Landworkers’ Alliance Report: Debt, Migration, and Exploitation – Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants

JCWI contributed to a collaborative report with The Landworkers' Alliance, Focus on Labour Exploitation, The New Economics Foundation, Sustain, and a farmworker solidarity network which highlights working conditions under the Seasonal Worker Visa in UK horticulture.

"It is migrant farmworkers who experience the agroindustrialsystems worst injustices."

Download the report from The Landworkers' Alliance

This report has identified drivers of exploitation at the level of the farm, the supply chain, and the migration system. To ameliorate these, our collaboration has developed a series of recommendations for the UK government, labour market enforcement (LME) bodies, supermarkets, and for trade unions and social movements who want to campaign for better conditions for farmworkers.

Restricted Visas

There is clear evidence that risks of exploitation are inherent in restrictive, temporary and sector-specific visas. To protect workers safety and rights, we call on the government to move away from this approach. All UK work visas should include option for renewal, theability to change jobs easily without losing the right to stay in the UK, pathways to permanent settlement and access to public funds. However, while the Seasonal Worker Visa remains in place, we recommend the following reforms to reduce the risks of poor andexploitative working conditions. It is crucial that existing risks in the Seasonal Worker Visa are addressed before any further expansions of the scheme are introduced.

All SWV holders should be able to switch to jobs on the shortage occupation list including outside of the agricultural sector.

Scheme operators should ensure workers can move to other farms, and ensure this process is straightforward and accessible.

Workers should not be made to leave the UK earlier than planned or to stop working if a scheme operator loses their licence or cannot provide them with a minimum of 32 hours per week. A mechanism should be established for workers to change their visa sponsors.

Debt and Broker Fees

Workers shoulder visa and travel costs associated with the SWV, and often enter into debt to pay these. In some instances, workers are being charged thousands of pounds to participate in the SWV, leaving them burdened with high amounts of debts and a loss of money overall. Debt increases the risk of labour exploitation as workers may be unable to leave exploitative conditions due to needing to pay off their debt. This is intensified when schemeoperators are operating in new countries and may lack the knowledge necessary to vet local recruiting practices.

The UK government should research and develop new approaches to seasonal work migration in consultation with current and former SWV holders, including considering working with sourcing countries to establish government led institutions as the main point of recruitment.

Up front costs make debt an unavoidable necessity for participation in the scheme. Charges for visa applications should be abolished and holders should not face any up-front costs for their journey. The government should consider if travel costs should sitwith the state, employer or lead supply chain buyer.

Funds accrued to the UK government via the farm recruitment fee should be dedicated to a worker support fund for compensation for cases of illegal broker fees and hardship funds in cases of destitution.

Rights Enforcement and Worker Led Social Responsibility (WSR)

Existing labour market enforcement practices have been ineffective in responding to the volume of violations.

Funding for labour market enforcement should be increased to ensure regular inspections of SWV workplaces. Inspections should focus on compliance with standards and UK laws rather than only on breaches which constitute Modern Slavery.

It is essential this comes alongside the government implementing a clear separation of immigration enforcement from labour market enforcement, so that all workers can safely report abuse regardless of immigration status.

Labour market enforcement should be backed up by legally binding codes of practice drawn up in consultation with workers and a new supply chain enforcer. This was anticipated in the Agriculture Act 2020, but has yet to be implemented.

The UK government should work with LME agencies in sourcing countries to research and develop a coordinated strategy for monitoring recruitment processes and conditions on farms in the UK.

The UK government should ensure that terms and conditions of employment contracts (e.g. employers details, working hours, remuneration, accommodation costs and other deductions, etc.) are shared with SWV workers in their country of origin, translated into workers primary languages, and signed by employers and workers before travel. Contracts should detail compensation options for workers if work offered does not match work in the contract.

This report further recommends the adoption of a worker-led enforcement system to empower workers and workers organisations to enforce standards for working conditions. This system should be backed up by market sanctions against farms which violate standards.

Education sessions on workers rights and means of redress should be held at a neutral venue before workers start on the farm. These sessions should be independent from scheme operators, employers, and the state. These education sessions should be developed by workers with experience on the SWV route.

An independently run audit body and hotline shouldbe established which is closely embedded with farmworkers and informed by their perspectives

Standards should be enforced by a legally bindingagreement that supermarkets will not source from farmsthat violate rights until action is taken to rectify this.

Supermarket Dominance and Low Farmworker Pay

Supermarkets capture the lions share of the valueproduced by UK horticulture. Given their dominant position in the market for produce, supermarketsshould pay extra for produce to fund wage increases in order to reflect the true price of their products.

This can take the form of a penny per punnet premium, where supermarkets pay a small charge per item of produce sourced from a farm to fund wage increases.

As the largest beneficiaries of the efforts ofworkers, supermarkets should also pay into aworker support fund to compensate workersfor broker fees and in cases of destitution.

More effective competition policy should beimplemented to address concentration in the grocerymarkets. Stronger fair dealing regulations for thesupermarkets and others in the supply chain should be introduced to avoid abusive practices along thesupply chain. The Grocery Code Adjudicator shouldintroduce new legally binding codes and applyits fining capabilities more often to deter abuse.

There should be investment, support anddevelopment of new routes to market thatdeliver better, values-led and more diversefood retail and trading enterprise growth.

Establishing a Farmworkers Organisation

Farmworkers need their own organisation which isable to campaign and advocate for their rights:

Barriers in the immigration system which preventthe formation of farmworker organisations should be removed. This includes the requirement to haveworked for 3 months before receiving support from a trade union. Threatening the loss of visasponsorship for taking strike action or for complaining about conditions must be explicitly banned.

Establishing a farmworkers bulletin, through whichworkers can communicate with each other about the situation on their respective farms, can help toincrease worker unity and solidarity across the sector.

Trade unions should develop strategies in collaborationwith workers to provide support to disputes on farms.

Farmworkers campaigns should place pressureon leading supermarkets to improve pay and conditions in their supplier farms.

Review the impact of the absence of an AgriculturalWages Board in England and the redistribution of resources and responsibility over worker welfareacross all actors in the food supply chain.

Debt, Migration, and Exploitation: The Seasonal Worker Visa and the Degradation of Working, Catherine McAndrew, Oliver Fisher, Clark McAllister, & Christian Jaccarini (2023)

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Landworkers' Alliance Report: Debt, Migration, and Exploitation - Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants