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MIGRATION:
Immigration

 

Migrant Workers

In the 1990 UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and
Members of Their Families, a ‘Migrant Worker’ is a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.

In the UK, as long as a Migrant Worker applies for and receives a valid National Insurance (NI) number before starting work, he or she has a legal right to work in the UK. It is the employer’s responsibility to check that a Migrant Worker has a NI number before employing him or her.
Britain only grants permission to enter as a worker to those whose skills or labour are needed – for example highly skilled professionals for jobs that cannot be filled (eg IT professionals, doctors and nurses) or for those unskilled jobs which local people are not willing to undertake (such as crop harvesting and some food processing work). While employed in the UK, Migrant Workers pay Income Tax and National Insurance, just like any working UK citizen, and have the same rights to the National Minimum Wage, annual leave, sick pay etc.

However some are open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers as they are unaware of their rights or have little command of the host country language. While the Gangmasters Licensing Authority was set up following the deaths of Chinese cocklepickers in Morecambe Bay there is some evidence that illegal gangmasters have moved workers into professions not requiring a licence such as hospitality and catering.

Stories and Links

People in Poland and Portugal thinking of coming to work in the East of England can find out more about the region and prepare for life there. The Migrant Gateway website has been developed by the East of England Development Agency and was launched In November 2007 at a TUC conference on ways to enable refugees and migrant workers to progress in the labour market.

Britain continues to restrict workers coming from Bulgaria and Romania

A briefing paper on a church response to Migrant Workers was prepared by The Churches Regional Commission for Yorkshire and the Humber and includes definitions, issues, possible church actions and useful links. It begins with theological reflection on our sacred duty to show hospitality to strangers and on the judgement of God against those who exploit the labour of others: ‘Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts’ (James 5.4).

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) regulates those who supply labour or use workers to provide services in agriculture, forestry, horticulture, shellfish gathering and food processing and packaging.

A joint operation arrested seven men and a woman in conjunction with suspected human trafficking for labour exploitation in November 2008.

 

 

 

  

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