22. Memorandum submitted by
Dr JoAnn McGregor, University of Reading
The number of Zimbabweans living and working
in Britain has expanded dramatically over the last six years,
as the crisis in Zimbabwe has deepened. They are a highly educated,
middle class migrant group, with exceptionally high levels of
education and skills compared to other migrant groups and the
UK population as a whole (Bloch 2005).
This report discusses findings of research on the
experiences of Zimbabweans working in the care sector in the UK,
which has become a major focus of employment for Zimbabweans (as
well as other immigrant groups, particularly from other parts
of Africa, Eastern Europe and the Philippines).[10]
The carers were a diverse group, who used carework to different
ends: some had successfully used such work to support studies,
remittances and other personal goals. However, those with irregular
work status, such as those in the asylum system and failed asylum
seekers, had often experienced bonded labour and other forms of
labour exploitation from unscrupulous employers. The combination
of acute labour shortages and restrictionist migration policies
is causing informal employment practices to flourish in the care
sector. Although the informal economy provides opportunities for
irregular migrants it also allows for their exploitation, such
that those performing the important role of caring for some of
the most vulnerable members of British society are themselves
denied basic rights.
CHANGES IN
THE CARE
SECTOR
The care sector is now a major area of work
in the UK, providing jobs for between 900,000 and 1.6 million
carers (Skills for Care, 2005). The demand for carers is likely
to grow dramatically over the next 20 years, as British society
ages, and as a result of other social changes (such as geographically
dispersed families and women entering the labour market (Anderson,
2000). Since the 1990s, both residential care services and home
care have been privatised, and the private sector now predominates
in both fields (Laing and Buisson, 2003). The process of privatization
has been associated with the spread of temporary work and the
erosion of pay and conditions of employment for former local authority
workers who have transferred to the private sector. Reports on
care workers' perspectives on their work describe high levels
of demoralization and stress due to the low status of the work,
low pay and instability associated with the process of out-contracting
(UNISON 2003, 2003a).
As a result of these changes in the labour market,
carework is increasingly unattractive to British citizens: there
are growing shortages of carers and high turn over rates.[11]
These shortages are increasingly being filled by migrants, and
the role of migrants in the sector is likely to grow over subsequent
years. Both small and large temporary staffing agencies target
migrant groups. Many agencies have been set up by migrant entrepreneurs
themselves, as they are well positioned to use their own social
networks to provide jobs for compatriots.
These changes in the care sector have created conditions
conducive to the spread of informal employment and labour exploitation:
the characteristics which encourage this include competitive sub-contracting
chains blurring employer/employee relations, fragmented and dispersed
employment including many small businesses, situations where employers
double as landlord (as is the case with some residential home
owners and some temporary staffing agencies), and an unclear boundary
between "helping" and "work" (Anderson and
Rogaly 2005). The spread of informal and abusive employment is
also facilitated by the availability of a pool of irregular migrants
trying to get by in the UK without the right to work. Although
Eastern Europeans from the new accession states have entered this
field of work, they have done so more slowly than in other sectors
of unskilled employment, due to the importance of communication/language
skills for carers.
ZIMBABWEANS IN
THE UK
The numbers of Zimbabweans in the UK grew dramatically
from 2000, when the pressures of structural adjustment and economic
decline in Zimbabwe were transformed dramatically into economic
plunge and political crisis, as the embattled ruling party resorted
to a violent and exclusive brand of populist nationalism to stay
in power. In 2002, as Zimbabweans moved rapidly up the tables
of countries producing asylum seekers in the UK, a visa new regime
was introduced, with the intention of reducing the numbers coming
to Britain. The visa made it impossible for anyone wishing to
seek asylum to leave Zimbabwe legitimately. Rather than stopping
Zimbabweans arriving in the UK, the visa restriction had the effect
of forcing many people into the hands of agents and traffickers,
such that Zimbabwean asylum seekers began to arrive in Britain
on bogus Malawian and South African passports (Ranger 2005).
The British government suspended deportations to
Zimbabwe between early 2002 and 2004, lifted the suspension in
the run up to the British parliamentary elections, and suspended
them again in October 2005, following a judgement of the Immigration
Appeals Tribunal, which heard evidence for systematic interrogation
of deportees from the UK, some cases of torture and disappearance.
