Supporting migrant workers

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Supporting migrant workers The UK experience
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Migrant workers in the UK

• Migrant workers have always been a feature of the
  UK labour market
• Increasingly important
• Opening up of the EU
• General trend to increased mobility of labour
• Scale and pace of migration has taken government
  policy makers by surprise

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Who comes to the UK?

• Heterogeneous group
• Countries of origin
• Skills/professions
• Gender
• 510,000 A8 workers registered to work in the UK
  (May 04-Sep 06)
• Perhaps 500,000 from outside EU
• More unregistered/self-employed
• Many will have only spent short-time in the UK
• No-one quite sure of overall number

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Key problems they face
Low pay ¾ earn less than 6p/h
Lack of information about rights
Low status employment
Accessing public/key services
Poor language skills
Illegal deductions
Housing
Low union awareness membership
No contracts easily dismissed
Employment status
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Living conditions
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Challenges for unions
Where they work the jobs they do
Agency working bogus self-employment
Our members activists?
High turnover mobility
Heterogeneous group
Lots of non-workplace issues
Language problems
Capacity resources
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Key approaches

• Government
• Union Strategies
• Raise awareness of rights
• Listen to the workers!
• Build community links
• Like recruits like
• Help build partnerships
• ESOL skills
• Build capacity amongst migrant workers themselves
• Build international links

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Case studies TUC

• National
• Agreement with Government to give information via
  WRS
• Guide to living working in Britain
• Lobbying government GLA beyond
• Employment rights training/ESOL
• Building links with Polish Portuguese unions
• Regional
• Range of projects across the UK
• Building links with communities/churches

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www.tuc.org.uk/polski
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Case Study TGWU

• Integral element of wider organising strategy
• Justice for Cleaners campaign
• Community engagement
• Six new Polish organisers
• New Migrant Workers Support Unit
• Focus on building representative groups of lay
  reps

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Others

• GMB new migrant workers branch in Southampton
• UCATT Polish Union Learning Reps courses
• UNISON Overseas Nurses Network
• BFAWU Building web-based migrant workers
  network
• USDAW - Push on ESOL (Project Troika)

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What more we can do

• Scale up our efforts
• Be more consistent nationally and across unions
• Build stronger, sustainable links with community
  organisations and others
• Help build capacity within communities
• Think ahead what are the next challenges?

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More information
www.uin.org.uk