Workplace inspections offer labour inspectors opportunities to play a significant role in preventing and identifying labour exploitation. They can inform workers of their right to decent working conditions and to obtain unpaid wages. They can also tell them how they can seek redress when their rights are violated.
All migrant workers, including those in an irregular situation, enjoy core employment rights as workers. However, some rights depend on residence status. This manual seeks to inform workplace inspectors of the safeguards applying to third-country workers – meaning workers who are not from a Member State or from Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland – under EU law. The manual also outlines ways to best protect these workers’ rights in practice in the context of inspections.
A systematic application of the safeguards under EU law described in this manual would go a long way towards combating labour exploitation of migrant workers across the EU.
