THE PLUMBER'S UKRAINIAN?:

Poland is the New Germany: Cheap Labor from the East (Marion Kraske and Jan Puhl, 11/28/05, Der Spiegel)

Csaba and János are just two of several hundred thousand from the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Moldavia, Romania and Bulgaria eking out a living in the new European Union states. The overwhelming majority of them are day laborers -- poverty having pushed them across the borders into the new boom economies of Eastern Europe. Sixteen years since the Iron Curtain disintegrated, the new kids on the EU block are now experiencing growth rates of between 4 and 9 percent.

Prior to 1989 and in the turbulent phase that followed in the 1990s, those moving west seeking prosperity were predominantly Hungarians, Poles, Czechs and Slovaks. Many in the western media predicted a veritable flood of immigrants from these very countries once they had joined the EU on May 1, 2004. And yet, according to estimates of the German Institute of Economic Research, in the year following Eastern Europe's accession, the number of those entering Western Europe was a mere 100,000 to 150,000 -- far fewer than had been feared.

Partly, of course, the small size of the influx was due to certain countries, Germany and Austria in particular, taking advantage of EU rules that allow member countries to open their borders slowly, step by step.

But as their economic success increases, Europe's former problem children have now become attractive destinations themselves for migrant workforces from further east -- from former Soviet states. The International Organization for Migration, active all over the world, notes that "immigration is a whole new phenomenon for these countries."

Michael Jandl, of the International Center for Migration Policy Development in Vienna, points out that Poland and the Czech Republic have especially experienced a rapid rise in illicit, foreign labor crossing their eastern borders. An estimated 600,000 are working without official papers in Poland, the largest of the latest additions to the EU, while half that number are engaged in similar activity on Czech soil. Hungary's black market labor force numbers at least 100,000. "The Ukrainians are now doing the same work in Poland which the Poles took on in Germany in the '90s" says Justyna Frelak, an expert at the Warsaw Institute for Public Affairs.

So turns the virtuous economic cycle.

MORE:
East-to-West Migration Remaking Europe: Latvian's Journey to Ireland for Work Reflects New Dynamic of Enlarged E.U. (Kevin Sullivan, November 28, 2005, Washington Post)

Since Latvia and nine other countries joined the European Union in May 2004, almost 450,000 people, most of them from the poorest fringes of the formerly communist east, have legally migrated west to the job-rich economies of Ireland, Britain and Sweden. Germany, France and other longtime E.U. members have kept the doors closed for now but promise to open them in coming years to satisfy the bloc's principle that citizens of all member states share the right to move to any other.

Perhaps nowhere is this feeling stronger than in Ireland, a country of 4 million people with one of Europe's fastest-growing economies and memories of how the world took in destitute Irish migrants in generations past. About 150,000 new workers -- mostly Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians -- have registered with the Irish government in the past 18 months, statistics show, although officials say that some may have already been there.

Citizens of E.U. countries do not need Irish visas or work permits, and there are no restrictions on how long they can stay or what work they can do. They are generally eligible for government health care and other services. There is no special system for them to seek citizenship.

From Dublin to Donegal, it is now difficult to find a construction site, factory, hotel or pub where some of the workers are not speaking Polish, Russian, Latvian or Lithuanian. They are changing the country's ethnic character. Multi-language newspapers cater to the job-seekers. Banks have hired tellers who speak their languages. East European grocery stores sell meats and cheeses from home, and phone companies post flyers in Internet cafes listing cheap calls to Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn.

Immigration, of course, also brings social friction and occasional violence. In Ireland, as in other once-homogenous European societies, people are struggling to accommodate newcomers with different cultures, languages and religions, and make room in already strained welfare and school systems.

But many here see the movement of workers as pure opportunity, for themselves and for the immigrants.

"Our young Irish don't want to do these jobs anymore," said Alfie Lambert, who runs a fast-growing business in County Wexford, in southeastern Ireland, that makes door frames for the booming Irish building trade.

Lambert said only two of his 40 factory employees were Irish, and about half were Latvian. "Out of 10 Latvians, you'd have 10 good workers," he said. Lambert hired a Latvian woman to help him recruit more by placing ads in newspapers in Riga. Latvia, with 2.2 million people and a 10 percent jobless rate, has responded eagerly, sending 14,000 workers to Ireland in the past 18 months.

"We can't live without the Latvians," Lambert said. "We can't grow without them."

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 2, 2005 6:09 AM