Access to protection, enforcement & redress? Effects of visas for agriculture & care on migrant workers' vulnerabilities in the UK workforce

Using the agricultural and care sectors as paradigmatic case studies, this research project will examine how immigration rules and labour policies, and specifically their interaction, create the preconditions for modern day slavery. By immigration rules, we mean the conditions imposed on those entering the United Kingdom for work purposes, and include policies about length of stay, the right to be accompanied by family members, and the ability to change employers. Labour policies is a broader term in our conception and includes the norms regulating working conditions by public and private actors, as well as the mechanisms for their enforcement. Determining how these two dimensions interact is key to understanding how modern slavery continues to exist in Britain despite significant government and private efforts to eradicate it. In this project we invoke and develop the concept of 'preconditions' as a way to understand the political economic conditions that produce the environment for gross exploitation to occur. Hence, our project is interested in seeing trafficking, slavery, servitude, and forced or compulsory labour as the result of structural causes beyond the actions of wicked individuals.

We have selected the agricultural and care sectors for important reasons. Both are sectors in which labour exploitation has been widely documented. In addition, the government has introduced, or is in the process of introducing, unique immigration pathways for the entry of labour migrants to service shortages of workers in these sectors. Both are also sectors in which current labour laws provide weak protections, which are further undermined by lackadaisical and disjointed enforcement by government agencies. Studying closely the operation of these sectors in relation to the function of immigration rules and labour policies will allow us to carefully test the hypotheses contained in the immigration and asylum, as well as labour market regulation and governance, literatures. The three precise questions that animate this research is: (1) how visa conditions heighten the risk of modern-day slavery for migrant workers; (2) how particular industry features, such as working from private homes in the case of the care sector and seasonality in the case of the agricultural sector, aggravate this risk; and (3) how government enforcement can be improved to alleviate worker vulnerability?

This research also hopes to feed into two important contemporary policy discussions. The first discussion concerns the shape of the post-Brexit immigration system. It is clear that the 'points-based' immigration system that came into effect on 1 January 2021 will need to be refined to serve the needs of the British economy. This research hopes to intervene in this discussion and foreground the consequences for those who enter the country for work purposes. The second discussion concerns how the 'single enforcement body' announced by the government operates to ensure that labour market actors comply with current laws and policies. By examining how enforcement operates in relation to migrant workers, this research will not only benefit this population but also non-migrant workers in the labour market.

This project will draw on both desk-based research and qualitative research methodology. Working with community partners such as FLEX, Fife Migrant Forum, Kanlungan, Voice of Domestic Workers, and Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, we will conduct in-depth interviews with migrant workers and their representatives in the agricultural and care sectors. This qualitative data will provide fine-grained information on how those who migrate for work in these sectors experience the migration system and Britain's labour market policies. Our findings will be disseminated through a variety of avenues, including the PEC report, academic articles, and public blogs.