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@language: sl, en
@trans-language: sl, en
@publisher-id: id
@doi: 10.3986/dd.2022.2.08
@article-type: 1.01
@article-category: S210
@pages: 107–124
@history-received: 15. 01. 2022
@history-accepted: 01. 03. 2022
* * *  Ž u r n a l  m e t a  * * *
@issue: 56
@volume: 2022
@pub-year: 2022
@pub-date: 10. 07. 2022
* * *  O p r e m a  * * *
@avtorji: Kristina Toplak, Marina Lukšič Hacin
@running-header: International Mobile Workers Caught 
Between Restrictive Measures and Freedom of Movement
INTERNATIONAL MOBILE WORKERS CAUGHT BETWEEN 
RESTRICTIVE MEASURES AND FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT 
DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CASE OF SLOVENIA
Kristina TOPLAK,I Marina LUKŠIČ HACINII
COBISS 1.01
ABSTRACT
International Mobile Workers Caught Between Restrictive Measures and 
Freedom of Movement During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Slovenia
The COVID-19 pandemic and the government measures to curb it in the past two 
years have had a significant impact on the mobility of workers within the EU. In this 
article, we analyze the measures adopted by the Slovenian government and the 
governments of some neighboring countries in the first half of 2020 and examine 
how these have affected international mobile workers. We identified the economic 
and social risks to which workers have been exposed following their return to 
Slovenia or while working in neighboring countries. Such risks were largely due 
to inconsistently adopted measures on an international level and the adoption of 
measures at short notice.
KEYWORDS: COVID-19 pandemic, labor mobility, international mobile workers, 
cross-border workers, Slovenia
IZVLEČEK
Mednarodni mobilni delavci med omejevalnimi ukrepi in svobodo gibanja v 
času pandemije bolezni Covid-19: primer Slovenije
Pandemija bolezni Covid-19 in vladni ukrepi za njeno zajezitev so v zadnjih dveh letih 
močno zaznamovali mobilnost delavcev v EU. Avtorici v članku analizirata ukrepe, ki 
so jih v prvi polovici leta 2020 sprejele slovenska in vlade nekaterih sosednjih držav in 
so neposredno vplivali na mednarodne mobilne delavce. Identificirali sta ekonomska 
in socialna tveganja, ki so jim bili delavci izpostavljeni po vrnitvi v Slovenijo ali med 
delom v sosednjih državah in so bila v veliki meri posledica neusklajenosti ukrepov 
na mednarodni ravni ter sprejemanja ukrepov v kratkem časovnem obdobju.
KLJUČNE BESEDE: pandemija Covid-19, delovna mobilnost, mednarodni mobilni 
delavci, čezmejni delavci, Slovenija
I PhD in ethnology; ZRC SAZU, Slovenian Migration Institute, Ljubljana; kristina.toplak@
zrc-sazu.si; ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7972-1481
II PhD in sociology; ZRC SAZU, Slovenian Migration Institute, Ljubljana; luksic@zrc-sazu.si; 
ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6119-8928
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INTRODUCTION
International mobile workers in the European Union face various obstacles to mobil-
ity due to social, political, economic, or cultural constraints (Cresswell, 2006; Blitz, 
2014; Salazar, 2017). In the last two years, the health constraints related to the SARS-
CoV-19, or COVID-19, coronavirus disease outbreak have been added to the list. The 
COVID-19 pandemic is not only a health, political, and socioeconomic crisis but also 
a mobility crisis (IOM, 2020).
In early March 2020, many countries around the world, including Slovenia, took 
previously unthinkable measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Some measures 
restricted movement and thus drastically impacted people’s lives (Meier et al., 2020: 
1436; Heller, 2021), especially those economically dependent on mobility. The 
pandemic and the measures taken to prevent its spread physically and, above all, 
symbolically restricted one of the fundamental freedoms of EU citizens—the right 
to free movement.
As soon as the pandemic was declared, international mobile workers, such as 
posted, cross-border, seasonal, and other mobile workers (Rasnača, 2020), found 
themselves restricted by the measures of the countries in which they were located 
and were forced to decide whether they would stay or return home. However, as 
most countries closed their borders, returning home was not always possible. With 
most of the European economy shutting down, posted workers suddenly found 
themselves without work. They later encountered increasingly significant obsta-
cles preventing them from crossing borders on the way to carrying out services in 
the other EU Member States. In border areas, the movement restrictions made the 
transnational daily life of inhabitants more difficult or even impossible (Opiłowska, 
2021), as so-called cross-border activities related to areas such as work, educa-
tion, creativity, leisure, and social contacts were restricted or even abolished for an 
extended time. Cross-border workers and their families faced economic, social, and 
health risks. They had to rely on the countries where they worked, which was not 
always without administrative obstacles. Mobile workers who lost their work due to 
restrictive health measures abroad and those who worked in the so-called critical 
infrastructure (healthcare, transport, food production, sales) found themselves in a 
challenging situation and often without sufficient social and healthcare protection 
(Rasnača, 2020; Fasani & Mazza, 2020a).
