Composing motions 08 and 09
Congress is alarmed at sweeping attacks on migrant workers which render them second-class citizens in the UK.
The UK government’s consultation on “earned settlement status and the permanent right to remain” rules propose workers face new hurdles and longer waits with additional difficulties for their family members.
These apply to all migrant workers, albeit with a hierarchy based on tax contributions so a city trader could secure safe haven many years faster than an NHS radiographer. Parallel announcements about reducing reliance on internationally trained allied health professionals show a government targeting migrant health and social care professionals’ patients have relied upon for decades, but especially since the pandemic.
Health and care workers who came on a visa that promised them a five-year route to settlement are being told to wait 15 years. Other rule changes have stripped back family rights, work sponsorship rights and deleted so-called ‘medium skill’ roles but essential to delivering public services. These changes affect workers already here, punished for doing low-paid but essential work, especially in public services.
Members are scared and confused, telling us the ‘incentives’ to integrate are unnecessary, counter-productive and fuelling a hostile environment in care settings by empowering racists.
These proposals show our politics have been captured by an atmosphere toxic to all immigration. To reset this, government must drop these proposals.
Rather than making low-paid workers more vulnerable to deportation and exploitation, the government should be raising pay in public services and reforming the visa system to reduce employer power.
Congress applauds the powerful campaign for visa reform led by migrant worker trade unionists.
Congress is therefore concerned that the Home Office does not recognise facility time as work for the purposes of visa rules. This fatally undermines trade union activity in workplaces which need it most.
Congress calls on the TUC and affiliates to campaign for:
i. a sector-wide visa scheme in social care, enabling workers to challenge bad employers without the threat of deportation
ii. no retrospective application of ILR rules
iii. retain the five-year route to settlement for workers
iv. strengthened access to facility time for migrant workers
v. a fair, rights-based visa system for migrant workers, and to support sustainable and better services and economy for all.
vi. active support to unions and politically independent campaigns seeking to highlight the positive contribution migrant workers make in public services and how the hostile environment impacts them and their families
Congress calls for the TUC to condemn the current proposals, demanding their removal in full.
Mover: UNISON
Seconder: SoR