Salford mayor Paul Dennett and some of Salford’s campaigning migrant care workers
UNISON members in Salford have paved the way for a new charter that seeks to prevent migrant care workers becoming victims of modern slavery.
The members, migrant care workers themselves, were instrumental in the creation of North West region’s Migrant Care Worker Charter.
Salford mayor Paul Dennett was the first council leader to sign the charter, in September, after a period of local organising and campaigning.
UNISON president and Salford City branch secretary Steve North is not only calling on more council leaders in the region to sign up, but for central government “to end this scandal.”
The problem
In 2020 the government introduced the health and care worker visa to allow medical professionals to come to or stay in the UK to do an eligible job with the NHS, an NHS supplier or in adult social care.
But one unintended consequence of the visa has been a surge in modern slavery. UNISON activists are finding that migrant workers are too often the victims of exploitation, including poor accommodation and bad employment practices – such as the illegal deduction of wages, high agency fees, employers not paying the minimum wage, trade union victimisation and inadequate health and safety.
NHS Employers, the employers’ organisation in England, has already sought to address some of these issues by creating the ethical recruiter list for NHS trusts seeking to hire overseas workers.
UNISON believes that it is time for local authorities and the NHS to address these issues in social care in their commissioning arrangements.
Salford City
Late last year Salford City branch was made aware of a care home that was due to close and be demolished, because the owners wanted to use the land to build apartments. The branch intervened and, although it was impossible to save the home, it managed to secure pay that was being withheld and new jobs for a lot of the staff.
Steve North says that, “Some of those workers were on sponsored social care visas and would have been deported had we not found them other jobs.”
News of the union’s intervention spread, leading to a group of Indian workers on sponsored visas approaching the branch office. They said that they weren’t being paid for their full hours at a local homecare company, and that their leader had been dismissed for standing up to the company.
The branch recruited them into UNISON, won them thousands of pounds in owed earnings, got the leader his job back – he is now a rep – and forced a recognition agreement with the company.
Mr North notes: “While we recognised organising was the most fundamental way of challenging this exploitation, we felt that the council should do more to ensure they weren’t commissioning companies who exploit sponsored workers.
“We also knew it was an issue that went beyond Salford. So, working with North West UNISON and other branches, like Bolton UNISON, we supported the sponsored workers to inform a migrant worker charter for social care. The workers themselves came up with the demands and have led the meetings regarding the charter.”
The charter
The charter has seven steps to protect migrant social care workers:
- Fair and equitable treatment
- Decent housing
- No agency or recruitment fees
- No victimisation for trade union activity
- Councils to create an ethical recruiter list to stop exploitative employers getting public money
- ‘Wraparound safety at work’ that acknowledges issues that may be faced by migrant workers at times of social unrest
- Signatories identifying as an ’employer of last resort’ for migrant workers who have their job ended through no fault of their own.
Mr North adds: “We in Salford City UNISON are incredibly proud to have secured the first council leader’s signature on the charter. We are grateful for the ongoing support of Paul Dennett and we appreciate him standing by these workers.
“But this is not a political victory. This is an industrial victory, led by sponsored workers who have organised themselves into UNISON, led this campaign and faced down exploitative employers, despite risks of dismissal and deportation.
“They have been supported by our tireless Salford City UNISON local organiser Matthew Dickinson and our Black members’ officer and national vice president Julia Mwaluke, herself a migrant care worker.
“We now need more council leaders to sign up, but we also need government to end this scandal. Migrant workers are organising in UNISON to make sure that happens.”
Yorkshire & Humberside also launched a migrant care worker charter, this month.
The region’s migrant worker lead Jordan Stapleton said: “For too long, migrant workers have been treated appallingly after coming to the UK to care for some of society’s most vulnerable people.
“This charter is a significant step towards stopping the awful conditions they experience. UNISON will be working with councils across Yorkshire and Humberside to crack down on this exploitative behaviour, and ensure these workers are treated with the respect they deserve.”
North West migrant worker charter
Yorkshire & Humberside migrant worker charter
The article North West migrant care workers win victory against modern slavery first appeared on the UNISON National site.