Memorandum submitted by the Union of Construction,
Allied Trades and Technicians
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
UCATT is the largest specialist union for construction
workers with 120,000 members in the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
UCATT is the lead union among the signatories to the National
Working Rule Agreement of the Construction Industry Joint Council
and the Joint Negotiating Committee for Local Authority Craft
and Associated Employees.
UCATT is represented on a number of construction
industry related bodies including; the Strategic Forum for Construction,
Construction Skills Training Board and the Construction Skills
Certification Scheme.
Our evidence to this enquiry into human trafficking
is based upon trafficked migrant labour experience within the
construction industry.
Human trafficking in the construction industry
is common among gangmasters from A8 accession states and with
Bulgaria and Romanian workers having employment rights restricted
the issue could also impact on economic migrants from these states.
The growth of gangmasters and labour providers
exploiting trafficked migrant workers is a major concern. We have
instances of migrant workers being paid well below the agreed
rates within the construction industry and also below the national
minimum wage.
In construction the gang-master can operate
as an employment agency. They advertise, in the trade press, that
they have cheap migrant workers available. When UCATT officials
visit sites and speak to these workers they often find that their
rates of pay are much lower than the indigenous worker and health
and safety training has not been given. In an industry with the
highest number of fatalities and serious injuries this is totally
unacceptable.
These gangmasters are able to exploit fragmented
industries throughout the UK. In construction, an industry fragmented
to the extent where you have significant percentage of workers
wrongly classified as self-employed in order for contractors to
escape income tax, NI, sick pay and pensions, there is an unhealthy
approach to illegality. The use of bogus self-employed allows
the fragmentation of the construction industry to such an extent
that gangmasters and labour providers' use of illegal labour is
rife on major contracts throughout the UK.
UCATT has found that the greatest abuses tend
to occur in circumstances where the gangmaster controls the work
of migrant workers and their accommodation.
As the law stands the construction industry
is not included within the scope of the Gangmasters Licensing
Bill.
UCATT supports the Gangmasters Licensing Bill
as an important step forward for the industries included in the
bill, agriculture, and shellfish gathering and associated processing
and packaging sectors. The construction industry is an industry
that in future should be looked at with regards the licensing
of gang-masters, with expansive growth of agencies and labour
providers within the industry.
UCATT is concerned that some of the problems
highlighted in the agriculture, shellfish gathering and associated
processing and packaging sectors are typical in the construction
industry. These problems are manifest on a number of construction
sites across the UK through trafficked labour.
SCALE OF
THE PROBLEM
IN THE
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
Overview of Migrant/Trafficked Workers Employment
Status in UK
1. It is the view of UCATT that there is
a direct correlation between employment status and the trafficking
of labour, often involving migrant labour in the construction
industry. Our research estimates that on major sites over 75%
of labour are classified as self-employed. This is contrary to
other European states. The UK labour market shows a ratio of 11
to 1 in terms of self-employment over direct employment from workers
entering from the EU27. This is largely because the UK Worker
Registration Scheme places a duty on those directly employed in
the UK to enrol into the scheme. Conversely those that are classified
self-employed can enter without registration as set out in the
Accession (Immigration and Worker Registration) Regulations 2008.
2. Another explanation is the distinction
between genuine self-employment and false self-employment. A genuinely
self-employed person would have to understand legal and taxation
systems and to acquire skills to deal with clients that are different
from that of a directly employed worker. This has often acted
as a barrier to genuine self-employment among migrant workers.
Take these barriers away, through the Construction Industry Scheme,
that allows self-employment as paid workers, then you have an
opportunity for contractors to avoid payments of national insurance,
income tax, holiday pay and other employee benefits while managing
to control workers pay, hours and method of work.
Scale of the Problem
3. UCATT conducted research across all Regions
in the UK to detect the scale of the problem of exploitation of
migrant trafficked labour with many appalling instances reported
by our Regional Officials. Our overriding conclusion is that there
are major similarities in the treatment of migrant workers trafficked
from foreign countries to the UK. The systematic abuse of workers
by contractors, employment agencies and gangmasters in the construction
industry is a constant thread in our research among migrant workers
in the UK.
