The Hostile Office

Justice For Sponsored Workers

We are pleased to host this campaign led by and for sponsored workers!

Join the campaign

If you are a sponsored worker and would like to join the campaign, tell your story or find out more, then fill out this form here. Your details won’t be shared outside of Migrants’ Rights Network and Migrants At Work.

Prevention. Protection. Solidarity. Led by sponsored workers for sponsored workers.

Migrants at Work and Migrants’ Rights Network stand in solidarity with the new Justice for Sponsored Workers campaign to demand an end to sponsored slavery.

State regulated immigration pathways, like the visa sponsorship system, are being used to effectively traffick workers into exploitative situations, and leave them languishing in slavery-like conditions.

“I was falsely accused by the employer, and they kicked me out of the job without any investigation or right to reply. They could do this because I am on a visa, and have little power”.

– Sonia, a support worker in Scotland

Sponsorship visa schemes have been celebrated by many employers and businesses as a route to bring those with the ‘right’ skills and experience to the UK to build successful careers and companies. They are designed solely on the basis of productivity and business and economic interests, rather than the wellbeing and protection of migrant workers in mind. Employers with sponsorship licences in the UK, and recruiters in origin countries, are using deception, coercion of payments, and sometimes threats to exploit sponsored migrant workers.

This is sponsored slavery.

When an employer holds power over a sponsored migrant worker due to their immigration status, this can easily be abused. The system explicitly makes sponsored workers vulnerable to exploitation with little safeguards for those arriving in the UK via this scheme.

Case study:  A Nurse based in Manchester

“Since coming to the UK on a skilled worker visa, I face trauma every day. My employer’s licence got revoked, our visas were cancelled and we were left with 60 days to look for another employer which was not enough. I could not get another employer in 60 days and to make life more difficult my right to work and right to rent was taken away.
l have children, l am on a fee waiver and when l get jobs the employers do not accept the fee waiver that l have. I am homeless and living in one room with children. I am suffering. The person who took us in wants to go back to his country soon. He will be selling his house. Where will l go without the right to rent?”

“Skilled worker visa holders are being subjected to modern day slavery by their sponsors. This is a matter that should be investigated since it’s against the Human Rights Act. Employers engaging in such acts should face full force of the law”

– Mark, mechanical engineer in the West Midlands

Debt and destitution

Recruitment fees, and in some cases, the certificate of sponsorship (CoS) being passed on to the migrant worker is one of the fundamental issues in the sponsorship scheme. Many sponsors outsource immigration matters to third-party providers such as HR services, recruitment agencies and immigration lawyers, or so-called ‘brokers’. Evidence gathered by Migrants at Work has found some workers are paying an average of £17,000 for the certificate of sponsorship.

“I came to the UK to work, I have paid so much money for my visa. Immigration skills charge, NHS surcharge. I did everything by the book, I have even paid fees I was not supposed to pay, because I was not aware. Now I am stuck, I have been in the UK for 4 months. My sponsor says he has no work. I am in a foreign country, with no family, no friends, no money and no recourse to public funds. What am I supposed to do?”

– Care worker

In addition, the migrant workers have reported some of them are not being paid while others are not being given any work by their sponsors, or very limited shifts that breach the contracts they have been given.

Case study:  Healthcare worker on Skilled Visa based in Derby

"My reason for supporting this campaign is that I feel employers are taking us migrant workers for granted.
 
I came to the UK in October 2022 through an agent and I paid £16,000. After a year, my employer threatened to cancel my visa because my international driving licence expired and they didn’t give me work. So someone directed me to an employer in Nottingham who also took another £8,000 from me. After this second employer sponsored me, I realised she also didn’t have work for me. I was so disappointed and stressed that I suffered a stroke in January 2023. I have paid £24,000, I’m jobless and hunting for jobs everyday.

My question is: is the Home Office watching these selfish employers exploit innocent people and doing nothing? I’m hoping the Home Office deals with these employers rather than telling us to leave the country".

The Justice for Sponsored Workers Campaign are calling for sponsors and employers to be held to account for exploitation. Under the sponsorship scheme model, power is firmly in the hands of the employer and the Home Office. The compliance-based approach by the Home Office means that migrants bear the brunt of investigations, and when licences are revoked. When an employer’s sponsorship licence is revoked, sponsored migrant workers have just 60 days to find a new sponsored employer. This timeframe is insufficient because it is not easy to find a new sponsor. During this period, these sponsored migrant workers have no access to public funds (NRPF), and risk becoming destitute.

After 60 days, if migrant workers have found no sponsor, they are expected to leave the UK voluntarily, or face deportation. Evidently, sponsored migrant workers receive a greater punishment as a result of an employer’s exploitative practices.

The Justice for Sponsored Workers campaign is also demanding:

1. Remove restrictive sponsorship rules

Restrictions in visa schemes mean that sponsored workers are dependent on their sponsor. To prevent becoming trapped in a cycle of exploitation by an employer, the sponsored workers are demanding greater freedom to move jobs or to a new sector.

Case study: Sibo, a care worker based in London

"I am a carer who came on a sponsored worker visa late last year. When I came, my sponsor promised me some hours but when I came to the UK, the hours were not there so I am not able to work. I’m also not able to work for another company for more hours. 
We’re asking for a visa that allows us to work for any company as carers and not to be limited to work just for our sponsor. Right now, we are left desperate because they won’t give us any hours. 

There should be a visa or way that permits us migrant workers to work freely for any company or sector. At the moment, our sponsors neglect us but we’re totally dependent on them under this system".

2. Safe Reporting

The lack of safe-reporting mechanisms for sponsored migrant workers means they do not come forward, even when they have no issues with their immigration status. Sponsored migrant workers who find themselves trapped in this scenario created by the revocation of their sponsor’s licence can end up being forced to work in breach of their immigration conditions to survive.

There are inadequate avenues to challenge the exploitation and potential trafficking experienced by sponsored migrant workers by UK sponsors. Sponsored migrant workers are told to report the exploitative practices to the Home Office, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), or modern slavery supporting organisations.

“I seek justice not just for me but for every migrant worker who is facing more serious case than I faced. I have personally been harassed by my employer and blackmailed and told they would send me back home by cancelling my certificate of sponsorship because they have the right to do so without giving me any reason.“

-Moses based in Sheffield on a Skilled Worker Visa

However, the reality is that reporting to these agencies are not always appropriate or even ‘safe’ for the sponsored migrant worker to report to without potential repercussions for reporting the issues they have faced. This is because neither employment law nor whistleblowing law effectively protects workers who are subject to immigration control. It is time to protect migrant workers who experience exploitation and implement safe-reporting mechanisms.

Case study: Kelvin, a sponsored worker on the Health and Social Care Visa in the West Midlands

"Ever since I joined this campaign I have found my situation getting easier compared to how it was months back.

I am very optimistic that the goals of this campaign are very realistic and it will come a long way in helping to tackle the vicious act of these inhumane employers in the UK. This is why it’s very important that this campaign has all the support it needs.

It would drastically reduce the pain, physiological trauma, agony, worthlessness and servitude that most migrant workers face in the hands of their cruel employers and sponsors and make their voices heard in the UK.

It would encourage radical changes in the labour market and make it possible for new  legislation to be drafted in Parliament against exploitation and inhumane treatment faced by migrant workers, especially in the care sector".