THE Home Office is presiding over the “racist enslavement” of care workers, a top trade union has warned.
Unison Scotland has blasted the UK Government for allowing foreign care workers to be “enslaved under debt bondage and coerced to endure exploitation”.
The fierce criticisms come in a motion the leading public sector union has tabled for debate at the Scottish Trades Union Congress in April.
The motion states: “Congress notes that the Home Office presides over the racist enslavement of skilled workers who protect the care system from collapse.
“Workers are often recruited on false promises and charged illegal recruitment fees. Workers are then enslaved under debt bondage and coerced to endure exploitation and unfair work.”
Thousands of workers have migrated to Britain since Brexit to plug huge holes in the care service workforce.
Live-in carers are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of modern slavery, a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) warned in 2022.
Interviews with migrant care workers from Hungary, Poland, South Africa and Zimbabwe painted a “vivid picture” of the “exploitation” they faced, the report said.
Many experienced difficulties in opening bank accounts and falling prey to “unscrupulous agencies” which made spurious deductions from their wages, researchers found.
Shereen Hussein, a professor of health and social care at LSHTM, said: “Live-in draws on a significant contribution of migrants, mainly women, who usually have many caring and financial responsibilities in their home countries and are likely to accept unfavourable conditions.”
The Unison Scotland motion noted that migrant care workers also faced the threat of their employers threatening “the withdrawal [of visa] sponsorship to perpetuate a culture of bullying, harassment and discrimination under the threat of deportation.”
It added: “Employers then use gagging clauses to conceal these practices and sue workers if they try to escape.”
The union called for Labour to tackle the immigration rules for care workers they inherited from the Tories and to give workers the right to join unions and move to “fair work” employers without the threat of “victimisation or financial penalty”.
The Home Office was approached for comment.
