Russian Employers to Check for Medical Insurance Among Guest Workers

The Russian government has approved a series of laws requiring guest workers to sign up for voluntary medical insurance.

MOSCOW, December 5 (Sputnik) — A series of amendments made to Russia’s Labor Code will require guest workers to declare whether or not they have voluntary medical insurance, and if not, their employer must provide it, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports.

The law, signed by the Russian president earlier this week, comes into force December 13.

A second amendment to the law will also require employers that hire guest workers to make contributions into the national Social Insurance Fund, in the amount of 1.8 percent of company’s wage expenditure. This amendment, which goes live on January 1, 2015, will also grant guest workers the right to paid sick leave after six months of work.

The amendments follow changes to laws on guest workers made earlier this year, forcing employers hiring foreign labor to make contributions to the pension fund. It is also in line with amendments signed into law last month “On the Legal Status of Foreign Citizens on the Territory of the Russian Federation,” which will introduce changes to the country’s system of quota-based labor permits, which have long been criticized for failing to reflect actual demand for migrant labor, prompting many immigrants to work illegally. The amendments, also being introduced on January 1, 2015, will allow individuals to issue work permits to immigrant laborers working in non-commercial fields of work, while stipulating that migrant laborers prove that they have not been convicted of crimes, that they have a place to live during their time in Russia, and that they pay a tax. The law also provides for a basic accounting of guest workers by the country’s medical system.

As a whole, the recent reforms are aimed at improving the social protections granted to legal immigrants, and toward ending the discrimination they may face by employers. The changes are also designed to make immigrant labor less attractive to employers compared to the local labor force.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta has explained that until now, in addition to the lower wages paid to guest workers, employers did not have to pay premiums into the pension fund, mandatory health insurance and social insurance funds, premiums paid on Russian workers that made immigrant labor up to 30 percent cheaper.

According to official statistics, there are about 3.5 million guest workers in Russia. Unofficially, that figure is much higher. In the Moscow area, it has been estimated that up to a million workers may be working in the nation’s capital, far outnumbering the 415,000 legally documented workers.