- Conference
- 2025 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 21 February 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes the publication in July 2024 of UNISON’s partner organisation the Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) report “Work it out: advancing migrant worker’s rights”.
This report outlines that “in the care sector in particular, we are seeing a record number of workers without enough hours or pay, having their visas curtailed due to sponsorship revocations, and at real risk of destitution and being made undocumented.
These dangers are compounded by a wider landscape of a fragmented, underfunded labour enforcement system alongside increasingly precarious, outsourced and unregulated work in which all workers, regardless of where they are from, lack adequate regulatory protections.”
Conference also notes that as a result of the introduction of the Health and Care Visa there has been a surge in cases of Modern Day Slavery and UNISON activists, across a range of service groups, are finding ever increasing cases of bad practice. Migrant Workers are too often the victims of exploitation including poor accommodation and bad employment practices like the illegal deduction of wages, high agency fees, not paying the minimum wage, trade union victimisation and inadequate health and safety.
Conference additionally notes the launch of the North West Migrant Social Care Workers Charter which proposes a comprehensive response to the treatment of migrant care workers, their accommodation, victimisation/discrimination including threat of deportation if dismissed, and ethical recruitment.
Conference recognises that a high proportion of Migrant Workers will also be Black members. For many, UNISON’s structures will be new and unfamiliar, and they will unaware that self organised group structures are in place to support them and assist with developing their organising, bargaining, and campaigning agendas.
Conference, therefore, calls on the National Executive Council to:
1)Work with the National Executive Council Black Seat Representatives, Strategic Organising Unit, Bargaining Unit and other appropriate stakeholders to highlight the issues confronting Black Migrant Workers;
2)Work with the Service Group Liaison Committee and Private Sector Members Forum on issues of joint concern experienced by Black Migrant Workers;
3)Work with Regional Black Members’ structures to promote UNISON’s Migrant Workers Network and their inclusion within regional work streams;
4)Work with UNISON’s Migrant Workers Network to promote Black Members’ Self Organisation to their members.