By Adis Sehic - 05 July 2024
After an intense period of election campaigning and months of speculation about their prospects of success, the Labour Party has won a clear majority in the UK general election and will now form the next government.
This is the first time in 14 years that Labour will be at the helm of government and in that time the country has undergone great political, economic and societal change. As a result of the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, it is likely that Labour will have at least five years to implement their agenda. Given the plethora of challenges facing the country, this will be a pivotal period, including for migrant workers who have in recent times endured substandard labour conditions and outright exploitation as they attempt to build their lives in the UK.
So, what will the next five years hold for migrant workers, and what are our priorities in campaigning for an end to precarious work? We set out some of the key changes to be expected and how we will look to hold the new government to account for their record in this area.
What are Labour’s plans for the UK’s immigration system, and how likely are they to be made?
As we pointed out in our manifesto analysis, though Labour has mentioned reforming the immigration system so that it is more directly linked with skills and training in the UK, there have been no specific commitments about reforming the work-sponsorship model that underpins our post-Brexit work migration system. In fact, Labour have ruled out reversing recent changes implemented by the last Conservative government, including banning migrant care workers from bringing dependants to the UK. This suggests that, at least in the short-term, we won’t see any major structural changes to the work migration system.
We’ve argued that sponsorship is specifically in need of reform because of the precarious relationship of dependency that is created between migrant workers and employers. Without reform, the new Labour government risks diluting its workers’ rights agenda (see below) and the practical impacts this can have on migrant workers arriving in the UK. A review of the system that focuses on introducing worker mobility and flexibility would help to resolve this.
It is important to note that Labour’s manifesto does include a commitment not to tolerate abuse of the visa system via employment rights breaches, and that offenders will be barred from hiring workers from abroad. This is a red herring - sponsors are already at risk of losing their licences to sponsor migrant workers, but the previous government did not enforce the rules as effectively as it could have.
A new Labour government would do well to step up this compliance activity and ensure that rogue employers do not get licences to sponsor workers in the first place. All of this needs to take place with a recognition that workers’ immigration status often can be negatively affected by action that is taken against their employers.To remedy this, workers need solutions that ensure they do not inadvertently slip into undocumented status.We’ve previously advocated for the UK to follow the lead of its international partners including Ireland and New Zealand, by giving exploited workers an unconditional right to work or a bridging permit. This would allow them to continue their lawful stay in the UK while retaining their access to work opportunities.
How will Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay affect migrant workers?
On employment, Labour has promised to introduce a flagship new employment bill in the first 100 days of a new Parliament to bring about the changes it set out in its Plan to Make Work Pay document that was released in the early part of the general election campaign period. This includes commitments relating to ending exploitative zero hours contracts, ensuring workers have basic employment rights from day one, and increasing the time limit that individuals have to make an employment claim. Our main priorities here will be to ensure that the experiences of migrant workers are adequately represented throughout the passage of a new employment bill, as well as ensuring that these commitments are not diluted.
A key priority for us will be feeding into the consultation process for a new Single Enforcement Body (SEB) to ensure this new organisation works more effectively in achieving redress for migrant workers than existing labour enforcement agencies have over recent years. The only time the word ‘migrant’ features in the Plan to Make Work Pay is in relation to the SEB, and it is clear that Labour will rely on this new body to sort out some of the well-documented issues that workers have been facing in different sectors. However, as we have identified in evidence to Parliament, a new SEB alone is not a panacea for the issues that migrant workers face.
Instead, we need to ensure that a new SEB is properly resourced, has appropriate powers available to punish and deter offenders from non-compliance and includes safe reporting channels so that all workers, regardless of migration status, can report exploitation securely. It is, however, encouraging to see some positive commitments already, including having trade union representation at the board level of a new SEB, and tackling sector-specific issues such as payment for travel time in social care which often reduces workers’ earnings to a pitiful level.
What will the Work Rights Centre focus on?
We will continue to highlight the systemic drivers of migrant worker exploitation in the UK, which means continuing to evaluate how aspects of our immigration, employment justice and labour market enforcement systems combine to produce and facilitate substandard conditions of work for migrants in the UK. Where possible, we will look at other drivers too, including financial insecurity and the digital divide facing migrants.
We will continue to advocate for policy solutions that would address these circumstances, including ensuring workers have greater mobility under the work-sponsorship system and ensuring legislation does not practically exclude migrant workers and their ability to access redress. We have collaborated with other workers’ rights charities to produce a short position paper that details the specific priorities regarding migrant workers’ rights for the next government (to be published shortly).
To make sure that these solutions come to fruition, we will be driving efforts to ensure that our reach and communications with policymakers are reciprocated, as well as those of other stakeholders. Previous reports, including from the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI), suggest that existing methods of communication between civil society and government departments have been fragmented and have not been a serious forum for two-way engagement. At the same time, policy measures to increase accountability and representation of migrant workers have in recent years been ignored to the detriment of our clients. We will hold the new government accountable if the voices of migrant workers and their demands of increased standards at work go unanswered.
More broadly, our aim is to adequately reflect the true experiences of migrant workers in the minds of policymakers and the public. In recent years, policymakers have too often pointed to the existence of laws and regulations as evidence that the conditions facing migrant workers are the same as British workers in our economy. After eight years of casework, thousands of workers assisted and hundreds of thousands of pounds recovered for workers, we know this is not true.
There is, without a shred of doubt, a difference between the law on paper and how the law applies in practice for migrant workers. Even public bodies and international institutions have recognised that migrants in the UK are at a heightened risk of mistreatment. This now needs to be recognised by the new UK government.
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