has also been published by the same ministry.

Mauritian factories depend heavily on these workers to supply European and US buyers with the quality and quantity they require. Labour and employment minister, Showkatally Soodhun says migrant labour is a plus point for the economy of the island.

This opinion is shared by many employers who see the Chinese and Indians as saviours of the textile industry in Mauritius. “These people hold a big advantage over the locals on the productivity front” said one employer. “They are here to work undue hours and earn money and they are always available for overtime.”

But while the government and employers are happy to welcome these migrant workers, trade-unionists argue that these people are being exploited.

Jane Raghoo of the Federation of Progressive Unions (FPU) speaks of inhuman treatment in this industry. “They get only Rs300 (10 euros) monthly as food allocation and a 10sq metre room for 10 people. They are considered as beasts of work. They work long overtime hours and have no rest,” she claims.

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If of interest, please read Stanford Professor Terry Lynn Karl’s book, The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Boom and Petro-States.

The Paradox of Plenty explains why, in the midst of two massive oil booms in the 1970s, oil-exporting governments as different as Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria, Algeria, and Indonesia chose common development paths and suffered similarly disappointing outcomes. Meticulously documented and theoretically innovative, this book illuminates the manifold factors—economic, political, and social—that determine the nature of the oil state, from the coherence of public bureaucracies, to the degree of centralization, to patterns of policy-making.

Karl contends that oil countries, while seemingly disparate, are characterized by similar social classes and patterns of collective action. In these countries, dependence on petroleum leads to disproportionate fiscal reliance on petrodollars and public spending, at the expense of statecraft. Oil booms, which create the illusion of prosperity and development, actually destabilize regimes by reinforcing oil-based interests and further weakening state capacity.

Karl’s incisive investigation unites structural and choice-based approaches by illuminating how decisions of policymakers are embedded in institutions interacting with domestic and international markets. This approach—which Karl dubs “structured contingency”—uses a state’s leading sector as the starting point for identifying a range of decision-making choices, and ends by examining the dynamics of the state itself.

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“Movements of labor have the potential of increasing global efficiency far more than movements of capital,” says Stiglitz. In this interview with Carnegie Council Senior Fellow Jere Van Dyk, Economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses migration, remittances and their effects on trade.

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Across much of the Arab world, women married to foreigners are typically barred from passing their nationality to their children.

In Lebanon, however, one woman, Samira Soueidan, has taken her fight to court and won. But her landmark case is now being challenged because it sets a precedent which could alter the make-up of the Lebanese population.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Awad reports from Beirut.

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