The UK government has announced a crackdown on dishonest employers who have been exploiting migrant workers.prohibiting violators from hiring more foreign personnel.
Companies that employ migrants under the UK sponsorship system will also be prohibited from charging workers any costs associated with that sponsorship, in a new measure designed to reduce exploitation.
A recent report by the Work Rights Centre, a charity that advises migrant workers, found that up to 177 companies were licensed to sponsor migrant workers despite violating labor laws. Many have been accused of exploiting migrant workers by charging them thousands of pounds for visa-related costs and then forcing them to work for less than the minimum wage or not providing them with hours of work.
The increase in immigration to the UK has occurred in recent years, and much of this increase has been due to the influx of workers as job vacancies have multiplied.This has caused political tension: fears that UK public services would not be able to cope with increased immigration fueled far-right riots over the summer.in which there were attacks on foreign nurses and hotels housing asylum seekers.
The Labor Party has promised to reduce net immigration, and official figures due to be released on Thursday are likely to show that figure falling. But large sectors of the economy, such as health and social assistance, still rely heavily on low-paid foreign workers.
“The exploitation of workers is absolutely unacceptable,” said Minister of Migration and Citizenship, Seema Malhotra. “It is shameful that these practices have been seen particularly in our care sector, where workers who come to the UK to support our health and social care service have too often been plunged into unjustifiable insecurity and debt. “This can and must end.”
Currently, UK skilled worker visas operate on a sponsorship system. Employers in a limited number of sectors can apply for a license to allow them to offer work to migrant workers, but those workers’ right to remain in the UK is linked to that work. That means many, often low-income, are too afraid to report abuse; Charities helping migrant workers have warned that the system is broken and needs to be reformed.
The Interior Ministry did not carry out a complete reform on Thursday, but said that companies that commit serious labor violationssuch as not paying the national minimum wage, they will not be able to hire foreign workers.
The Home Office will also take action against employers who show “signs of breaking the rules” before they have committed serious breaches of the law. These companies will be included in Action Plans, which will link them to a series of actions, for 12 months, instead of the previous three months.
Officials noted that many employers are “engaging in the unethical practice of charging skilled workers the cost of sponsorship,” often at “grossly inflated levels.” In some cases seen by Bloomberg, workers were charged up to 20,000 pounds ($25,400) for costs vaguely labeled as “administration” or “legal fees.”
According to the Home Office, this often left workers “burdened with unsustainable levels of debt to their employers”. Employers will now no longer be able to charge their staff for the costs associated with their sponsorship.
Dora-Olivia Vicol, executive director of the Center for Labor Rights, said the Home Office announcement was the “bare minimum.”
“These proposals to punish bad employers go some way to preventing the exploitation of future immigrants, but they do nothing for those who have already been exploited or abused,” he said. “Where is the justice for those who were tricked into spending their life savings on a job opportunity that never materialized, only to be left destitute and without support? Or for those who were forced to work in conditions similar to modern slavery and threatened with being sent home if they reported it?”
The Home Office said that since July 2022, the government has revoked around 450 licenses granted to companies that allowed them to sponsor care sector workers.
