Summary of the Papers v2:Summary of the Papers
27/8/08
14:14
Page 1
Migrants’ Rights Network
Working for the rights of all migrants
‘Papers Please’
AN MRN REPORT
September 2008
A
The impact of a government campaign on the employment rights of vulnerable migrants
t the beginning of 2008 the government launched a campaign against ‘illegal working’ in the UK. New regulations came into force at the end of February making employers liable to heavy fines and even jail terms if found to be employing undocumented migrants as workers.
The government claims that one of its aims in taking these measures has been to tackle the exploitation of vulnerable migrants by unscrupulous employers. The guidance issued by the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) instructs employers to check their worker’s papers to ensure their eligibility to work in the UK, and it also reminds them to beware of incurring discrimination as they conduct these checks. Employers up and down the country have been following these instructions, anxious to avert fines of up to £10,000 per undocumented worker found in their employment. At the same time, the UKBA has cranked up its raids on workplaces, removing unauthorised workers, serving civil penalty notices, and making public the names of the establishments penalised. Concerned with the manner of implementation and the wider implications of the new civil penalty regime, Migrants Rights Network has conducted research during the summer of 2008. Through this work, MRN aims to document some of the effects that this new drive to root out illegal working is having on labour, on businesses, on migrant communities, and on the wider black and ethnic minority communities. The result is Papers Please, a report which critically assesses the new legal framework and its impact. Papers Please uncovers the rationale, methods and consequences of transferring the state function of verifying immigration status, to employers and the workplace. Central to the report are case-studies of workers in different occupations across sectors who have been subject to passport checks. A number of themes illustrating the predicament faced by individuals as a result of increased passport checks by employers have emerged from this study.
CASE 1 Angela Bediako has lived and worked in the UK for 18 years. She has a fourteen year old daughter born here who is attending secondary school. She submitted an application for a residence permit to the Home Office three years ago, which officials have so far failed to process. In July she was dismissed from her job for the past four years, because her employer is concerned about being fined.
www.migrantsrights.org.uk
Summary of the Papers v2:Summary of the Papers
27/8/08
14:14
Page 2
‘Papers Please’
These include:
CASE 2 Elias Tewelde is an Eritrean refugee. He was refused protection by the UK authorities in 2004, but because it is unsafe to return him to his home country because of political persecution, no action has been taken to enforce his removal. He has supported himself through work as a porter in various hotels. He lost his last job in March and hasn’t been able to get another one because employers aren’t satisfied with his papers. CASE 3 Clement Nwaku works for a contract cleaning firm. He joined a union two years ago and has been active as a shop steward and an organiser amongst his fellow workers ever since. In June there was talk of union members balloting for industrial action over a living wage increase. Clement was called to see management and told that if he campaigned for a strike vote his personnel file would be reexamined and he’d be dismissed as an ‘illegal’ worker.
NB The cases reported here are fictional, but based on factual instances reported to MRN researchers during the course of this project. They illustrate the range of issues which are examined in the Papers Please report
• Employer reluctance to accept some types of UKBA document as evidence of a legal right to work. • Employees who had produced their papers for checks being repeatedly required to resubmit them. • Employers being wrongly advised by the UKBA about the immigration status of particular individuals • Workers who are unable to provide evidence of immigration status because their papers are with the UKBA pending consideration on an application. • Migrants falling into difficulties with their status because of the failure of employers to initiate action required of them to secure rights to work. • Employers using immigration checks as grounds to dismiss ‘troublemakers’, including migrants joining trade unions or taking industrial action. • Groups of undocumented migrants – such as those who are refused asylum status but cannot leave the UK – unable to work and falling into destitution and homelessness. The report also considers the ways in which immigration enforcement officers have, to date, concentrated workplace raids on black and minority ethnic run businesses, despite evidence showing that the employment of undocumented workers is just as likely to take place amongst other enterprises.
Papers Please concludes that the use of immigration checks in the workplace is a poor instrument for tackling the exploitation of vulnerable migrants. Its principal effect is to weaken the position of migrants in the labour force and to strengthen the hand of some employers who would wish to take advantage of this position. Legal redress is theoretically available to people wrongfully excluded from employment opportunities. However, justice will be beyond the reach of most migrants as it is dependent on access to good quality legal advice and action through the courts and tribunals.
Despite the government’s current drive for a simplified, ‘points-based’ system of immigration controls, the report predicts that immigration will remain a region of confusing complexity for migrants and employers alike. Immigration and employment will continue to be an area of vexation and abuse, producing hardship principally for migrants, but also for some groups of employers who lack the resources to navigate their way around a problematic system. For the issue of exploitation to be adequately tackled, a much more radical overhaul of immigration controls will be required, to produce a system entrenching the rights of migrants as well as imposing penalties on unscrupulous concerns which seek to abuse their labour. The full Papers Please report will be published on 1 October 2008. Copies will be available on the MRN website (www.migrantsrights.org.uk) or by post from MRN, Club Union House, 253-254 Upper Street, London N1 1RY – price £5.00 including p&p, cheques payable to ‘MRN’.
www.migrantsrights.org.uk