“My whole family has been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country.” Edgar Y. Harburg
Last week the Intercultural Communications (COM 270) class was visited by two guest speakers, Mishael and Jane, from the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) who gave a great talk on their valuable work in the centre. Their interest and empathy with the difficult situations in which people find themselves in this country was evident from the start. They explained that the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland is a national organization working to promote justice, empowerment and equality for migrant workers and their families and that their work is rooted in community work practice.
After a general discussion on their work and approach to dealing with the many people who come to the centre with issues such as workplace rights, employment permits and forced labour and trafficking, the speakers moved on to a description of their many successes. One very important development the MRCI has instigated is called the Undocumented Workers Scheme. Under this scheme, ‘Bridging Visas’ were introduced to help migrant workers who become undocumented (i.e. without a residence permit) through no fault of their own. They assisted more than 400 undocumented workers to regularise their legal status and hundreds more exploited workers to achieve over €2 million in settlements and judgments for back pay and for other violations of their employment rights.
But they are not all talk. Part of their modus operandi is to set up worker action groups in sectors where there are high levels of exploitation resulting in the Domestic Workers Action Group, the Restaurant Workers Action Group and the Agricultural Workers Association. These group members come together to defend their rights and improve conditions for all workers in these sectors. As Iryna Zmyeyevska writes: “We are all from different countries, with different cultures and different backgrounds. But we all have the same problems and we know we have to fight, to do something to change our future”. We all know that we can ignore the plight of such people one day and yet become an immigrant ourselves the next day as emigration once again becomes the bane of Irish life.
After the talk the speakers answered questions on the practical side of their job with the MRCI but also on their motivation and enthusiasm for such difficult work. Both speakers said that they found the work much more interesting and rewarding than they had found in previous jobs not involved with social justice issues. If you are interested in obtaining more information on the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland see: https://www.mrci.ie
Dr. Caoimhghin O Croidheain – Intercultural Communications instructor