ON THE NOTION OF FOREIGN WORKER IN THE RUSSIAN CURRENT LEGISLATION

Introduction: The intensification of international labor migration and the expansion of foreign citizens’ involvement in various spheres of labor trigger multidimensional legal problems. Due to this fact, one of the essential challenges that the Russian Federation is facing is to establish a balanced mechanism for regulation of foreign workers’ labor activity on Russian territory, a mechanism that would accommodate both the interests of the country and its population, and the foreign workers’ needs. In order to form an adequate regulation system of foreign workers’ labor, a conceptual and categorial framework needs to be established to preclude any ambiguity in the interpretation of key terms. Unfortunately, despite the heated policy discussions and a vigorous enhancement of the Russian Federation’s legislation in this sphere, an integrated approach to the concept of a foreign worker has not yet been established.

Here-in-under is a survey of scientific approaches adopted by Russian and foreign researchers in determining the definition of “a person who works in a country other than the country of his or her citizenship”. Legal definitions of related concepts, contained in universal and regional international regulations, countries’ bilateral agreements and statutory acts of national legislation were analyzed. Various approaches to qualifying relationships involving foreign workers adopted by domestic law enforcers were examined. As a result, differences were revealed in the scope and contents of the criteria that define the foreign worker category both within legal policy and in international and domestic legislative acts.

Materials and methods: The methodological basis of the research was formed by a universal method of cognition (dialectics), general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, deduction, and induction) and specific scientific methods adopted in legal studies (historical, comparative and systemic analysis, formal logic method, etc.). Results: The research revealed that the categories used by Russian legislators for qualifying the foreign workers’ status in the sphere of labor activity are characterized by ambivalence. Besides, Russian legislation does not reflect the specific aspects of regulating labor activity of a foreign worker on the basis of a civil law contract.

Discussion and conclusion: Critical analysis of approaches to defining the concept of foreign worker in domestic and foreign legal studies, the analysis and comparison of regulatory acts in national legislation as well as in certain international legal resources allowed us to articulate the essential systemic elements of the “foreign worker” concept and provide a definition for it. This research paper substantiates the need to expand the legal concept of foreign worker by establishing labor activities of a foreign worker as any paid (compensated) activities based on his or her personal labor efforts.

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