Renat Karimov: "Only Allah knows how many migrants live in Moscow"

But those that remain here have the same problems, says Renat Karimov, chairman of the Central Committee of the Labor Union of Migrant Workers, in an interview with Novye Izvestia: there are no labor contracts, overtime is not paid, and health care is bad.

Yelena Ivanova, Natalia Seibil

- How much has the number of migrants decreased during the year of the pandemic?

- Only Allah knows this. We have no calculations. But the number of registrations for migration has decreased by half. If there were no pandemic, according to various estimates, there would be 5-10 million labor migrants. Five million people are a whole state. In this state, in order to serve such a population, there must be a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Ministry of Education, etc. A whole apparatus. And who deals with these people in our country? If a person comes to America or any European state, he is led by state structures. This makes our migration radically different from migration to Europe, where the receiving side immediately bears the costs. Camps are built for refugees, benefits, housing, jobs are provided. And they come to us and immediately begin to finance the Russian budget. The migrant buys a ticket himself, helping the Ministry of Transport, rents an apartment and helps the owner of the home. He goes to Sakharovo to file a patent and helps the Moscow budget - he pays 15 thousand rubles for a patent, although the International Convention assumes that this is, if not the concern of the state, then the employer. Then he gets a patent and starts paying 5,341 rubles, not finding a job yet! There is no income, but there is a fixed advance payment of personal income tax. I found a job and 13% is added to the fixed advance payment... Therefore, for the Russian Federation, labor migration is an extremely profitable thing, from an economic point of view.

- Has migration from Central Asia recovered?

- Not. Now migration is not coming from anywhere. The borders are closed. Borders locked.

- Has the level of pay increased due to the lack of labor?

- We have no such information. Probably, someone has increased, someone has decreased, someone does not receive wages at all, because such an employer was caught. The main problems remain the same. This is the absence of employment contracts, because employers do not want to conclude written employment contracts, the absence of overtime pay. Migrants work ten or more hours, and receive a salary like eight, and often seven days a week. And the cases of non-payment of wages are still not eliminated.

- Do you manage to help those who turn to you?

- Not all, but somehow it succeeds. During the year we were in litigation with the construction company Prime Construction LLC, which was building a residential complex in the area of the Preobrazhenskaya metro station. The citizens of Uzbekistan worked there, who had not received their salary for two and a half months. The employer told them: “Go wherever you want. You will not receive a salary. " They came to us. There were ten court sessions. As a result, people received wages, compensation for unused vacation, compensation for delayed wages and 10 thousand rubles each for moral damage. But these 12 young workers worked 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week. They had one day off a month. But the employment contract included a 40-hour workweek. The court refused to accept testimonies against each other, they were all plaintiffs. Other witnesses were busy all the time, no one came to the meeting. The judge demanded the provision of a time sheet, and employers are cunning people. Instead of a time sheet, they gave each of them cut strips of paper glued together like a tailor's centimeter. They had a working time of 10 hours, but there was no signature or seal. Therefore, the court did not accept these “report cards”. Therefore, the salary for an eight-hour working day was compensated.

- Are you able to maintain a decent level of wages? How profitable is it for a migrant to work in Russia?

- This is a very relative indicator - "a decent level of salary". We in the trade union do not distinguish between migrants and non-migrants. We stand on the position that the majority of the working people, with the exception of certain sectors of the economy, do not receive decent wages. Migrants are no exception.

- How is the problem of housing for migrants being solved?

- This is a big problem that also hinders the attraction of unemployed citizens from depressed regions. There are no hostels in Moscow. The overwhelming majority of migrants, without any involvement of the employer, without the participation of the state, the mayor's office, cooperate, rent apartments and live in crowded conditions.

- After the January protests, everyone started talking about the center in Sakharovo. The MFC for migrants is also located there. Obviously, a migrant needs to spend a whole day to receive any piece of paper. Are you trying to fix this problem?

- We are raising this issue. Of course, it would be much more convenient and wiser to transfer the receipt of documents inside the Moscow Ring Road. We even wrote a letter, collected signatures. But they did not send this letter, knowing in advance what the reaction would be to it.

- How is the medical care of migrants organized?

- With medical care, things are bad. In addition, a migrant from Belarus is not equal to a migrant from Kazakhstan, a migrant from Kazakhstan is not equal from Kyrgyzstan, which in turn is not equal to migrants from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They have different statuses. Generally speaking, 80% of labor migrants are outside the Russian compulsory medical insurance system. Of these 80%, about half have voluntary health insurance policies. But only a few percent know how to use these health insurance policies. And of those who know how to use it, a small part of them received medical services under VHI policies. Everyone says that you need to get this policy. It is impossible to obtain a patent in Sakharovo without a medical policy. When these policies are issued, none of the employees of the Sakharov Migration Center explains to a foreign citizen how to use the policy. Moreover, there are several insurance companies there, an employee of the center says: choose any, it is still a useless piece of paper. That is, the person is convinced in advance that this is a pure formality. This is the line of insurance companies that are interested in the fact that as few people as possible turn to them by paying for the policy. People do not understand when they pay for health insurance that they can use it. And the state does not help to understand. This is a big trouble.

- Do labor migrants have the right to be vaccinated against coronavirus?

- They have no such right. Some labor migrants who have compulsory medical insurance policies are citizens of the EAEU, have the illusory right to go to clinics and get vaccinated. Those who have VHI policies have no right. And there is no talk about the rest. Migrants come to us who want to be vaccinated. We called the Headquarters, which is in the Moscow Government. We climbed the ranks to some high-ranking officials, told about the problem. They promised to answer us. They did not answer.

- Are there statistics on labor migrants that you can rely on?

- Nobody knows objective figures on labor migration. This is due to the fact that the share of illegal migration is too high. The Ministry of Internal Affairs can only count the number of migration registrations. But one person can get on this account every month - it all depends on how the receiving party prepares it. Someone takes it for a month, someone for three months. In addition, there is a dependence on how long the patent is paid for. But a patent is an expensive thing. In Moscow - five thousand three hundred and forty-one rubles a month. This is a fixed advance payment of personal income tax. It can be calculated at the rate of 13% - as if the migrant received a salary of 40 thousand rubles. If he earned 20 thousand, and not forty, it turns out that the tax will already be 26%. A person gets a job as a janitor with a salary of 20 thousand rubles, from which the accounting department still deducts 13% of personal income tax. Thus, one migrant pays 39% of his income.

Our president only last year signed a law according to which income over 5 million rubles a year is taxed at 15%. A guest worker janitor is forced to pay 39% of personal income tax. It turns out that the lower the migrant's earnings, the higher his tax rate! Where we just did not go! Turn to Putin, Putin will say - go to court. We went to court!

- Is it possible to reduce the tax?

- The Tax Code specifically stipulates in article 227 paragraph 6 that the calculated tax can be reduced by the amount of a fixed advance payment. But this is a whole procedure. The migrant must go to the accounting department, as it is written in the Tax Code. But it is not written that a migrant must know about this, must be able to write an application. In the accounting department they will poke at him, they will say - get out of here, too smart. But, if the accountant shows sympathy, he will take a statement that must be taken to the tax office. The tax inspectorate must check on the basis of the Ministry of Internal Affairs whether such a patent was really issued, whether such an employment contract was actually concluded, whether 5,341 rubles were paid. And only after that they give a notification to the accounting department with permission to reduce the calculated tax.