The ‘Employer Pays Principle Feasibility Study within the Horticulture Value Chain’ was published on the 8 July. The Seasonal Worker Interest Group today publishes a statement in response to it.
What is the Employer Pays Principle (EPP)?
The EPP states that no worker should pay for a job – the costs of recruitment should be borne by the employer not the employee. This is fundamental to combatting exploitation, forced labour and trafficking in global supply chains. However, workers, who exert the least amount of power and have the least access to capital vis-a-vis other stakeholders in the supply chain, have consistently borne the costs of recruitment, in direct contravention of EPP.
What are the key considerations at the heart of EPP implementation on the Seasonal Worker Visa (SWV)?
– EPP should be adopted as a standard on the SWV and other work migration routes into the UK.
– International standards make clear that workers’ flights and visas are costs associated with workers’ recruitment and should be borne by employers, not workers.
– The current level of legal fees and illegal charges borne by workers on the SWV places workers at high risk of debt bondage. Currently seasonal agricultural workes pay high costs for travel, £319 for their visa application fee, they have no guaranteed income over the short visa period and their pay is very low.
The Study, published by Alma Economics, provides different examples on how the EPP may be operationalised on the Seasonal Worker Visa. What matters to us is ensuring that any discussions around EPP and its implementation abide by core principles that maintain and act in the interests of migrant workers and their welfare.
What does this mean?
– We do not support any model for implementing EPP which involves workers fronting the costs of recruitment.
– We do not 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 the SWV.
– EPP should not result incosts being directly or indirectly passed on to workers in other ways
– Responsibility for implementing EPP must be shared across the spectrum of supply chain actors that use and benefit from the SWS, as well as the government itself.
The scheme as currently designed puts workers at serious risk of exploitation and abuse, incuding trafficking, debt bondage and forced labour, and it requires wholesale reform. There is an urgent need for robust state-led rights protections, and monitoring and enforcement which rise to the challenges of this scheme and ensure accountability of private sector actors.
We therefore call on the government to swiftly coordinate the safe and ethical implementation of EPP on the SWV in a way that protects workers.
You can read the full statement here or download it below.