In this article, we present the results of a study on the impact of government 
strategies, measures, and policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19 on mobility. 
Specifically, we analyze the effects of measures on the international mobility of 
workers (posted workers, cross-border workers, and other mobile workers) who are 
Slovenian residents.
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METHODOLOGY, RESEARCH APPROACHES
Consideration of various aspects of international labor mobility in the form of 
seasonal, cross-border (daily, weekly), or posted work in the COVID-19 period has 
stimulated discussion in various academic fields about the increased vulnerabil-
ity of international mobile workers and migrants and the potential consequences 
of COVID-19 for them (Fasani and Mazza, 2020a; Geyer et al., 2020; Karaleka, 2021; 
Perocco, 2021). It triggered probes about the meaning and existence of borders, 
especially their renewed establishment or re-bordering within the EU (Heller, 2021; 
Medeiros et al., 2020; Novotný, 2021; Opiłowska, 2021).
We carried out the research into the impact of measures to prevent the spread of 
COVID-19 on international mobile workers with the aim of identifying the measures 
and strategies adopted in Slovenia (and neighboring countries) in the first “wave” 
of the pandemic (March 12–May 31, 2020). We wanted to find out which measures 
aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 affected international mobile workers 
most negatively and how they impacted their life and work.
In this article, we have focused on the measures that restrict mobility (e.g., closing 
borders, limiting free movement to the municipality of permanent residence, health 
checks at the border) and the society lockdowns. We have also identified the risks 
workers face when they return from abroad or engage in cross-border activity. In the 
first phase of the epidemic, we reviewed the restrictive measures adopted in the same 
period by the governments of neighboring countries, particularly Austria and Italy.1 
We have mainly used the official publications of decrees from the Official Gazette of 
the Republic of Slovenia and information on other countries’ decrees posted on the 
Slovenian government website (gov.si). We have also conducted special analyses of 
media coverage in all major Slovenian printed and online media, information on 
the Slovenian Union of Migrant Workers (SDMS) website, and comments by work-
ers on Facebook. To verify the impact and consequences of measures in practice, 
we conducted semi-structured interviews with posted and cross-border workers 
(fourteen interviews with cross-border workers and their family members and two 
interviews with posted workers in total) who work in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, 
Italy, and elsewhere. All are inhabitants of Slovenia.2 The interviewees described the 
everyday life of cross-border or poster workers and their itineraries. They spoke about 
changes due to the epidemic that they noticed on the way to work, in the work-
place, and at home. They described how they perceived the measures that affected 
them and defined the sources of information they found helpful in connection with 
the epidemic and their mobility. The interviews have been rendered anonymous, 
1 Most daily cross-border and posted workers living in Slovenia cross the borders between 
Slovenia and Austria or Italy (SDMS Union, 2020; De Wispelaere et al., 2021), so we decided to 
focus on them, and not so much on the less widespread movement of labor between Slovenia 
and Hungary or Croatia.
2 Interviews were conducted in Slovenian language and translated into English.
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so we only use an abbreviation of the name of each interviewee. In order to acquire 
a broader perspective of what is going on, we carried out further discussions with 
representatives of trade unions who assisted workers (four interviews) and with a 
EURES network advisor at the Employment Service of Slovenia (ZRSZ).
THE BACKGROUND OF THE PHENOMENON
International labor mobility is the consequence of economic, legal, and social 
restrictions, which force individuals to leave their home countries for employment 
and affect their choice of future work and destination (Bastos et al., 2021: 157). Thus, 
in addition to opportunities, mobility can be full of uncertainties, and the COVID-
19 pandemic restrictions have only added new challenges to the existing obstacles 
(see Fasani and Mazza, 2020a; Rasnača, 2020).