The IAT judged that, given the politicization of relations between
Zimbabwe and the UK, the mere act of claiming asylum in Britain
was enough to expose individuals to risk on return (regardless
of the legitimacy of their claim) (Ranger 2005a).
The ban on forced removals has not been combined
with the right to work or access to state support, such that failed
Zimbabwean asylum seekers have been forced into informal work.
The restrictions have also contributed to a growing problem of
destitution among Zimbabweans in Britain, which churches and community
leaders have tried to redress through soup kitchens. Return to
Zimbabwe is simply not an option for many at the current junctures:
the urban clearances in Zimbabwe that began in May 2005 displaced
700,000 people and affected up to 2.4 million, creating an unprecedented
humanitarian disaster; the economy continues to shrink and inflation
currently runs at 800%.
Irregular migrants from Zimbabwe are not only failed
asylum seekers, but also include people in the asylum system who
lack state support, people trying to support themselves on student
visas who are only allowed to work 20 hours a week and other "overstayers".
There are major problems of stress, anxiety and depression among
irregular migrants: one church leader I interviewed in the West
Midlands had personally dealt with six suicides. Many of those
trapped in asylum system or other categories of irregularity have
skills that they could usefully deploy, if there were a route
for them to regularize their status (such as teachers, engineers,
doctors and others). Many such Zimbabwean professionals have ended
up working as carers.
CONDITIONS OF
WORK REPORTED
BY ZIMBABWEAN
CARERS
The care sector is diverse, and conditions of work
very variable. Zimbabweans like other migrants, are most vulnerable
to labour exploitation when they first arrived in the UK (due
to limited information and connections) and due to irregular legal
status. This research did not uncover a link between trafficking
and irregular employment: employers were dependent on the pool
of migrants already in the UK rather than setting up formal external
links to supply labour.
Approximately one fifth of the Zimbabwean care workers
interviewed had experience of "bonded" labour. There
was often a collusion of interest on the part of employers and
migrants desperate for work: home owners and temporary staffing
agencies justified taking on vulnerable migrants to "help"
them, sometimes also doubling as landlord: recent arrivals were
grateful for any kind of work and perceived it as a step on the
ladder, when, for example, matrons allowed migrants to "live
in", in exchange for training, food and perhaps pocket money,
or when temporary staffing agencies provided accommodation as
well as work even if the deductions were excessive. Indeed, those
working for unscrupulous employers who did not provide accommodation
faced enormous problems in paying private rent when paid below
the minimum wage.
Unscrupulous employers "bonded" their workers
by withholding pay, threatening disclosure to the Home Office
or withholding documents. Some Zimbabweans had tried to register
as students with "colleges" which had agencies attached,
and were offered care or cleaning work for the agency whilst their
documents were being processed. Zimbabwean carers with irregular
status reported not only instances of employers who paid below
the minimum wage, but other forms of abuse, such as working with
inadequate facilities and equipment: a significant number of those
interviewed had back injuries sustained as a result of work in
faulty equipment yet feared to complain for fear of losing their
job or being exposed as working irregularly.
Some employers knowingly took on irregular migrants.
Others did so unwittingly: several of the Zimbabwean run care
agencies described how difficult it was to ensure the legality
of those they employed. There has been a spread of identity fraud
associated with the increasing restrictions on work for migrants/asylum
seekers already in the UK. For those with no prospect of regularizing
their work status (such as failed asylum-seekers), taking on a
false identity is one way to secure work and reasonable working
conditions. As controls on renewal of student visas take effect,
others will also be forced down the route of using multiple identities,
and working posing as somebody else. The effects of resorting
to false identities can be extremely stressful for migrants, can
create problems for employers and undermine regulators' work in
maintaining standards, for example regarding training.
The high levels of stress, anxiety and depression
among the Zimbabwean carers were thus enhanced for those with
irregular status. But excessive work and exhaustion was common
even among those working legitimately, due to low pay, irregular
hours, and the need to work double shifts to meet living expenses
and commitments to dependents in the UK and Zimbabwe.
Conditions of work in the care sector are diverse,
but migrant carers tend to be concentrated in the worst jobs,
working for private agencies supplying temporary staff. In many
residential homes, the boundary between permanent and temporary
staff is now a racialized divide. Very few migrants are able to
secure the better jobs, as permanent staff in local authority
care teams.
