THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
The truth about modern slavery, by Emily Kenway, published
by Pluto Press (£14.99)
Unite Landworker magazine Winter 2023/24
Slavery is a term associated with shackles, boats and
cruelty. All right-thinking people are against it and so consequently when they
hear the name of William Wilberforce and the term modern-slavery, which
includes forced labour, human trafficking and slavery they will sit up, pay attention
and help to eradicate it?
The problem is that the modern day slavery framework has
been constructed by some of the very reactionary people, companies, media
outlets and governments who have attacked the very forces – the trade unions –
who can do the most to end today’s slavery.
In 2016 Prime Minster Theresa May, who a year earlier
introduced the Modern Slavery Act (MSA), was lauded by the media for launching her
‘anti-slavery crusade’ when she said, “this government is determined to build a
Great Britain that works for everyone and will not tolerate modern slavery, an
evil trade that shatters victims’ lives and traps them in a cycle of abuse.”
Warm words, that Kenway notes in the real world translated
into only 12 percent of those officially recognised as modern slavery victims
being given a right to remain in the UK in 2016. May, of course, did not use
the MSA to legally require companies to perform extensive investigations into
their supply chains and to subsequently address any human rights impacts they
identified.
Meanwhile, Labour inspectorates such as the Employment
Agencies Standards Inspectorate, HSE, HMRC’ wage unit and the Gangmasters and
Labour Abuse Authority are all woefully underfunded and understaffed. In 2021,
the anti-slavery charity Hope of Justice revealed that a year after the news
first broke, workers in some Leicester textile factories were still being paid
as little as £3.50 an hour.
And as Landworker highlighted last summer it also
took the Tories over three years to report into the initial Seasonal Workers Scheme. (SWS) This is designed to make
up for the shortage following Brexit of agricultural labour. Unsurprisingly, the
report revealed gross exploitation of migrant workers, particularly those from
Ukraine, who in the meantime were clearly still being terribly exploited as
highlighted in an article on 19 April 2022 by The Guardian titled:
‘Ukrainian workers workers flee ‘modern slavery’ conditions on UK farms.’
The SWS, which has been massively expanded to allow up to
40,000 workers, including poultry workers and haulage drivers, to work in the
UK for up to six months is, as highlighted by the Focus of Labour Exploitation
(FLEX) and Fife Migrants Forum (FMF), a bonded labour scheme – forcing workers
to remain with one employer – the likes of which was employed in Britain’s
plantation colonies after the abolition of slavery.
Kenway contends that tougher immigration controls, embodied
in Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment’, prevent migrant workers from seeking
help when they experience exploitation, the result of which is a lowering of
wages and conditions for all workers.
FLEX/FMF proposals to tackle these problems, including
financial support to migrant community organisations and trade unions, who can
then offer tailored support, have largely been ignored by the Scottish and UK
Governments.
Kenway, does not, of course, condemn the many honest people
seeking to end modern slavery. Her readers are asked to imagine doing things
differently with each chapter providing possible alternatives to conventional
thought on how to tackle modern slavery, which is a product and not some sort
of extreme aberration of the political economy we live under in which so few
people own so much wealth. Ultimately, modern slavery will exist and even grow
until we find a way to organise workers everywhere to get what we rightly
deserve.
