A track record of a Conservative ministry of labour: undocumented migrants and sanctions

1. A track record of a Conservative ministry of labour: undocumented migrants and sanctions Sonia McKay

2. Who are undocumented and why • Status is a result of government policies • Only non-EU workers affected • Tightening of immigration – new requirements on earnings levels; legal migration limited to highly skilled/paid jobs; • EU Directive and UK government position: “would send the wrong message by rewarding breaches of immigration legislation” (Ministerial written statement, 2011).

3. The conditions of work for undocumented migrants • Legal status • Debt • Low pay • Harsh working conditions • Long working hours • Unsocial hours’ patterns • Physical and psychological risks

4. Sanctioning employers and workers • Sanctions introduced in January 1997; penalties increased in 2008, again under 2014 Act and most recently under the Immigration Act 2016 • a new criminal offence on workers of illegal working • increased financial penalties for employers • a prison sentence of up to five years for employing undocumented people, and • new powers for immigration officials to seize property or earnings, or close down businesses.

5. Consequences • In last two years large increase in the number of penalties issued • More than 5,000 raids a year; In three months Oct to Dec 2016, 703 raids, leading to 974 workers found, 1£1.595 mpenalties issued • Independent inspectorate report: • Raids not driven by intelligence but target some types of employers • Absence of search warrants; unlawful use of power of entry • Nearly six in every ten lacked justification • Disjuncture between the real impact of sanctions and at least some of the stated policy aims • Part of a growing arsenal of immigration tools

6. Impact “Between July and the end of September 2013, 90 workplaces were raided of which 71 are identifiable by name as Indian, Bengali or Chinese restaurants or takeaways. Sanctions, in the form of raids on workplaces appear, in the UK, to be falling almost entirely on minority ethnic owned businesses.” (Bloch et al., 2014: 3) • Immigration Raids, Employer Collusion and the Immigration Act 2016 (Katie Bales, Industrial Law Journal, July 2017) – Vulnerability of undocumented workers heightened.

7. Government ‘justification’ • “Using illegal labour exploits workers, denies work to UK citizens and legal migrants and drives down wages. New powers in the Bill will make it easier to prosecute an employer who knows, or reasonably suspects, that the person they employ has no permission to work in the UK..” (Immigration Minister James Brokenshire, 2015) • A government that emphasises deregulation has no hesitation in placing ‘burdens on business’ or in increasing regulatory regimes.

8. Context and consequences • Employers and trade unions oppose sanctions • Studies suggest they result in more exploitative working relationships; workers less likely to report violations and less likely to join trade unions • USA experience is that they are used to bust worker organisation • Pushes workers into margins of informal work • Lowered wages • Threats to report

9. Workers’ stories “Some of the employers were too afraid to employ you if you don’t have papers; others didn’t really mind. For the bosses who decided to hire me even though they knew that I had no papers, it was because they paid me less, that it was cheaper to hire me than some who has status” (Fung, Female, China) “They know we are weak. We are different in all ways. Even with regard to hours worked. We do 14–15 hours every day with less pay … it is exploitation. We are weak … [the employer] … is getting cheap labour, saves him taking another” (Fadi, Male Bangladesh)

10. Worker strategies • Exit routes “I acted like a customer. I was in my civilian clothes. I do not put on any uniform while I work as a precaution. I always prepared myself like that. I was going to say I was a customer, which I did. They asked me what are you doing here? I said I was waiting to get my dinner.” (Deniz, Kurd from Turkey) • Risk management “They [immigration officers] normally wouldn’t come to the building sites to check who had status … people working on the building sites move about all the time … I had worked in catering before … I thought it was too risky to work in the kitchen, because you could be caught anytime. … It’s not like working on the building sites, where you move about from one place to.”(Li, Male China)

11. Employer responses • Assessing risks: “Yeah it happens here, they come. I’ve been raided before, a fine, what to do? …They think we want to employ illegal, we don’t want but we cannot help it. If nobody work for you have to close down, lost all our money. That’s the reason. You think people want to employ illegal? … The fines OK … Whatever you have a fine, they want money, that’s all. They want money. (Mr Tan from China) “I have taken somebody on for a couple of weeks where … a kitchen porter [has] left … ‘oh I’ve got a cousin of mine but he hasn’t got any card or nothing’. ‘Well look, just send him down and while I’m sort of searching for somebody at least he get two weeks’ work, a bit of pocket money’. (Mr Hasan from Bangladesh) • Reducing number employed; short term employment • Skill shortages • Family and political obligations

12. Conclusion • Challenge to employment rights • Encourages employer mal-practice • Creates fear and distrust