This study found that many Zimbabwean carers had
experienced direct racist abuse in their work. Several reported
instances of institutionalized racism, where managers/matrons
upheld and encouraged the racism of clients or colleagues. The
migrant men who have sought work in the care sector reported gender
discrimination (they told of homes and agencies preferring women,
or if they found work being given the "heavy" jobs).
It appears that migrant men have gone into care disproportionately
in relation to the overall gender balance within. Zimbabwean men
are finding it difficult to find unskilled work, and described
a more competitive market for "men's work".
The Zimbabwean carers universally wanted to use care
work as a stepping stone to something else. Many reported some
job satisfaction from helping others, if they had moved out of
the most abusive employment conditions. Some had been able to
support studies, networks of dependents and construct properties
at home. Yet most were stressed, frustrated and felt trapped:
failed asylum seekers were in the worst position given the impossibility
of regularizing their work. But others also suffered deskilling
and loss of status and despaired of being able to deploy the skills
they had brought with them or developed in the UK: given the political
situation in Zimbabwe, many professionals felt unable to return
to Zimbabwe to re-enter the UK through managed migration routes.
CONCLUSION
Despite the difficulties of life and work in the
UK, going back to Zimbabwe was not perceived as an option for
any of the care workers interviewed in this study.
The combination of job vacancies on the one hand,
and restrictionist migration policy privileging bringing migrants
from outside the UK (particularly from within Europe) on the other,
whilst erecting barriers against those already here, is contributing
to the spread of informal work practices, identity fraud and labour
exploitation in Britain. In the care sector, the changing structure
of the industry and shortages of carers have produced an increased
dependence on migrants, particularly in poorly paid, temporary
jobs. Irregular migrants' vulnerability to abuse is particularly
poignant, when they are working to fulfil such a socially important
role as caring for the elderly, the demented and disabled.
Opening up routes for Zimbabwean careworkers (and
others) already in the UK to regularize their work status would
have many advantages. It would be in the interest of the migrant
care workers themselves, whose basic human rights are often being
breached in the UK. It would also be in the interest of the elderly
and disabled Britons they care for, and the many legitimate employers
in the care sector. The only beneficiaries from the current situation—where
Zimbabweans are allowed to stay but not granted the right to work—are
unscrupulous employers who make profit out of the desperation
and vulnerability of irregular migrants.
References
Anderson, B 2000. Doing the Dirty Work? The Global
Politics of Domestic Labour. Zed Press.
Anderson, B and B Rogaly, 2005. Forced Labour
and Migration to the UK. Compas, Oxford in collaboration with
the Trades Union Congress.
Bloch, A 2005. The Development Potential of Zimbabweans
in the Diaspora. A Survey of Zimbabweans living in the UK and
South Africa. IOM Migration Research Series No 17.
Eborall, C and K Garmeson, 2001. Desk Research
on Recruitment and Retention in Social Care and Social Work.
Prepared for COI Communications for the Department of Health.
Laing and Buisson, 2003a. Care of Elderly People:
Market Survey, 2003.
Ranger, T 2005. `The narratives and counternarratives
of Zimbabwean asylum: female voices', Third World Quarterly,
26, 3, 405-421.
Ranger, T 2005a. Statement on the resumption of forced
removals to Zimbabwe.
Skills for Care 2005. The State of the Social
Care Workforce, 2004
UNISON, 2003. At Home with Low Pay: Residential
Care. Briefing for the NJC Local Government Pay Commission,
UNISON.
UNISON, 2003a. Working for Local Communities:
Domiciliary Care. Briefing for the NJC Local Government Pay
Commission, UNISON.
16 February 2006
10 Research was funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council. The research involved interviews with more than
100 Zimbabweans of different legal status and in different areas
of work; 32 were working as carers at the time of the interview.
Interviews were conducted between September 2004 and April 2005.
Full discussion of the findings can be found in J McGregor "Joining
the BBC (British Bottom Cleaners): Zimbabwean Migrants and the
UK Care Industry", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
(forthcoming, 2007). Back
11
Vacancies in local authority care jobs nationally are 11%, rising
to 17% in London turnover rates are 7-30% (Skills for Care 2005);
These averages hide considerable differences: in the borough of
Lambeth, for example, one study reported vacancy rates of as high
as 35% in 2001 (Eborall and Garmeson, 2001). Back
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