The expert seminar “Migration, Integration, Europeanization – old and new challenges for policies and actors. The case of Baltic States”, which took place in Warsaw on June 27. The seminar was the final conference in the project Migration as a part of a policy for increased competitiveness, funded by the Swedish Institute and comprising a cooperation between think tanks and research institutes working with migration and integration in the Baltic Sea region. The conference was arranged in collaboration with demosEUROPA, The Institute of Social Policy at University of Warsaw, and Norden Centrum in Warsaw.

1. A Rights Based Approach to Migration
The Building and Wood Workers' International's Global Migration Program

2. Percentage of migrant workers in the construction
sector:
• 90 - 99 % in Qatar and U.A.E
• 69-80 % in Malaysia
• 90 % in Costa Rica
• 69 % in Switzerland
• 40 % of all migrant workers in Russia work in
construction
• 45 % of the workers on the three biggest on-
going public infrastructure projects in Sweden
are migrants.
Without migrant workers
there is no construction

3. BWI CONNECT Global Migration Program
• Goal: Organizing migrant workers in trade unions
to promote their rights
• Strategies: Organizing, advocacy, service
provision and awareness raising

4. • Awareness training before departure
 Pre-departure awareness trainings by unions in countries of
origin. Provision of education materials in different languages.
• Organizing in countries of destination
 Posting organizers from unions in countries of origin in countries
of destination in cooperation with local trade unions.
• Empower migrant workers
 Awareness campaigns to empower migrant workers for
collective action
• Building networks
 Create networks with migrant associations, faith-based
organisations and advocates to mobilize service provisions and
to compliment trade unions’ core organising campaign
Global Organizing Campaign

5. • Debt bondage: Unregulated recruitment process
forces migrants to pay large recruitment fees
• Strict immigration policies
• Lack of trade union rights
• Dependence upon the employer: Work permits tied
to one employer opens up for exploitation and forced
labour.
• Inadequate channels for redress
Challenges
Migrant workers unable to
claim their formal rights

6. Global Forum on Migration and Development
(GFMD)
• Initiative by the UN member states. First forum held in
2007
• Goal: ”To maximize the development effects of migration
and promote synergies between migration and
development”
• Informal, non-binding, voluntary and government-led
process outside of the UN
• Civil Society Days before each forum. The last meeting
was held in Mauritius in November 2012

7. • Policy Coherence
 Mainstreaming migration in national development plans as well
as development perspective in migration policies.
• Migration for inclusive economic development
 Promote circular migration, labour market matching and reduce
the costs of financial remittances
• Migration for inclusive social development
 Transfer of ”social remittances” such as human rights values,
gender equality etc. Labour law protection and social insurance
systems.
• Strengthen state ownership of international migration
dialogue
 Continue to promote the GFMD as an informal, non-binding
dialogue between states. Engage private sector and civil society
but ensure that the GFMD remains a forum for states.
Priorities of the Swedish Chairmanship 2013-2014

8. • Focus on remittances rather than rights
• Narrow focus on circular and temporary migration
• Labour migration agreements included in trade deals
between countries of origin and destination
• The GFMD marginalizes voices of migrant workers
themselves: Civil Society, trade unions and migrants'
rights organizations have no real chance to influence
• Migrant workers seen as a commodity or ”resource
for economic development”
Critique from civil society against the GFMD
(Expressed at World Social Forum on Migrations in Manila 2012)

9. Statement by Global Unions
• Call for a rights based approach
 What is needed is an approach which both recognizes the
positive contributions by migrants and places their welfare and
rights at the center of policies and agreements.
• Bring the GFMD back to the UN
 Return of the global migration policy process to the United
Nations as the best way of achieving policy coherence, and
comprehensive, sustainable migration policies.
• Ensure genuine participation of civil society
 Consultative frameworks should be set up to allow real
participation of trade unions, migrants' rights organizations and
other parts of civil society.