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Migration of the Foreign Labor Force
Starting from 1999 issues of attraction of the foreign labor force have been discussed by
the Government. Above all, this was called forth by the growing number of foreign citizens
working in Karelia (1995 – 630 people, 1996 – 871 people, 1997 – 1,036 people, 1998 – 1,127
people). Main industries where foreign force is being used are logging industry, engineering
construction and trade. In Karelia, there are foreign workers from 21 countries, mainly from
Ukraine, Finland and Vietnam. The use of Finnish loggers attracts Karelian enterprises because
they execute timber felling and logging at efficient and qualitative level, with the use of their own
equipment and technology. Certain advantages of Ukrainian loggers is in their seasonal duty-
based work in remote forest areas. The Government has been reported that alongside legal labor
force migration, there is illegal one. Far from all foreigners are registered in proper authorities.
Neither in Karelia nor in Russia in general the system of attraction and registration of the
foreign labor force is not adjusted yet. Therefore, so far there is no opportunity to effectively
regulate these processes. The result of the loose legal and organizational system is a certain loss
of potential jobs for the population of the republic, deficiency of taxes and duties from foreign
legal bodies and individuals working within the framework of international agreements on
prevention of double taxation.
The overall problem of foreign labor migration consists of two entirely different aspects
which have different legal bases, their own problems and solutions.
The first aspect is granting visa to foreign specialists hired by a Russian employer on the
territory of the Russian Federation. Legally, these issues are regulated by Decree #2146 of
President of the Russian Federation "Attraction and Use of the Foreign Labor Force in the
Russian Federation" of December 16, 1993 and Resolution #356 of the Chair of the Government
of the Republic of Karelia "Attraction and Use of the Foreign Labor Force in the Republic of
Karelia" of April 19, 1996.
The second aspect is a non-visa procedure which provides for access of foreign citizens
through simplified procedure cross-border stations for the period of up to one day on the base of
their national passports and without a Russian visa. As for Karelia, this procedure concerns only
Finnish citizens and legally is regulated by the Agreement between the Government of the Russian
Federation and the Government of the Republic of Finland "Russian-Finnish Cross-Border
Stations" of March 11, 1994, and the Russian Federation Act "State Border of the Russian
Federation".
Starting from the existing situation, the Government makes its aim to put the
problem of the foreign labor force migration under full control so that there was an
opportunity to have a regulating impact on level of foreigners working both on a hire-
contract basis or contract basis between a Russian and foreign company on delivering
services, where a good appears as a form of settlement of accounts.
The Government, while working on this problem, will result from the principle of job
priority for Karelian loggers and minimization of budgetary losses.
To achieve the aim, it is necessary to accent attention on some moments which need
resolution.
The analysis of Russian and Karelian norms in force shows evident gaps in identification
of legal bodies and individuals who could be defined as employers for foreigners to be hired. The
said norms ignore the situation when a foreign individual or legal body may act as an employer
which, besides this, is a non-resident pursuant to the Russian laws. Republican authorities face
such cases when they realize the so-called mixed contracts on timber felling and sale, where
mainly Finnish logging operators participate. In these cases a Russian (Karelian) company, which
is one of the parties in a mixed contract, can not be defined as an employer and, therefore, is not
responsible for violation of the migration legislation and for correct visas with the right to work
on a hire-contract basis. In its turn, a foreign company, which actually acts as an employer but
works in Russia as a non-resident, is bound by any responsibilities of the Russian legislation.
The absence of legal responsibility by a Russian and other party in a "mixed" contract on
drawing foreign labor force makes a basis for ignoring that part of the Russian legislation that
concerns proper forming a visa, and for excluding the Federal Migration Service in the Republic
of Karelia from this process. And this means practical loss of control of this process from the side
of public authorities.
The study of granting permissions to use foreign labor force and of conditions of
foreigners’ stay in the republic reveals large divergences between legal standards and existing
practice. The result of this difference is the exclusion of the obligatory obtaining by foreigners of
visas with the status of "right to work on a hire-contract basis" and their actual entry with visas of
other categories. At the moment, the Government works on possible ways to cease such practice.
It is assumed that the resolution of the problem lies in placing a relevant responsibility on a
Russian enterprise with the participation of which foreigners are invited to Russia and the
category of the visa is determined.
The resolution of this problem is influenced by poor coordination among adequate
agencies and services of the republic, absence of swift information exchange and absence of clear
criteria of necessity to attract foreign labor force to different industries of the Republic of Karelia.
On the base of task, the Government defines key areas of its activity, which are seen as a
tool for realization of the given task:
1) proposals specifying the status and responsibility of a Russian employer for foreign
individuals will be prepared as a legal initiative;
2) it is proposed to strengthen the coordinating role of the Government through the Ministry of
Foreign Relations of the Republic of Karelia. It is impossible to tackle the task without
integration of efforts from a number of federal agencies and republican authorities.
Coordinating activities will include the establishment of a system of preliminary information
exchange among agencies on planned invitations of foreigners, and information exchange on
actual crossing the border by foreign workers;
3) the practice of joint raids of federal and republican agencies to expose violations of the federal
migration laws and to make them public will be continued and extended. In order to prevent
new violations from the side of foreigners and Karelian inviting companies, a databank on
violators will be developed to be used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Federation;
4) it is planned to keep on the study of ways of "escaping" from the Federal Migration Service in
the Republic of Karelia on issues of obtaining by foreign citizens of visa documents not
relevant to the migration laws, with the connection of the Delegation of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in the city of Petrozavodsk;
5) the Government will place much attention on issues of obligatory tax registration of foreigners
working on a hire-contract basis, regardless to the right on double taxation expiry;
6) prevention and explanation actions among Karelia’s exporters will go on at meetings,
seminars, during the procedure of registration and examination of foreign trade contracts.
One of the basic mechanism to implement the outlined tasks in this sphere is coordination
of activities of all interested agencies through a working group established under the Ministry of
Foreign Relations of the Republic of Karelia.
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