Imagine that you became the owner of some production resource that can almost guarantee benefits, is self-renewable, and is of fairly good quality. What would you do? A rational approach and logic would presume that this resource should be properly protected, appreciated and used. Why doesn’t this reasoning hold in Ukraine?
The most precious resource of any country are its people. Those people about whom Ivan Franko wrote that at daybreak, when “sunrays are still sleeping,” they begin their tedious but fruitful work. In the past they were mentioned as “labor resources” and often the attitude to them was one as to a “resource.”
At present they speak about an “economically active population,” though that activity is scarce, and its efficiency is mostly miserable. However, a lot of the “active” population turned out to be mobile, and embarked upon labor migration. A whole tribe of labor migrants was formed — some speak with respect about them, while others are ashamed.
What makes them leave their homes? There is one banal reason. The impossibility to make money, necessary for living and solving everyday issues. And the brave ones, who believe in themselves, fair work and justice outside home, set off to work abroad. There are a lot of people willing to do so. According to surveys, almost 29 percent of the rural youth and over 50 percent of school graduates are ready to try working abroad. They are restricted by different conditions, even by the absence of an international passport: as it turns out, only 15 percent of senior students have this “freedom pass.” What mobility of students within the Bologna Process can one talk about?
Our economy, being feudal in content, as well as our social relations, may be the main motives behind immigration. Uncivilized labor relations, a complete lack of worker’s rights, combined with almost beggarly pay become a powerful impetus to pursue a career abroad. Actually a model where competition is based on minimal wage and only primary social guarantees is being built. But this is a deeply wrong path of development leading to a dead end — as it has been shown both practically and theoretically. One can constantly speak about “innovative development” but it can’t be ensured in conditions of poverty. Employment, legal and industrious work has not been a guarantee of success and welfare for a long time already.
Just a few examples from the present day which are ignored by the prosecutor’s office and trade unions: a worker dealing with packaging equipment works 24 hours a day with two 30-minute breaks, every third day; a cashier in a supermarket works 10 hours at the cash desk. Isn’t it astounding? Then another example: workers were mounting concrete slabs, a flawed slab falls down, one worker dies and another is severely injured. The employer brutally destroyed their employment documents, everything was shown as if “two persons looking for metal scraps entered the territory of the enterprise during a break, a slab fell down by accident and injured them.” There are more stories about teachers who have over 24 hours of lessons per week and in addition keep class registrars and other senseless administrative duties, register the students’ health condition, conduct preventive work at home, prepare notes, check copybooks, run circles, prepare holiday activities, etc. And we have millions of such “banal violations” as extra work, salaries paid in envelopes, illegal fines, internal exactions, salary delays, and neglecting sanitary norms. But workers keep silent. This can be easily explained: a) there is a line of those seeking employment; b) trade unions stopped fulfilling their functions long ago. The civilized world lives differently: in all state and private institutions, even if you are a caregiver from a foreign country, you have respect, honor and tactful treatment.
There is hardly a politician who didn’t use the fact of an abrupt reduction of Ukraine’s population in the times of independence. There is a big difference between 52 and 46 million! And migration has its share of responsibility. In addition, it also promotes a relative aging of the population. Already now the share of the population older than 65 years old constitutes 16 percent! The UN considers 7-8 percent a critical figure. The most active and energetic, mostly younger, already-married people go abroad. The “old” society has its specific problems, and securing pensions is just a small part of it. If in 1960 there were 227 pensioners per one thousand people, now there are 647 of them. Is our society ready for such deep demographic changes?
The most active, creative and enthusiastic people go abroad. Among migrants there are many of those who are traditionally considered to be a “golden mean” on the labor market — qualified or highly-educated people of 25 to 50 years old. They could become the core of any labor collective, bring benefit for an enterprise, firm or organization. Since they have experience, family, their character and responsibility are formed already, they have a motivation to work well. They exhibit all these traits, only abroad.
The obvious cons of migration, social ones above all, affect families in first place. The next obvious loss is that of qualification and ability for team work. Tempted by profits, a humane attitude, and a calm life style, labor migrants gradually lose past connections with their own professions. Higher or vocational education is too much for the primitive professions the foreign market offers them. And though there are 10 to 25 percent of people with higher education among migrants, few of them have jobs corresponding to their education or qualification level. The situation improves all the time, there are already “Ukrainian” lawyers, teachers, controllers, construction managers, engineers and even medical persons. This is a kind of elite of labor migrants. However, most likely they are lost citizens for Ukraine.
The use of earned money is a strange phenomenon of the Ukrainian labor migration. One can remember that when there was a peak in Polish labor migration, in Poland firms of manufacturers of different size were springing up all over. Profit multiplied by experience, applied on a market not covered by capitalism gives wonderful results. This phenomenon is echoed in the constant strengthening of the Polish zloty and in the extraordinary stability of the economy, which saw GDP growth during the global crisis!
Our immense financial flows, estimated by some financiers to be in the billions, were again divided at home into small streams feeding corruption and bureaucratic systems in educations, medicine, employment, military conscription, and energy supply. Why not in investments, not in starting or developing one’s own business?
After all, doing business with poor people is not very rewarding. Since in such conditions, according to theory, one can earn only on primary needs — food, medicine, passenger traffic, or health protection. And these spheres were divided long ago, even before land plots were distributed.
This is a brief outline of Ukrainian labor migration. On the border, when these workers come home or just visit, their Homeland meets them without extra sentiment. A customs officer or border guard will demand some bribe on any occasion, but this is mostly in the past. After visiting home, singing carols, eating Easter bread and giving presents to relatives, exciting envy in neighbors and acquaintances, they again set off to a better place. If I could decide, I’d give all of them the rank of the Honored Labor Migrant of Ukraine, and the most persistent and hard-working would get the Hero of Capitalist Work medal. They increase our, foreign and their personal prosperity at the expense of their own lives, which gradually pass away and decline.
