Damning migrant report delayed
And those migration stories just keep coming.
This time the focus in Britain. The Guardian tells us that government saught to bury, delay and distance itself from a report highlighting the 'super-exploitation' of migrant workers produced for the International Labour Organisation in Geneva and the Trade Union Congress in London.
You can read 'Forced Labour and Migration to the UK' by Bridget Anderson and Ben Rogaly (University of Sussex) here. I am not sure whether it has been 'revised' as the Guardian report suggests. See also this comment piece by Felicity Lawrence:
"If exploitation of migrant labour turns out to be at the core of our competitiveness, as this report suggests, then tackling the problem requires Labour to address the structure of big business and its regulation - to rethink the philosophies inherited from the Tories that advocate subcontracting, outsourcing, competitive tendering, low piece rates, short-term contracts, workforce mobility and a light touch on red tape. But that undermines New Labour's whole narrative - the third way in which economic growth, based on global competitiveness, can be combined with tackling poverty and inequality.
The lives of migrant workers described in this report make a mockery of the government's programme of social justice. Social justice for our own population turns out to depend on the importation of an underclass of foreigners to create our wealth. We compete with countries that have no labour rights by importing their conditions.
There is ammunition for both the anti-immigration far right and pro-regulation old left here, and small wonder Labour would rather postpone the discussion until after an election."
There are also an interesting range of responses to the story in the letters page of The Guardian today. Finally, this report on the conviction of a 'gang-master' who exploited migrant works is timely.
"Victor Solomka, based in King's Lynn, Norfolk, controlled the lives of more than 700 eastern Europeans who worked gruelling hours and lived in cramped conditions, while he accumulated a fleet of four-wheel drive vehicles and laundered his profits abroad."
This time the focus in Britain. The Guardian tells us that government saught to bury, delay and distance itself from a report highlighting the 'super-exploitation' of migrant workers produced for the International Labour Organisation in Geneva and the Trade Union Congress in London.
You can read 'Forced Labour and Migration to the UK' by Bridget Anderson and Ben Rogaly (University of Sussex) here. I am not sure whether it has been 'revised' as the Guardian report suggests. See also this comment piece by Felicity Lawrence:
"If exploitation of migrant labour turns out to be at the core of our competitiveness, as this report suggests, then tackling the problem requires Labour to address the structure of big business and its regulation - to rethink the philosophies inherited from the Tories that advocate subcontracting, outsourcing, competitive tendering, low piece rates, short-term contracts, workforce mobility and a light touch on red tape. But that undermines New Labour's whole narrative - the third way in which economic growth, based on global competitiveness, can be combined with tackling poverty and inequality.
The lives of migrant workers described in this report make a mockery of the government's programme of social justice. Social justice for our own population turns out to depend on the importation of an underclass of foreigners to create our wealth. We compete with countries that have no labour rights by importing their conditions.
There is ammunition for both the anti-immigration far right and pro-regulation old left here, and small wonder Labour would rather postpone the discussion until after an election."
There are also an interesting range of responses to the story in the letters page of The Guardian today. Finally, this report on the conviction of a 'gang-master' who exploited migrant works is timely.
"Victor Solomka, based in King's Lynn, Norfolk, controlled the lives of more than 700 eastern Europeans who worked gruelling hours and lived in cramped conditions, while he accumulated a fleet of four-wheel drive vehicles and laundered his profits abroad."
posted by David Skinner at 4:41 AM
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