cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10309135

BYD and its subcontractors have requested and received group work permits for almost as many third-country nationals as the number of jobs they promised to create at their Szeged investment, according to the parliamentary state secretary of the foreign ministry, Gyorgy Laszlo Velkey.

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He said former foreign minister Peter Szijjarto [who announced his resignation as member of the Hungarian parliament to join a management post at Chinese EV company BYD] knew full well that BYD and its subcontractors had requested and received group work permits from the Hungarian authorities for almost as many third-country nationals as the number of jobs they had promised to create at the Szeged investment.

“And we are talking about tens of thousands of jobs,” Velkey added.

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This meant that the Orban government, which had “scared people with migrants” for years, had not planned to fill the future BYD jobs with Hungarian workers, but with third-country nationals, the parliamentary state secretary said.

Yet the “disgraced former prime minister” had said just a few years ago that “we have never invited anyone here, neither as guest workers nor for any other reason, to live with us,” Velkey said.

He noted that government audits so far had shown that this “lie”, too, had collapsed.

“So much for the disgraced government’s famous sovereignty protection battles,” Velkey said.

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He said that on the government side, Szijjarto had negotiated and signed the investment agreement with BYD, and ministry documents showed clearly that during the negotiations Szijjarto had worked to provide BYD with all necessary assistance.

Thus, he himself had promoted the granting of economically prioritised status and the expedited processing of visa applications for Chinese workers, Velkey added.

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Investigations into BYD’s factory in the Hungarian city of Szeged revealed a pattern of labor rights violations affecting Chinese migrant workers employed through subcontractors and intermediary recruitment agencies.

Abuses cluster into three interrelated areas: systematic excessive working hours without adequate rest, coercive and opaque recruitment and management practices, and wage and cost arrangements that, through the withholding of wages and the shifting of recruitment and travel costs to workers, place some migrant workers in situations of heightened vulnerability.

China Labor Watch, an workers’ rights organization, outlined eleven issues outlined to systemic risks which may run contrary to Hungarian law and align with the International Labour Organization’s indicators of forced labor:

• Continuous Seven-Day Workweeks with No Guaranteed Rest
• Excessive Hours Amounting to Systematic Overtime Abuse
• Wages Structured to Obscure Overtime Obligations
• Recruitment Fees Creating Debt-Driven Labor Dependence
• Conditional Fee Refunds as a Retention Mechanism
• Illicit Use of Non-Work-Authorized Immigration Status for Full-Time Industrial Labor
• Delayed Wage Payments Among Smaller Subcontractors
• Opaque Employment Relationships
• Company-Directed Instructions to Falsify Working Hours During Inspections
• Inadequate Medical Insurance and Medical Care for Workplace Injuries
• Intimidation and Retaliation

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