Seasonal Worker Visa drives debt bondage and exploitation
The Seasonal Worker Visa scheme as currently designed puts workers at risk of serious exploitation and abuse including debt bondage, trafficking and forced labour. These systemic failings led ATLEU to bring a legal challenge asserting that the scheme is in breach of international law.
Only a wholescale reform of the scheme is capable of remedying the inbuilt risks of exploitation.
This month, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) published its 2024 seasonal worker survey results. The Seasonal Worker Interest Group, of which ATLEU is a member, has previously expressed methodological concerns about the DEFRA worker surveys. Nonetheless, the government’s own findings about debts incurred by workers prior to arrival in the UK must act as a further wake up call on the need to fundamentally overhaul the scheme:
Nearly all respondents (94%) paid for their visa.
Over half of respondents reported paying for travel costs to the UK, and a further one in eight stated that they incurred other pre-arrival costs.
858 workers had incurred debt of between £1000 to £2,999
96 workers had incurred debt of between £3000 to £9,999
74 workers had incurred debt of over £10,000
Around two in five workers took some form of loan to fund their pre-arrival costs, including from family or friends, a formal loan, an informal loan such as from a money lender or a loan from the recruitment agency.
Similarly, FLEX research found that most workers who responded reported taking out a loan to cover the costs of coming to the UK (72%). Workers surveyed in the same study reported paying between up to £5,500 in total to come to the UK to work before even earning a wage, with an overall average of £1,231.
The current level of legal fees and illegal charges borne by workers on this visa scheme places workers at high risk of debt bondage and incentivises unscrupulous third parties to profit from the labour migration process.
The DEFRA and the Seasonal Worker Taskforce commissioned “Employer Pays Principle Feasibility Study within the Horticulture Value Chain” was also published this month. The Employer Pays Principle (EPP) states that no worker should pay for a job - the costs of recruitment should be borne by the employer not the employee.
The Seasonal Worker Interest Group reminds all stakeholders that any discussions around this principle and its implementation must abide by core principles that promote the interests of migrant workers and their welfare. We do not support any model which involves workers fronting the costs of recruitment nor do we support a model that results in workers being practically tied to individual workplaces as a result.
Workers must have flexibility to change workplaces when in the UK on this visa, and the government must ensure that no costs are directly or indirectly passed on to workers in other ways. Finally, this principle should ensure that workers no longer face paying recruitment costs for the scheme, which must include all application fees.
While we are supportive of the Employment Pays Principle, it is not a solution for the wide range of issues that workers continue to face on the SWV which are complex and interrelated.
This visa cannot be reformed on an incremental basis: only wholesale reform can ensure a visa system that delivers rights and remedy for workers and is compliant with our international obligations.
Read the Seasonal Workers Interest Group full statement to the Employment Pays Principle study
Background
The Seasonal Worker Visa Scheme was first established in 2019. Since then, the scheme has expanded from under 3,000 available visas in 2019 to up to 57,000 (including for poultry) in 2024. This rapid growth is despite the previous government being repeatedly made aware of concerns regarding the inbuilt risks of exploitation in the scheme, and ongoing evidence of workers on the scheme being subjected to debt bondage, forced labour, and other forms of abuse.
The Seasonal Worker Interest Group is an alliance of key organisations that provide support to, or advocate for, migrant seasonal agricultural workers. As the only group working exclusively in the interests of migrant seasonal workers, our members have raised concerns about the Seasonal Worker Visa scheme since its inception in 2019.