"Debt, Migration, and Exploitation The Seasonal Worker Visa and the Degradation of Working Conditions in UK Horticulture", 10 July 2023

This report includes a review of the Seasonal Worker Visa (SWV) route produced by Focus on Labour Exploitation. The route has undergone rapid expansion in recent years, rising from 2,500 visas in 2019 up to 57,000 in 2023. At the same time, there have been widespread concerns around worker welfare. The review explores the different risks of exploitation present in the design of the SWV route. Workers must cover the majority of the costs for moving to the UK. This, combined with the short-term nature of the route, and workers having no path for extending their stay, has resulted in some workers taking on high levels of debt to participate, putting them at risk of debt bondage. Further, gaps in labour market enforcement have resulted in barriers to accessing justice for some workers, including difficulties with accessing reporting mechanisms and being able to leave exploitative conditions.

The report also includes a first hand account of life and work on a fruit farm by a former farmworker and researcher. This account demonstrates how issues described in the previous chapter translate into labour exploitation inside workplaces themselves. It provides a breakdown of the work process for a fruit picker, and shows how workers endured debt bondage, long hours, abuse by supervisors, and systematic wage theft. It details moments of resistance by farmworkers in the form of attempted strikes and collective actions, and suggests a path forwards for organising workers in this sector into trade unions.

This is followed by an extended interview with a Nepalese worker recruited to work in the UK via the Seasonal Worker Visa. The worker recounts how a third party broker applied to the visa scheme on the worker’s behalf using a fake email. The broker took hold of the worker’s passport during the process. Due to the debt incurred to pay the broker’s fee, the worker lost money coming to work in the UK. Drawing from the worker’s own experiences in Nepal’s recruitment sector and comparisons with the approaches of other countries, the interviewee advocates for the establishment of a government-to-government migration route as an alternative to the recruitment agency based approach of the SWV.

The New Economics Foundation has explored how the exploitation experienced by farmworkers translates into monetary benefits distributed between the supermarket, the farm, and the worker, using a case study of a farm based in Kent. We estimate that seasonal workers receive an average of 7.6% of the retail price of this farm’s produce. The supermarket receives 54.7% of the value, while the farm receives 26.2%. The share retained by the worker is reduced further if they cannot reclaim overpaid income tax and pay broker fees of £1,700 (2.3%), and if they have to leave the UK soon after arriving (2.2%). If workers are charged broker fees of £5,000, they lose money coming to the UK and retain -5.5%. Compared to UK poverty thresholds, we find the average pay of migrant farmworkers is below the absolute poverty threshold.

The final chapter, produced by the LWA, explores alternative approaches to labour rights using the Fair Food Program (FFP) in Florida as a case study. The FFP is based on empowering workers to enforce conditions on farms and agreements with buyers to fund wage increases and not source from farms which violate standards. This section examines how the FFP responded to wage theft and broker fees affecting Florida’s tomato workers while showcasing campaigning tactics used by farmworkers.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations developed by our collaboration for the UK government, labour market enforcement (LME) bodies, supermarkets, and for trade unions and social movements who want to campaign for better conditions for farmworkers.