The pandemic has explicitly highlighted the differences and inequalities in the 
(im)mobility, citizenship, vocational, social, and health status among people. Heller 
claims that the pandemic has set up a so-called “sanitary apartheid” (Heller, 2021: 
120), which is an expansion of Balibar’s concept of global apartheid based on citi-
zenship, race, and social class (Balibar, 2004). Although Heller applied the concept to 
the EU’s external borders and in relation to citizens of third countries, we find that 
“sanitary differentiation” was also established on the internal borders between the 
EU Member States by only allowing entry to citizens/inhabitants with permanent or 
temporary residence in the same Member State, foreign workers employed in critical 
infrastructure, and those who could prove they were not sick (Klatt, 2020; Novotný, 
2021). The threat considered to be posed by refugees, migrants, or terrorists as 
“others” prior to the epidemic has with the pandemic and the restrictive measures 
aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 increasingly included inhabitants of 
neighboring countries as the allegedly sick and non-citizens (Opiłowska, 2021). An 
example of this is the international “isolation” of Italy, which in the spring of 2020 
was one of the countries most affected by COVID-19. Similar distinctions were made 
on the Czech–German, Polish–German, and Czech–Polish borders during the same 
period and later (Opiłowska, 2021; Böhm, 2021; Novotný, 2021).
The COVID-19 pandemic not only highlighted the differences at borders but also 
showed that the working conditions of posted, cross-border, and other mobile work-
ers, who are citizens of EU Member States, in many cases deteriorated.3 Although, 
according to EU legislation, workers from one Member State who work in another 
Member State have the same labor rights as domestic workers (European Union, 
2020), this does not always apply in practice. Studies show (Fasani & Mazza, 2020a, 
2020b; Rasnača, 2020; Perocco, 2021) that mobile and migrant workers, even if they 
3 According to Eurostat, in 2019, there were 1.5 million cross-border workers (Fries-Tersch et al., 
2021) and 1.9 million posted workers (De Wispelaere et al., 2021) in the EU.
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are citizens of an EU Member State, usually carry out lower-paid work which does 
not correspond to their level of education or qualifications. They are also exposed to 
economic and social vulnerability due to the short-term nature and limited duration 
of their work contracts; they may be paid less than local workers and are likely to 
have to accept informal agreements about working conditions. In a crisis, foreign 
workers are the first to lose their employment.
In 2020, a unique paradox arose when, in order to prevent the spread of 
COVID-19, the EU Member States restricted freedom of movement and established 
checkpoints at their borders. At the same time, they declared mobile workers who 
regularly travel within the EU (and also enter and leave from third countries) to 
be “key workers” (Fasani & Mazza, 2020a). Foreign workers in the so-called critical 
infrastructures—activities that served the population uninterruptedly during the 
pandemic (workers in road transport, health care, seasonal workers in agriculture 
and the food industry, and others)—were indispensable yet restricted in their mobil-
ity while enjoying the least economic and social protection. Moreover, they were 
also the most vulnerable in terms of health (Rasnača, 2020).
Soon after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the scope of global mobil-
ity was limited. The pandemic also affected the dynamics and forms of mobility, 
which became more localized, regional, and shorter in duration (IOM, 2020). Some 
key changes in the scope and characteristics of mobility also occurred in Slovenia. 
According to the statistics of the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (ZZZS; inter-
nal report, in the authors’ archives), the number of posted workers from Slovenia 
decreased: in the second and fourth quarters of 2020, the drop was 8% and 16%, 
respectively, in comparison with the previous quarter. A comparison of the number 
of Slovenian citizens employed in Austria between April 2019 and April 2020 showed 
that this fell by 6.8% (this includes cross-border mobile workers with residence in 
Slovenia and Slovenian nationals with residence in Austria; unpublished statistics 
from the AMS—the Austrian Public Employment Service, in the authors’ archives). 
We may assume that these shifts were decisively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic 
and resulted from restrictions determined by government measures in Slovenia and 
in the countries of employment or posting in the first half of 2020.
THE COVID-19 EPIDEMIC IN LEGISLATION: NATIONAL STRATEGIES 
AND THEIR AIM
Slovenia was one of 12 EU Member States that introduced restrictions on cross-bor-
der movement as one of the national strategies to stop the spread of COVID-19 when 
the epidemic began. In the other Member States, restrictions on movement were 
either regional or completely non-existent (Alemanno, 2020: 311), which means 
that the EU did not adopt a unified strategy in this domain. Moreover, the European 
Commission adopted “only guidelines” for administering borders in the time of the 
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COVID-19 pandemic, in which it determined important characteristics of temporary 
border control, including internal borders. We would like to draw attention to Section 
21, which requires compliance with the Directive on the Free Movement of Persons 
and also requires that EU Member States make no distinction between their own citi-
zens and other EU citizens and may not, under any circumstances, refuse entry to EU 
citizens or citizens of third countries who are present in the territory of the EU. At the 
same time, the guidelines require the use of appropriate protective measures, such 
as self-isolation or quarantine, but only if the measures apply to both citizens and 
non-citizens. The guidelines under Section 23 also require that the Member States 
allow frontier workers to cross the border (European Commission 2020a: 4–5).
