UndocNet Overview

Leena KumarappanLondon Metropolitan University

Undocumented Migrants, Ethnic Enclaves and Networks: Opportunities, traps or class-based constructs.

http://www.UndocNet.org

Aims and objectives

To build on macro and micro developments in the area of global migration within the current context

To explore the labour market experiences and aspirations of undocumented migrants within these increasingly constrained environments

To examine decisions to use or not use co-ethnic networks in the search for work, and for workers.

To contribute to, and develop, the theoretical debates in the area of social capital.

Methodology

The complexity of employment relationships and decision-making explored from the perspectives of undocumented migrant workers and migrant enclave entrepreneurs.

Three country-of-origin groups: Bangladeshi, Chinese and from Turkey and Northern Cyprus including Kurds

In-depth interviews with 55 undocumented workers and 24 ethnic enclave employers

An asynchronous internet focus group with invited employers to discuss views and experiences

Fieldwork

Undocumented worker interviews were conducted by trained community interviewers in the workers’ first languages

Participants accessed through multiple starting points: community organisations, personal contacts, leafleting and cold calling, and through snowballing

Employer interviews were conducted by the project researchers in English; employers accessed through multiple starting points

Participants accessed through multiple starting points: community organisations and individuals, business associations, cold calling shops and businesses

Sample overview

Bangladesh

China

Turkey

11

14

15

4

6

5

Profile of Sample, Base number = 55

Male

Female

Bangladesh

China

Turkey

6

6

7

1

2

2

Profile of Sample, Base number = 24

Male

Female

The Worker Perspective

Sonia McKayLondon Metropolitan University

Undocumented Migrants, Ethnic Enclaves and Networks: Opportunities, traps or class-based constructs.

http://www.UndocNet.org

Context

Undocumented migrants – numbers unknown but potentially more than half million

Routes of entry for legal migration closing

Exclusion of labour law rights

Key consequences of undocumented status

Fear, anxiety and isolation;

Inability to travel, including returning home;

Inability to access public services;

Limitations on access to jobs;

Exploitative treatment at the workplace;

Problems regarding trust and disclosure in work; and

Hostile attitudes from co-workers with status.

But – not without regulation and agency

Poor treatment and harsh conditions

37 year old Bangladeshi restaurant worker in the UK 14 years Ex-cockle picker

‘Employers tend to treat us bad, hassle us, mentality disturb us…and the people who are legally here, they treat us badly. This is how my time is being spent here, I am mentally suffering. I am 37 years of age…I love working but in Indian restaurants, people get no respect. People don’t get paid properly if they are illegal.’ (Soumen)

‘Very hard conditions; we lived in Liverpool. We had to take a coach to travel more than two hours to the seaside to work every day. Between April and May, the weather there is very cold. Even if you wear Wellington boots, you still get wet. And if you don't wear any boots, the water is just freezing. It was very hard work. You had to concentrate and move fast to pick up the cockles. If you stopped or you were too slow, you wouldn't get many cockles and you wouldn't be able to earn money.’

Exclusion from statutory rightsUndocumented worker in

HSE study33 year old Bangladeshi

male in UK 12 years

Lack of dismissal protection

‘I don't have [any documents], because I work illegally, that's why maybe tomorrow they tell me sorry we don't need you anymore, in spite of being working there for over six months, if I had they can't sack me so easy.’

Non-payment of wages

‘I worked in a couple of places where they didn’t pay me for three to four weeks. I couldn’t protest as I had no papers. There was a factory in [East London] and they didn’t pay me for three months. When I protested there, they told me I had no papers so couldn’t prove anything.’ (Anik)

Trapped

Chinese student over-stayer in UK four years

Chinese restaurant worker in UK 12 years

‘They knew that you couldn’t do anything about it; they knew that you couldn’t find another job so easily; they might know that since I had become used to with working as a waitress, I might not even want to leave it for some other job. Yes…, that was part of the reason, I think.’ (Chow)

‘Because the boss was rather loud mouthed. New recruits couldn’t stand the way s/he shouted at people… I found it hard to take it too, but I knew I had to put up with it, because I needed the job, because I had no residential status. Some new recruits were so scared that they burst in to tears.’ (Bobby)

A system with clearly defined rules

A hierarchy of jobs and routes to progression

Established and understood rates of pay

Methods of job progression

Systems of training

A London penalty

Alternative forms of regulation

Progression routesBangladeshi

Mohit:, 32 yr old male, 6 yrs in UK

Turkish

Jain, 32 yr old male, 9 yrs in U)

Rodja, 53 yr old female, 25 yrs in UK )

diswasher cook

Daza

Cook

Kitchen porter

Tandoori

section

Tandoori chef

Chinese

Factors Time

In the host country: The first two year I worked in restaurants as I didn’t know much or many people. I

was in a position that I couldn’t do anything else. Also, restaurants had free board and lodging. (Sanjay, 38 yr old Bangladeshi male, 5 yrs in UK)

In the job: Because after six years working there, I had learnt all the skills needed; by the

time I left the place I was already a chef… Six years of working had enabled me to learn the skills to be a chef. (Jian, 32 yr old, Chinese male, 9 yrs in UK)

