CAMPAIGN Migrant workers The secret


Who’s really at the heart of exploiting migrant workers? Landworker investigates


Since 2019, migrants have been able to work in low-paid fruit and vegetable picking jobs in the UK through the UK’s Seasonal Worker Scheme. But it’s been mired in controversy ever since.


The government launched the scheme to address the labour shortages predicted following Brexit. But increasing the number of places on the scheme from 2,500 in 2019 to at least 45,000 in 2023/24 contradicts the government’s stated desire to reduce the UK’s reliance on migrant workers.


Many migrant workers are exploited from before they even arrive in the UK to work, thanks to brokers charging them thousands of pounds to assist with visa applications and flights. And once they arrive, they are exploited with low pay, unacceptable working – and in many cases, living – conditions, a recent Landworkers Alliance report, ‘Debt, Migration, and Exploitation’, outlines.


But this exploitation of migrant seasonal workers is part of a much bigger picture. At the end of the chain, the UK’s biggest supermarket chains are driving down prices and working conditions, says Bev Clarkson, Unite’s national officer for food and agricultural members.


“Supermarkets are pushing down efficiencies through their supply chain,


particularly in the agriculture sector,” she explains.


This means they’re cutting food producers’ margins, which is then pushed onto workers’ wages and working conditions.


“Supermarkets go to manufacturers and squeeze costs dramatically,” Clarkson says. “It’s not because of the war in Ukraine or weather in Europe, it’s because they’re interested in shareholders and maximising profit for them. Supermarkets aren’t interested in consumers.”


These manufacturers are forced to agree to lower costs with supermarkets, Clarkson says.


“Supermarkets have a stranglehold, so if a manufacturer says no, they’ll go to someone else. They’re caught in a trap,” she says.


Manufacturers, she adds, then essentially do the same to their suppliers so that, ultimately, it falls to migrant workers picking the produce. “We’re pretty certain that a lot of seasonal workers working in agriculture are undocumented migrants and quite a lot won’t be getting national minimum wage.


They’re living in shared


accommodation, which is another way the owners can make their


18 uniteLANDWORKER Autumn 2023


“All the ingredients get brought to boil, and some go through a


money. It isn’t fit for anyone to live in,” Clarkson says.


Further up the food chain, workers at the manufacturer level are being exploited, too.


Monique Mosley is a Unite rep and operational trainer at food producer Greencore, where 82 per cent of the workforce is made up of migrant workers. “We have a massive turnover of staff,” she says.


Currently, two Greencore employees have a Skilled Work Visa, which cost them £625, according to Mosley, plus up to £624 per year to be able to use healthcare.


“All they get in exchange is a low paid factory job,” she says. “There are people on site who have to use foodbanks, and some are car-sharing because they can’t afford their own fuel anymore.”


Unite helped Greencore workers secure a pay increase of between 4.9 and 16.3 per cent, but Mosley says factory workers still earn ‘next to nothing’ compared to supermarkets. But Mosley isn’t just concerned about wages at Greencore – which made £5m turnover in the three months up to June this year.


n By Jessica Bradley


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