European legal expert Alberto Alemanno claims that the EU Member States have 
treated the pandemic as “an essentially national matter”, adopting different, uncoor-
dinated, and sometimes competing national responses (Alemanno, 2020: 307). Some 
documents from the European Commission, the European Parliament, or its individual 
members also indicate the uncoordinated, nationally motivated, and discriminatory 
actions of EU Members States to stop the spread of COVID-19. They point to a discrimi-
natory relationship by the EU Member States toward mobile workers, the inadmissible 
obstruction of the free flow of workers, and the increased vulnerability and precari-
ous situation of cross-border, posted, and seasonal workers (European Commission, 
2020b; European Parliament, 2020a; European Parliament, 2020b).
The uncoordinated national response of Slovenia and its neighboring coun-
tries was reflected primarily in the restrictions of freedom of movement and the 
closure of parts of the economy and society. The Slovenian government adopted 
the measures rapidly, with a brief prior announcement and decrees for which it did 
not require a majority in the Slovenian National Assembly. In the first month of the 
epidemic alone, the Slovenian government adopted six decrees forbidding move-
ment or determining conditions for crossing borders and movement within the 
country. These changed many times in the following two months. Such measures 
affected international mobile workers who are residents of Slovenia in a specific way. 
Let us look at some examples of these measures.
The first measure to restrict movement was adopted before the epidemic was 
declared in Slovenia (March 12, 2020). Due to the rapid spread of the illness in Italy, 
the Decree determining the conditions of entry into Slovenia from Italy to prevent the 
spread of infectious disease was adopted on March 11, 2020. With the decree, the 
government introduced six (later only four) checkpoints on roads connecting Slove-
nia with Italy (UL 18/2020). By March 18, the decree had changed already two times. 
The government set up sanitary checkpoints for foreign non-residents. It determined 
a few exceptions for which restrictions did not apply, including Slovenian nationals, 
foreign nationals with permanent or temporary residence in Slovenia, and freight 
transport destined for Slovenia. All transit traffic was stopped, and foreign nationals 
had to prove they were healthy (a negative COVID-19 test and body temperature of 
less than 37.5° C). As a result, a large number of passengers and trucks gathered on 
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Slovenian territory near the border with Italy, stranded due to the above decree (A. 
V., STA, 2020).
On March 16, 2020, the Decree on the temporary prohibition and restriction of 
public passenger transport in Slovenia entered into force, which also included inter-
national connections (UL 24/2020), while on March 17, 2020, the government Decree 
prohibiting air transport in Slovenia came into force (UL 26/2020). The government 
extended the prohibition of air transport on several occasions until June 12, 2020 
(UL 66/2020). The prohibition of public transport and flights in Slovenia and else-
where in the world meant that many people were stranded abroad (see more on this 
in Vah Jevšnik & Milharčič Hladnik, 2022, in this issue of the journal), and even more 
of them could not go to work. The following measures to be adopted introduced 
restrictions for crossing the borders with Croatia (adopted on March 17) and Austria 
(March 24). In both cases, the governmental decrees set strict conditions for border 
crossings and established a limited number of checkpoints. Both neighboring coun-
tries independently enacted measures to control border crossings into Slovenia on 
March 18, 2020.
On April 11, 2020, the Slovenian government adopted a joint order (extended 
many more times, slightly different each time), which determined the border regime 
on all of Slovenia’s borders (UL 50/2020), checkpoints and their opening hours, and 
also exceptions for which people could, under stringent conditions, cross the border 
and be exempt from quarantine. These exceptions included daily cross-border 
workers but not posted workers. At first, the weekly cross-border workers were not 
amongst the exceptions, apart from those working in Austria. Under pressure from 
the public, especially the SDMS, the government issued a decree (almost a month 
later) on May 7, 2020 (UL 64/2020), that confirmed weekly cross-border workers in 
other countries were also an exception and could cross the border with Slovenia.
On March 30, 2020, the restriction of freedom of movement between Slove-
nian municipalities was introduced. Among the few exceptions allowed to cross the 
municipal borders were international mobile workers and residents who needed to 
cross these borders for professional reasons. This movement was possible if they 
could prove that travel between municipalities was essential. If they could not prove 
this, they faced a fine of between EUR 400 and 4,000 under the Contagious Diseases 
Act. Similar restrictive measures were applied during the second wave of the 
epidemic (from October 2020 to June 2021), which shows how long the measures to 
restrict movement lasted.
As part of the overall effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, many countries 
uncoordinatedly shut down part of their economies. Italy did so on March 9, Slove-
nia on March 12, and Austria on March 16, 2020. Governments also issued a series 
of regulations mandating the use of protective equipment and safety distance 
between people. A negative COVID-19 test result became a condition for crossing 
the border, which countries adopted again at different dates and with many national 
administrative peculiarities.
