Share Now
on December 27, 2024
Read Time: 9 Minutes
Local councils across the UK, as well as recruiters and employers of migrant care workers from such countries as India, Nigeria, and the Philippines, will have reason to take an interest in a new grassroots deal designed by care workers themselves, alongside the Unison union.
The agreement in question – the Migrant Care Worker Charter – is aimed at better protecting foreign nationals who come to the UK on sponsored visas to undertake care work.
Local authorities around the country have been asked to sign the charter. Salford mayor Paul Dennett applied his signature to the agreement in September, making him the first council leader to do so, following a local organising and campaigning drive.
Members of Unison, migrant care workers themselves, put together the North West region’s Migrant Care Worker Charter.
The union hopes it won’t just be Salford Council that commits to the charter, which was devised due to worries about social care staff potentially becoming victims of modern slavery when they relocate to the UK for work.
The likelihood of exploitation can be particularly high due to foreign-national care workers facing the loss of their immigration status in the UK if they part ways with their employer. Migrants who come to the UK on a sponsored Health and Care Worker visa or Skilled Worker visa need to have a licensed employer in order to retain their immigration status.
In the event of such an overseas national losing their job, the Home Office can cancel their visa. If this happens, the affected migrant may be given only a 60-day window to find a new sponsoring employer, apply for an alternative visa, or leave the UK.
This situation, union organisers have said, means that care workers who may have sold everything they owned to come to the UK can be vulnerable to exploitation by employers.
In light of the aforementioned risks, Unison and the foreign migrant workers behind the charter have come up with a number of eye-catching measures.
One of the provisions is that signatories will identify or act as an “employer of last resort” for care workers who have been victimised, or whose migration status has been imperilled due to them losing a job through no fault of their own.
Furthermore, by signing the charter, local authorities pledge to create an “ethical recruiter list” to ensure rogue employers are unable to access public money.
2024 has been a year of major changes for the UK immigration system, including some measures that impact on care workers. Those changes include:
At the time of typing, the standard “going rate” for care workers and home carers (occupation code 6135), as well as senior care workers (occupation code 6136), is £30,960 (£15.88 an hour). The lower “going rate” – for those who qualify for this – is £23,200 (£11.90 an hour) in the case of both occupation codes.
The Migrant Care Worker Charter, as put together by Unison North West, includes seven broad provisions for signatories. These measures bring potentially significant implications for how foreign nationals are treated in the UK care sector:
1. The treatment of migrant care workers
It is expected that local authorities committing to the charter will make sure foreign-national workers are given fair and equitable treatment in relation to other employees.
Signatories commit to ensuring commissioned providers and agencies:
2. Accommodation
The charter also encourages employers to take a proactive approach to overseeing and helping with suitable travel and accommodation arrangements for foreign-national care staff.
In accordance with this, councils that sign the agreement are urged to make sure commissioned providers and agencies:
3. Wraparound safety at work
Also asserted by the charter document is that employers should have robust risk assessments in place for migrant workers to reflect the additional safety issues they may face, especially during times of social unrest.
Such safety risks may occur:
The charter further states that, when necessary, the commissioning authority should provide guidance to the care provider, in addition to monitoring to ensure compliance.
The Health and Care Worker visa is a subtype of the Skilled Worker visa. Formerly known as the Tier 2 Health and Care visa, it enables medical professionals to come to or stay in the UK to do an eligible job with the NHS, an NHS supplier, or in adult social care. By contrast, the broader Skilled Worker visa route – formerly the Tier 2 General work visa – is aimed at those who wish to come to or stay in the UK in any of a wider range of professions. These include such fields as IT, engineering, finance, and education.
4. Victimisation and discrimination
The Migrant Care Worker Charter emphasises, too, that employers are responsible for addressing discrimination, and have a duty to not victimise overseas-national staff for trade union activities.
This part of the document refers to the earlier-mentioned rule affecting Health and Care Worker visa holders, where workers could find themselves needing to seek out a new sponsor within 60 days to avoid deportation. This, Unison says, creates a framework whereby the threat of deportation can be used against migrant workers.
So, to help tackle this, the charter underscores the importance of:
5. Employer of last resort
As referenced earlier, by applying their signature to the document, local councils dedicate themselves to identifying or becoming an employer (sponsor) of last resort for foreign-national care workers who have been subject to victimisation, or who have otherwise summarily had their employment terminated through no fault of their own.
Potential examples of such a situation that would not be the migrant care worker’s fault, include the liquidation of the care provider, or their employer’s ability to sponsor workers being suspended by the Home Office.
6. Fees charged to migrant workers
Signatories to the charter are urged to ensure that commissioned providers of social care do not, themselves, charge fees to workers from overseas. Nor should such providers use agencies that charge fees to migrant staff.
7. An ethical recruiter list
It is expected that local authorities signing the charter will work towards the creation of their own ethical recruiter list, similar to the NHS Employers Ethical Recruiter List.
Furthermore, signatories commit themselves to lobbying central Government – alongside Unison – for improvements to the Health and Care Worker visa category, aimed at making it work for care workers before agencies.
If your organisation holds a sponsor licence from the Home Office enabling you to recruit care workers from abroad under the Health and Care Worker visa route, you could be directly affected by this charter’s provisions as an employer.
While, at the time of typing, Salford Council had already become a signatory to the Migrant Care Worker Charter, it is – of course – important to emphasise this is a grassroots agreement that local authorities may willingly adopt, rather than a top-down initiative of central government.
However, Unison representatives have expressed hopes of other councils around the UK committing to the charter. The president of the union, Steve North – who also serves as Salford City branch secretary – called for the UK Government “to end this scandal” of migrant care workers being subject to modern slavery.
Our experts in UK immigration law at Cranbrook Legal are certainly alert to the very real, and saddeningly persistent, scourge of migrant worker exploitation in the UK today.
The care sector, which has historically been – and continues to be – highly dependent on workers from abroad, is not immune to this. Foreign nationals who come to the UK to work in this sector routinely face various challenges, such as:
In light of these critical issues confronting the care sector, we see potential benefits arising from the introduction of this charter, for both migrant workers and the sector as a whole.
Those possible advantages include:
After all, if employers are able to achieve such high standards in part due to the better reinforcement of ethical practices, this could help an organisation reduce its risk of being fined, penalised, or having its sponsor licence revoked.
On the other hand, concerns have already been expressed about the UK care sector’s capacity to handle the existing cost and burden of Government bureaucracy, even without the addition of a further layer of administrative obligations. The practical and financial challenges in ensuring compliance with the charter’s requirements could, of course, be great for councils as well.
If you are a sponsor licence holder, failure to comply with the provisions of the charter will not necessarily lead to your sponsor licence being revoked. However, it could bring other consequences, such as penalties or damage to your reputation as an employer.
To learn more about how our award-winning specialists in UK immigration law at Cranbrook Legal can assist you with your sponsor licence obligations as an employer or your application for a work visa to the UK, please contact us today. You can reach us by calling 0208 215 0053, or by completing and submitting our free consultation form online.
How Can We Help You?
