Review On the shelf
n By Mark Metcalf
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
The truth about modern slavery, by Emily Kenway, published by Pluto Press (£14.99)
In 2016 Prime Minster Theresa May, who a year earlier introduced the Modern Slavery Act (MSA), was lauded by the media for launching her ‘anti-slavery crusade’ when she said, “this government is determined to build a Great Britain that works for everyone and will not tolerate modern slavery, an evil trade that shatters victims’ lives and traps them in a cycle of abuse.”
Warm words that Kenway notes in the real world translated into only 12 per cent of those officially recognised as modern slavery victims being given a right to remain in the UK in 2016. May, of course, did not use the MSA to legally require companies to perform extensive investigations into their supply chains and to subsequently address any human rights impacts they identified.
Meanwhile, labour inspectorates such as the Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate, HSE, HMRC’ wage unit and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority are all
woefully underfunded and understaffed. In 2021, the anti-slavery charity Hope of Justice revealed that a year after the news first broke, workers in some Leicester textile factories were still being paid as little as £3.50 an hour.
And as Landworker highlighted last summer it also took the Tories over three years to report into the initial Seasonal Workers Scheme. (SWS) This is designed to make up for the shortage following Brexit of agricultural labour. Unsurprisingly, the report revealed gross exploitation of migrant workers, particularly those from Ukraine, who in the meantime were clearly still being terribly exploited as highlighted in an article on 19 April 2022 by The Guardian titled ‘Ukrainian workers workers flee ‘modern slavery’ conditions on UK farms’.
Kenway contends that tougher immigration controls, embodied in Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’, prevent migrant workers from seeking help when they experience
exploitation, the result of which is a lowering of wages and conditions for all workers.
FLEX/FMF proposals to tackle these problems, including financial support to migrant community organisations and trade unions, who can then offer tailored support, have largely been ignored by the Scottish and UK Governments.
Kenway, does not, of course, condemn the many honest people seeking to end modern slavery. Her readers are asked to imagine doing things differently with each chapter providing possible alternatives to conventional thought on how to tackle modern slavery, which is a product and not some sort of extreme aberration of the political economy we live under in which so few people own so much wealth.
Ultimately, modern slavery will exist and even grow until we find a way to organise workers everywhere to get what we rightly deserve.
38 uniteLANDWORKER Winter 2023/24
Alamy
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