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THE COVID-19 EPIDEMIC IN PRACTICE: RESTRICTIONS ON 
MOVEMENT, MEASURES TO PREVENT INFECTION AND 
THEIR CONSEQUENCES
The measures that the Slovenian government and the governments of neighboring 
countries began adopting in an uncoordinated fashion in March 2020, i.e., closing 
the borders, introducing strict control over the population’s movements, canceling 
public transport, enforcing specific health measures on individuals, etc., provoked 
predominantly negative reactions such as anger, frustration, and often distress 
amongst international mobile workers.
Restrictions of movement
Numerous cross-border workers and their families in Slovenia became afraid that the 
governments of neighboring countries would close the border completely, even for 
daily cross-border workers. As we showed in the previous chapter, Slovenia and its 
neighboring countries have not completely closed their national borders. However, 
a limited number of border crossings, checkpoints, and rare exceptions regarding 
who was allowed to cross the border meant unimaginable changes for the popu-
lation. The controls related to the health crisis represented an unprecedented and 
very large obstacle for people for whom crossing the border is vital.
For one thing, crossing the border took longer because, in addition to the controls 
intended for refugees or migrants, they began introducing temperature measure-
ments at borders. As it was no longer allowed to take passengers, more cars were 
on the roads. This is how things were, and everything was stricter. I think they also 
closed some [smaller] border crossings. […] Those who are not used to using these 
[larger] international crossings have had great difficulty getting to their workplace 
(Interview with cross-border worker M.).
With the proclamation of the epidemic and the restriction of movement, the states 
also paralyzed part of the economy for several weeks. Posted workers, in particular, 
had to return to their home countries. When companies resumed operations and 
construction sites reopened, posted workers faced a new problem at the border, 
as posted worker G. told us. Unlike cross-border workers, posted workers were not 
among the exceptions defined in decrees and always had to prove their reasons for 
crossing the border or were quarantined right at the border. This happened twice 
to our interviewee. Such workers were subjected to frequent testing for crossing 
the border,4 and if they did not fulfill the necessary conditions were threatened 
4 Austria decided on March 20, 2020, that entry into the country would be possible only upon 
submission of a negative COVID-19 test, which could not be older than four days. Exceptions 
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with quarantine. Workers had to pay for their own PCR and RAT tests for prolonged 
periods, and some posted workers have not been reimbursed for these expenses 
(Interview with posted worker G.). Frequent testing was time-consuming, and 
confirmations in a foreign language were not issued at all testing sites, and a possi-
ble quarantine decision could also mean termination of the employment contract. 
Additional safety measures for preventing the spread of COVID-19, such as masks, 
disinfectants, physical distancing, separate accommodation and transport to work, 
along with testing, were fully implemented in the Austrian construction sector, for 
example, and also accepted by workers (Geyer et al., 2020), which was confirmed 
by some of our interviewees. Elsewhere, in production and work with customers, 
such measures hindered work. Precarious working conditions and a lack of safety 
measures for cross-border, posted, and seasonal workers were also present in other 
sectors during the epidemic, such as the meat processing industry and health care 
(European Parliament, 2020a). One interviewee, employed by a large manufactur-
ing company in Austria, told us that throughout the first wave of the epidemic, he 
worked with local workers who had not been tested and were also undisciplined in 
their use of safety equipment. As a result, he felt he was at greater risk (Interview with 
cross-border worker M.). Our interviewees highlighted another feature of cross-bor-
der work: fewer international mobile workers could work from home because they 
are predominantly employed in sectors that do not enable this: construction, manu-
facturing, and the so-called critical infrastructure.
Cross-border workers who regularly drove to work in neighboring Austria 
and Italy experienced the greatest difficulties due to the closure of smaller border 
crossings which meant they had to drive up to twice as far to work. Waiting at check-
points for documents to be checked and the restricted opening hours of some 
major border crossings, with queues at border crossings that were open throughout, 
further increased the time spent commuting to work. Our interviewees criticized 
decision-makers for not understanding the importance of open borders for mobile 
workers: “What bothers me most in Slovenia is that they closed down border cross-
ings. That was wrong. They should not have done this. I think that the people in 
Ljubljana who make these decisions have no idea what is happening at the coun-
try’s periphery. This is wrong” (Interview with cross-border worker M.). As a result, 
workers were late for work, the workday lengthened, and so did their absence from 
home. Their travel costs increased significantly. According to one of the respon-
dents, employers were “mostly understanding as long as they did not come to work 
late.” However, fearing the spread of infection among employees, some Austrian 
employers prohibited their employees from traveling to work together, which 
meant additional costs for commuters and even more cars on the road and at border 
were Austrian citizens or people with permanent or temporary residence, transit passengers, 
commuters, and other passengers on urgent trips (gov.si).