Training and learning

Co-workers

Family

Pay rates and agency

Skill shortages

The Employer Perspective

Alice BlochUniversity of Manchester

Undocumented Migrants, Ethnic Enclaves and Networks: Opportunities, traps or class-based constructs.

http://www.UndocNet.org

Key characteristics of Employer Sample

24 in-depth interviews - diverse routes of access 5 female, 19 maleAreas covered:

Migration histories Routes into business First business – types, recruitment, financing Additional/subsequent businesses Workplace relations Preferred characteristics of workers Employing undocumented migrants: past present Knowledge and impact of policies and sanctions

Figure 1: Current business by country of origin groupBase number: 24 employers and 28 different business

Bangladesh China Turkey0

2

4

6

8

10

12

7

1110

RestaurantTake awayRetail and servicesHair and beautyConstructionTotal

Preferred worker characteristics

Needs of business: skills (e.g. chefs)

I can’t have an Englishman as a creative chef (B2RM)

Different roles in the business

In the restaurant [you] cannot employ any other people…Its ok for waiter, waitress, not in the kitchen. They got to know how to cook the Chinese food C2S+RM).

Language – colleagues and customer base

…ninety-five percent of the customer from the Sylhet (B6SM)

Preferred worker characteristics

Bangladeshi people are very hard working, physically hard working (B2TM).

…there’s only so many jobs that you can give to non-Chinese-speaking people… and experience has shown that they tend not to be as reliable. I’m not being racist here I’m just telling you my experience…they just don’t turn up…so we don’t actually employ a lot of non-Chinese, not because we don’t want to but because in reality once you start employing them they don’t achieve the same performance as a Chinese person and it certainly would create a bit of, erm, difficulty in communication in the workplace (C3RM).

Business: Families and trust ‘…ethnic economy’, at closer scrutiny, seems to be an

‘economy of trust’’ (Wahlbeck, 2007: 552). My husband’s cousin [is] our manager; he’s like part of our

family (T9FR).

Even when we’re doing the tile business, he was working for us he is like our brother, we are always together. We leave him everything to him at nights and go home and sleep (T6SM).

Well my dad and myself are the directors, my sister is also in the office, my uncle also works in the office, erm, Hamed is my cousin, he works in the office, Yusef is like a member of the family, we’ve known him through family connections (B5SF).

Recruitment of workers: Social networks

…the Bangladeshi community… go back, er, fifteen years/twenty years you had ninety-five percent of the resident came from that district of Sylhet…So they knew each other from school and college...So when a friend opened a restaurant, you know, it would be ‘oh, I’m opening a restaurant’ and the other friend would go and help…if somebody wanted a job they phoned...and somebody would come up and say ‘hey, so and so’s looking for a waiter, so and so’s looking for a...’. Or, the same token if you were looking for a staff for your restaurant you’d ring somebody up: ‘oh, do you of anybody free’... (B1RM).

So we mostly rely on, erm, personal references. You know, got a friend or some relatives (C3RM).

Employing undocumented migrants

‘you’ve got to be careful these days’ (C2RM).

C3RM..‘you don’t want to take any chances’.

B1RM says, he doesn’t employed undocumented migrants, ’because I can’t afford to pay that fine’.

Figure 2: Employment of undocumented migrants in the past and currently

Base number: 24

Bangladeshi

Chinese Turkish Total0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

Yes in the pastYes currently

Employing undocumented migrants

Short term fill-in – mutually beneficial I have taken somebody on for a couple of weeks where...a kitchen porter’s

left...‘oh I’ve got a cousin of mine but he hasn’t got any card or nothing’. ‘Well look, just send him down and while I’m sort of searching for somebody at least he get two weeks work, a bit of pocket money’….I’ve had loads (B2TM).

While visas are getting sortedDisagree with policy Empathy/often personal experience (Kurds from Turkey) Some people come, I mean they haven’t got papers but they are good

people, they need money. They need it, if you don’t give them job what are they going to do (T9RF)?

Contradictions

‘...my wife won’t allow me to employ them with no documents’

‘I don’t mind sometimes because my location is changing all the time so I’m taking a risk, of course. Between you and me we employ some without documents’.

‘I dare not to employ them because you’ve got to understand the five thousand pounds per person. And also you are involved with the court case and trials’.

...some of the Chinese people from mainland, they are really rely on job to support the family, otherwise they won’t come all the way from China, six thousand mile, and that’s the problem. Because of the immigration law and they’re a bit scared but they’re still taking a risk, same me and same them, we both (C7SM).

Conclusion

Importance of co-ethnic networks - informality is dominant mode of recruitment

Preferred workers based on ethnicity, gender and trust ‘like family’

Obligations of kinship and community solidarity

Employers awareness of who they employ – in relation to status - and their reasons are clear

No one analysis – practices influenced a number of factors including: kinship, community ethnic and political solidarity, immigration status, availability of workers, linguistic, cultural and gender preferences, perceptions of good workers, government policy and economic considerations.