n By Mark Metcalf
Workers exploitation? It certainly looks that way Exploitation by any other name
A long-awaited government report into the scheme that is designed to make up for the shortage of seasonal agricultural labour following Brexit – reveals gross exploitation of seasonal migrant workers, writes Mark Metcalf.
The Seasonal Workers Pilot (SWP) began in 2019 when 2,481 temporary horticultural workers from outside the EU made the trip to Scotland and England that year. In just three years the SWP has been massively expanded to allow up to 40,000 workers, including poultry workers and haulage drivers, to work in the UK for up to six months in 2022.
Four labour providers – Concordia, Pro-Force, AG Recruitment and Fruitful Jobs – have lucrative government contracts to recruit seasonal workers from an unlimited number of sourcing countries.
Even before Russia invaded their country, Ukrainians by far made up the largest group of SWP workers. Despite all its resources it was only on Christmas Eve 2021 that the UK government finally published the review by DEFRA/Home Office (DEHO) into the SWP operations of 2019.
DEHO, the very bodies that workers
rely on to access the SWP, conducted just 124 worker interviews during 15 farm inspections from 65 farms engaged in the scheme. The data provided by the review is brief and has drawn criticism from the Focus of Labour Exploitation (FLEX), saying, “leaving many of the key factors which would allow us to evaluate the level of risk workers are being exposed to, under the SWP. outside of the review.”
Even the results that were obtained were alarming. Half of the identified workers had not received their employment contracts in their native language, 10 per cent had not been made aware of all their terms and conditions of their placements before commencing work and 19 per cent reported that operators failed to adhere to their contractual arrangements.
On their accommodation, 15 per cent said it was neither safe, comfortable nor warm, and 10 per cent had no bathroom, running water or kitchen.
According to DEHO, “almost all the aforementioned complaints were addressed … and the monitoring template for the 2020 Pilot was amended to capture information on complaints through informal procedures… no instances of modern
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slavery was identified” and that “scheme operators… have had their compliance requirements tightened.”
Yet, FLEX’s research in 2020 reported, among a host of concerns that included deportation threats by some employers and the impossibility of finding alternative employment; that 45 per cent of SWP workers across Scotland complained of being paid under the minimum wage of £8.72 an hour.
Each migrant worker must fund their own travel costs plus a £244 visa fee, and with costs averaging out at around £900 each, these costs and their low pay places them in dire financial straits. It is believed many may have to borrow money from black market sources.
It seems that labour conditions for migrant workers on SWP are difficult and tie workers to one specific location. What now exists is, in effect, a bonded labour scheme for overseas workers – the like of which was once employed in Britain’s plantation colonies. What we see happening here will no doubt be extended to other low paid workers in the UK, as the very wealthy seek to up their levels of profit and exploitation
* See Ukrainian workers flee ‘modern slavery’ conditions on UK farms – Guardian 19 April 2022 For more see pages 14 to 16
uniteLANDWORKERSummer 2022
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