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crossings. All respondents whose travel costs had increased significantly expressed 
concern about how these expenses would be accounted for when calculating 
income tax for 2020.
Economic and social consequences
Even without COVID-19 restrictions, the provision of services with posted workers 
is highly dependent on fluctuations in business and economic conditions. When 
much of the economic activity in EU countries came to a halt, it naturally had a nega-
tive impact. Many posted workers who worked in the other EU Member States via 
Slovenian companies had to return to Slovenia. Businesses and construction sites 
were closed, and the interruption of work lasted for several weeks, such as in Austria 
(Geyer et al., 2020). Of the workers posted from Slovenia to the other EU Member 
States in 2020, almost six out of ten were third-country nationals. They worked for 
Slovenian employers and had at least temporary residence in Slovenia (Vah Jevšnik 
et al., 2022). Some of them were in a particularly difficult situation. They had to return 
to Slovenia during the period of extraordinary circumstances and partial economic 
shutdown of Europe, where they were unemployed and without any means of 
support. One of these posted workers was Stojan Mirić, a Serbian citizen who had 
to return to Slovenia after a construction site in Ingolstadt, Germany, was closed. He 
had a permanent residence in Slovenia but no means of subsistence (S.R./J.P./STA, 
2020). So, he decided to return to Serbia, but in the meantime, Serbia had closed 
its borders even to its own citizens. Thus, a large group of Serbian citizens returning 
from various European countries remained stranded in Slovenia. The workers’ fami-
lies were waiting for them at home, but when they returned to Serbia, they usually 
had to spend 14 to 28 days in quarantine (S.R./J.P./STA, 2020). According to a repre-
sentative of the Counselling Office for Workers, an NGO located in Ljubljana, many 
employers gave leave to posted workers, i.e., sent them “home” to Serbia, BiH, and 
elsewhere. In Slovenia, some posted workers also faced the fact that the employer 
did not pay contributions for them or excluded them from the social security system 
from April 2020. Some of them sought help from trade unions, while many returned 
to their home country.
According to representatives of the Slovenian Union of Migrant Workers (SDMS), 
many Slovenian cross-border workers lost their jobs because economic activity 
in neighboring countries was partially halted at the beginning of the epidemic.5 
In Austria, for which we managed to obtain (unpublished) AMS statistics, 1,726 
Slovenian nationals lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic (based on a 
5 Indeed, in 2020, Austria recorded its lowest employment level since 1952 (Geyer et al., 2020), 
and the crisis hit foreigners the hardest. Employment of foreigners fell by 10.5%, while it fell by 
3.4% for the native population. Employment of cross-border workers fell by 14.9%, and there 
were 46.1% fewer posting notifications (ZKO3) for posted workers in Austria (for more details, 
see Geyer et al., 2020).
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comparison of the state in April 2019 and 2020). However, according to a EURES 
advisor, about 10% of Slovenian nationals employed in Austria lost their jobs in the 
first phase of the epidemic (Interview with the EURES advisor), which corresponds 
to about 2,360 workers (unpublished AMS statistics, in the authors’ archive). In 
addition, the number of people laid off due to informal forms of employment and 
contract work was undoubtedly even higher and differed depending on the form of 
employment. Tourism, accommodation and food services, wholesale and retail trade, 
personal services, and other non-critical activities lost significantly more employ-
ees than other activities (Interview with the EURES advisor). There would likely have 
been many more job losses if the Austrian government had not adopted several 
packages of measures to support the economy. At the same time, it urged employ-
ers not to lay off workers and instead to resort to short-time work and subsidies 
(SDMS Union, 2020). During this period, the SDMS constantly warned its members 
not to sign amicable termination agreements with Austrian employers because they 
would not be entitled to benefits in the event of unemployment in Slovenia (SDMS 
Union, 2020). According to the EURES Adviser, most of the dismissed Slovenian 
workers found new employment relatively quickly in Austria, thanks to the flexibility 
of the labor market and the revival of the closed part of the economy. Because of the 
flexibility of the labor market and the tougher work environment, and more stressful 
conditions compared to Slovenia, most of our interviewees expressed fears about 
job security. They were especially afraid at the beginning of the epidemic when it 
was still unclear how governments would deal with the population movement and 
the economy’s stagnation and how employers would react.
International mobile workers, especially those not employed in Slovenia, were 
not eligible for many of the measures taken in Slovenia to mitigate the effects of 
the pandemic. If they lost their jobs, they could only register with the employment 
service in Slovenia, from which they received lower cash benefits than the contribu-
tions they paid in the countries where they worked.6 If cross-border workers agreed 
to terminate their employment contract by mutual consent or if they had worked 
abroad for less than nine months, they were not entitled to benefits in Slovenia. 
