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Modern slavery: bringing a global crusade back home

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The Prime Minister has made abolishing modern slavery one of her top objectives, and it's one area of government policy that the TUC welcomes, although we want more action on company supply chains.

Around the world, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are 25 million people in forced labour, and a further 15 million in forced marriage.  Most of the 25 million are working and 60% of forced labour is in just three sectors: domestic work (24%), construction (18%) and manufacturing, especially garments (15%).

Shockingly, this isn't only an international problem. There are slaves in the UK, too, and almost certainly well over the 10-13,000 the government estimates. Domestic work, agriculture, logistics and services like nail bars and cleaning are particularly high-risk sectors.

Many people say that you don’t find slaves in a unionised workplace, and clearly there's a lot to do to address the absence of union organisation in some of those sectors in the UK as well as developing countries and global supply chains.

But it's not wholly true that unionised UK workplaces or supply chains are slavery-free. 

That's why the TUC is developing guidance for union reps on how to spot the signs of modern slavery and take action against it:

  • in workplaces they might visit, either in their professional roles (eg as inspectors, medical professionals etc);
  • in supply chains feeding into their own workplaces; and 
  • even among people they work alongside, such as agency workers bussed to and from sub-standard accommodation every shift, or segregated from the other staff.

Globally, unions are part of Alliance 8.7, a new initiative designed to implement that element of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. And we’re using our role in the ILO, the G7 and the G20 – often together with the UK government – to push the issue up the global agenda.

We’re focusing on the 500 million people working in global supply chains, as well as campaigning against slavery in the Gulf; building up unions in sectors where they’re rare (e.g. domestic work); and pressing governments to ratify the ILO's domestic workers' convention and forced labour protocol.

The TUC joined forces with the CBI to get the UK to be one of the first to ratify that protocol.

The question "what exactly is slavery?" has given way to concerns about vulnerability and exploitation. There's a growing recognition that slavery is the end of a continuum. And that we won't win the battle against slavery until we tackle exploitation and vulnerability. 

Outsourcing, once unique to international supply chains, has been brought home, as the experience of the Leicester rag trade – where vulnerable women workers are producing clothes for the high street – shows. Once you start talking about that sort of issue, the domestic trade union agenda becomes clearer.

So, what’s keeping people in bondage, and what can we do about it?

1. Economics

Corporations have outsourced production and services to increase profits by lowering costs, and all too often, they have tried to outsource responsibility too. This is why supply chains are such a key element of this discussion. Initiatives like the Transparency In Supply Chains clause in the Modern Slavery Act, or the voluntary Ethical Training Initiative base code are useful here.

2. Poor regulation

There are too many loopholes in workers' rights legislation that allow people to fall into forced labour. Vulnerability and exploitation need to be addressed, so that slavery is easier to identify and prevent. The right to a written statement of employment for all workers, and tougher rules governing employment agencies would be a step forward, as would firmer regulation of responsible business conduct and extending the Modern Slavery Act to cover public procurement. UK ratification of the ILO domestic workers convention is essential. And we need to do more to regularise people and their employment.

3. Weak enforcement

Although we don't believe a criminal law approach to slavery is the long-term answer (not least because it divides people & firms to good and bad, legal and illegal, and therefore lets a lot of day-to-day abusers off the hook), lack of resources for enforcement is a major problem. The agencies tackling modern slavery[1] all have jobs far greater than the resources at their disposal, and there are fewer inspectors in the UK than other countries in Europe. For every 100,000 workers the UK has 0.9 labour market inspectors (excluding health and safety).  In France, it’s 18.9.

4. Immigration rules

If we want to eradicate modern slavery in the UK, we must stop blaming the victims.  Where slavery victims are deported they are often recycled, while the perpetrators face only fines. And tying workers to their employers, as already happens with overseas domestic workers, creates people who are effectively enslaved. Some people are advocating for similar tied visas to be a key feature of the post-Brexit immigration system, which will make matters even worse.

5. Lack of autonomy

Finally, the lack of power for those affected by modern slavery themselves is crucial. Clearly slaves are defined by their lack of agency, but in modern economies there are things we can do that empower them to challenge their own enslavement. There should be amnesties to encourage whistleblowing, greater access to workplaces for trade unions and a stronger role for them in enforcement agencies (such as restoring representation on the GLAA.) And, above all, it should be easier for people in forced labour to organise themselves in unions so that they can wield industrial and political power. For example, the Unite domestic workers branch supplied the UK worker delegate in the drafting of the ILO convention on workers' rights.

So, unions have a role here as well as abroad in tackling modern slavery but also tackling the modern slavery environment in the economy and the workplace.

 

[1] Such as the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Service, Health and Safety Executive and national minimum wage inspectors

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