Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

 

Support for migrant workers in call for radical regulation overhaul

Partly used in Landworker magazine of Autumn 2024

It does not matter where anyone was born. If they work the land here, even temporarily, Unite, with a tradition dating back to 1872 and the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, will recruit and represent them.

It requires pressurising bosses and governments for protective regulations on safety, pay and conditions. It was why Unite forced Labour to introduce the Gangmasters Licensing Authority when  21 trafficked Chinese cockle pickers died in Morecambe Bay in 2004.

Thus, when the Tories launched the 2019 Seasonal Workers Pilot to bring here temporary non-EU agricultural workers, needed to pick unharvested crops, Unite were concerned. Especially after research uncovered workers were funding their travel costs and working on zero hours contracts.

In subsequently offering 45,000 annual Seasonal Workers Scheme (SWS) horticultural places to overseas workers the government was forced to conduct internal studies whilst refusing financial support to migrant community organisations and trade unions, essentially Unite.

The review, completed prior to the General Election, paved the way, without significant protective changes, for the SWS’s extension to 2029. This was despite, for the second time in a year, the scrapping in May of a scheme operator’s licence to sponsor workers.

In 2023, Unite and the TUC joined NGOs in establishing the Seasonal Worker Interest Group (SWIG) to advocate for migrant seasonal workers. With Keir Starmer’s new government content to maintain the SWS largely unchanged, SWIG is calling for its radical overhaul and wants Labour to reassure migrant workers stung by the recent revocation that they won’t lose out financially or have their immigration status affected. Individuals should have access to independent worker support.