The dismissed workers faced an additional economic threat from the procedure for 
collecting insufficient income tax payments by the Financial Administration of the 
Republic of Slovenia, which had already been collecting payments due for many 
years. Some workers were temporarily in a very difficult position (Interview with 
cross-border worker M.). The amount of childcare compensation received by work-
ers during the lockdown varied widely in duration and scope, resulting in unequal 
treatment of cross-border workers compared to other workers employed in Slove-
nia. Non-formal and undeclared work in neighboring countries, which, according to 
many of our interviewees, is common among Slovenians, became utterly impossible 
6 On the initiative of the SDMS, the Slovenian government solved this long-term problem in 
March 2021 and increased the amount for the three and six months of benefit receipt from 
EUR 892.50 to EUR 1,785.00 (UL 54/2021).
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due to the strict border controls. Thus, workers who wanted to enter Austria had to 
present confirmation from their employer, the so-called certificate for commuters 
(Bescheinigung für Berufspendler), or a valid employment contract, for a job in the 
critical infrastructure (SDMS Union, 2020).
THE RELIABILITY OF INFORMATION AND ITS CHANNELS
The international mobile workers we spoke with mostly kept abreast of policies and 
changes in both countries—the country where they worked and their country of 
residence. They found information in the media, on the official websites of the Slove-
nian and Austrian/Italian governments, on the websites of the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs and embassies, then on the website of the Slovenian police, or directly from 
the officials at the border. Another reliable source of information was the SDMS 
website, which included links to important official websites. Many workers relied 
on the information they received from their employers or on informal channels 
the workers established among themselves. Less reliable but still frequently used 
sources of information were social networks.
Despite various official sources of information about valid measures, workers 
said they found it challenging to keep abreast of changes in policies and admitted to 
being very confused by the amount of information to which they were exposed. They 
had to keep abreast of the situation in two or more countries and compare them.
“There was no closing of municipalities in Switzerland as there was here. In 
Switzerland you could go anywhere you pleased, all the time, you could leave the 
country, come back … If you went out, you knew that you would have to quarantine 
for 10 days, this was all clear, you didn’t have the options we had here. And curfews, 
we never had this in Switzerland” (Interview with seasonal worker M.).
“This was a permanent subject of conversation at the time, keeping up on all the 
measures and comparing ours and theirs. We eventually realized that our measures 
in Slovenia came one week after theirs. And I still think that our government simply 
copies their measures so they can say that they only did the same as in Austria. That’s 
how I feel it is” (Interview with cross-border worker M.).
Mobile workers found the measures adopted by the Slovenian government 
vague in time and content, changing too quickly, some adopted in a very short 
time or not realistic, such as the working hours at border crossings, which did 
not take into account the working hours of companies (Interview with the SDMS 
Union representative), or the frequency of tests for workers returning to Slovenia, 
this measure becoming valid while they were still working abroad (Interview with 
cross-border worker S.). Workers were often confused in the flood of news about 
changes in current regulations and different measures on both sides of the border. 
According to respondents, the biggest problem was the lack of reliable information 
about border crossings. Since the beginning of March 2020, the media reported 
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that the borders with neighboring countries might be closed, so these workers were 
concerned about how they would go to work. Some of them were even willing to 
move to the other country temporarily. One of them was nurse B., employed in a 
nursing home in Austria. She traveled to work with a suitcase during the first two 
weeks of the epidemic, always prepared to stay in Austria if needed.
On the other hand, international mobile workers perceived the measures taken 
by the Austrian, Swiss, or German governments as clear in content and timing. New 
measures were decided and announced some time in advance so that they could 
prepare for them. Nevertheless, there were many measures, and respondents 
found it difficult to keep track and identify which of them applied to them. The 
posts and comments on the Facebook page of the Connecting migrant workers and 
supporters group also reflected this state of affairs. In the group, members often 
asked whether a particular border crossing was open, whether a decided measure 
also applied to them, or what they should do if they were unable or unwilling to 
comply with a measure.
CONCLUSION
The pandemic COVID-19 caused a unique paradox in terms of mobility. On the 
one hand, the global community sought to solve the problems posed by the virus, 
which, in the words of Étienne Balibar, overcame all national and social barriers 
(2020), while at the same time, each country took its own measures to restrict the 
freedom of movement, excluding “the others” and including “us” in order to stop the 
spread of the pandemic. In the same month that marked the 25th anniversary of 
the signing of the Schengen Agreement, many EU Member States closed the inter-
nal borders of the Schengen area to stop the spread of the virus—a measure that 
proved ineffective, however, judging by the increasing number of infections and sick 
people in the weeks that followed. We cannot deny the role of mobility in the spread 
of the epidemic because the virus does not travel by itself. However, the restriction 
of freedom of movement is a late and, above all, nationalistic reaction, which in this 
case, triggered new forms of control (Heller, 2021).