Case Studies
4. While UCATT understands that the committee
terms of reference make clear that they cannot act in individual
cases of exploitation towards trafficked workers, the only way
to submit evidence to inform the committee is through case studies
in the construction industry and to highlight cases that our officers
have dealt with.
The following cases highlight experience in
three UCATT regions and are indicative of the kind of exploitation
that exists across the entire UK construction industry.
MIDLANDS REGION
Birmingham, Derby
5. UCATT unearthed a case of appalling systematic
abuse of vulnerable migrant workers on a PFI hospital in Mansfield.
Our officer obtained the workers pay slips, which revealed that
some workers took home just £8.80, after working a 40-hour
week.
Dry lining subcontracting company Produm employed
the dozen Lithuanian workers. The workers were paid below agreed
minimum rates for the site operated by main contractor Skanska,
they did not receive overtime (some workers worked in excess of
70 hours and took home less than £100) and were charged excessive
deductions for rent, tools and utility bills. It is understood
that many of these charges were unlawful.
UCATT were only able to uncover the extent of
the abuse after some of the workers stopped being paid altogether
with the company currently owing some workers five weeks' pay.
The workers were initially scared of approaching the union because
the company also provided their accommodation.
NORTH WEST
REGION
Manchester, Liverpool, Cheshire
6. UCATT officials visiting a site found
that workers had been given Construction Skills Certification
Scheme cards without having gone through health and safety testing
or the training and a skills verification process to gain these
cards. A young Polish worker, brought from an agency informed
our officer that he had given a passport sized photo to an agency
before leaving Poland and that on arrival in the UK, he was sent
to an address in Manchester where certificates were awaiting him
to enable him to work in the UK. This information was passed to
police to investigate as it amounted to fraud.
Following further investigation on the site
our officer uncovered shocking employment practices. Migrant workers
trafficked from Poland were working between 85-90 hours per week,
paid £4.75 per hour living in squalid conditions with the
practice of hot-bedding being the norm with up to 11 workers sharing
a two-bedroom house.
NORTHERN REGION
Newcastle, Cumbria, Middlesbrough
7. Our development officer in this region
was tasked with operating a recruitment and information drive
for Migrant Workers entering the construction industry in the
region. The local Trades Union Congress in the Northern Region
is very proactive in highlighting the issue and UCATT contributed
to the study in the region.
(a) In Newcastle a UCATT official found trafficked
workers charged £900 per month for a two-bedroom flat that
would be assessed by The Rent Service as being fairly charged
at a figure around £350-400 per month. Not only this but
in trying to give workers information about employment rights
the official was duly assaulted and threatened by the gangmaster
and family members.
(b) In Durham our officer found trafficked Polish
construction workers being paid as little as £3 per hour
(construction industry rate for job £9.72) working in excess
of 80 hours per week. One worker on the site suffered an assault
at the hands of a managing director of a sub-contractor. As the
practice of fear and intimidation used by some gangmasters, agencies
and employers in the building industry allow a culture of fear
to permeate among migrant workers in particular, UCATT was not
surprised when the worker would not report the incident for fear
of losing his job or further reprisals.
CONCLUSION
UCATT has offered a brief summary of the types
of exploitation that trafficked workers in the UK experience on
a daily basis. As I have outlined in our summary, the method of
employment used for migrant workers often restricts rights and
allows a control to be help by agencies, gangmasters and contractors.
It is our policy to campaign to end this practice
of bogus self-employment and we have produced research and literature
explaining to the government how this undermines both the employment
rights of workers in the construction industry and also the tax
evasion and receipts lost to the treasury through national insurance
and employers tax payments. Much of the recent rise in this false
self-employment can be attributed to trafficked migrant labour.
Employers have taken advantage of the vulnerability of migrant
labour, shown in our case study evidence, and exacerbated their
insecurity by engaging them as false self-employed workers. Government
regulations make it easier to migrate as self-employed and this
had played into the evasion economy character of the UK construction
industry.
UCATT has consistently held the view that vulnerable
workers in the construction industry should be protected from
this exploitation. An introduction of the Gangmasters Licensing
Bill to extend to the construction industry is, in our view, long
overdue, with evidence showing similar problems existing in construction
as those covered by the legislation.
January 2009
| 