The pandemic has highlighted the enormous differences in the vulnerability 
of our societies and groups of individuals during the health and economic crises 
that have hit the EU, including Slovenia (IOM, 2020). As our study has shown, the 
health crisis immediately put many administrative obstacles in the way of Slovenian 
residents working in other EU member states, which also created certain risks in 
economic, social, and health terms. International mobile workers, who were often 
already in precarious situations before the pandemic, became even more vulner-
able and at-risk due to movement restrictions and other measures to prevent the 
spread of COVID-19. They were exposed to risks such as layoffs, increased costs 
associated with commuting, infections due to the lack of or inconsistent application 
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of protective measures, poor security measures, unequal treatment, and most of 
their jobs could not be performed from home, meaning that they were constantly 
exposed to sources of infection and restrictions when crossing state borders (see 
Rasnača, 2020). The study’s main finding is that the measures to prevent the spread 
of COVID-19, which were not internationally coordinated during the period in ques-
tion and changed very quickly, were restrictive and even harmful to the mobile 
population. The measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 created new inequalities 
and disparities and contributed to a deterioration in mobile workers’ economic and 
social status.
Finally, we would like to quote Étienne Balibar again. In an interview, he said that 
an important aspect of democracy is the awareness that no strategy of collective 
protection—closing borders, quarantining, or pursuing risky contacts—is without 
danger. “The way in which a society sees itself ‘at war,’ even against a virus, is a matter 
of democracy” (Balibar, 2020).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The article is a result of the research program “The National and Cultural Identity of 
Slovenian Emigration in the Context of Migration Studies” (P5-0070), financed by the 
Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS).
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POVZETEK
MEDNARODNI MOBILNI DELAVCI MED OMEJEVALNIMI UKREPI IN 
SVOBODO GIBANJA V ČASU PANDEMIJE BOLEZNI COVID-19: PRIMER 
SLOVENIJE
Kristina TOPLAK, Marina LUKŠIČ HACIN
Avtorici v članku predstavita rezultate raziskave o vplivih ukrepov za preprečevanje 
širjenja bolezni Covid-19 na mednarodne mobilne delavce, ki je potekala v letih 
2020 in 2021. Njen namen je bil identificirati ukrepe in strategije, ki so bili v Slove-
niji sprejeti spomladi 2020 in so vplivali na omenjeno ciljno skupino. Avtorici sta 
preučili, kateri ukrepi za zajezitev širjenja Covid-19 so najbolj prizadeli mednarodne 
mobilne delavce in kako so vplivali na njihovo življenje in delo. Zanimali so ju pred-
vsem izkušnje, percepcije in odzivi napotenih, čezmejnih in drugih mednarodnih 
mobilnih delavcev.
V članku se avtorici osredotočata predvsem na ukrepe omejevanja mobilnosti 
in zapiranja družbe (npr. zapiranje meje, omejevanje gibanja prebivalstva na občino 
stalnega prebivališča, preverjanje zdravstvenega stanja na meji) in tudi nekatere 
ukrepe blaženja posledic epidemije, zato sta pregledali glavne vladne dokumente, 
ki so določali pogoje za prebivalstvo. Na podlagi opravljenih polstrukturiranih 
intervjujev s posameznimi delavci in njihovimi družinskimi člani ter pogovorov s 
sodelavci sindikatov, ki so delavcem nudili informacije in pomoč, sta lahko iden-
tificirali tveganja, ki so jim bili izpostavljeni delavci po povratku iz tujine ali med 
opravljanjem čezmejnega dela in so bila posledica omejevanja mobilnosti zaradi 
epidemije (izguba službe, začasna prekinitev dela, zdravstvena tveganja ipd.).
Raziskava je pokazala, da je zdravstvena kriza delovno mobilnim prebivalcem 
Slovenije postavila na pot veliko administrativnih ovir, ki so predstavljale določeno 
tveganje v ekonomskem in socialnem smislu. Glavna ugotovitev raziskave je, da 
so bili ukrepi za preprečevanje širjenja bolezni Covid-19, ki so bili v obravnavanem 
obdobju mednarodno neusklajeni in so se zelo hitro spreminjali, za mobilno prebi-
valstvo omejujoči in celo škodljivi. Povečali so neenakosti na področjih mobilnosti, 
državljanstva in poklicnega ali socialnega statusa ter poslabšali ekonomski in socialni 
položaj mobilnih delavcev.