What minimum wage? Why enforcement of EU migrants’ employment rights matters

EU migrants nominally enjoy the same employment rights as Britons. Yet (left to right) Catherine Barnard, Amy Ludlow and Sarah Fraser Butlin of the EU Migrant Worker Project found that they are often ignorant of the minimum wage and the Working Time Directive and do not pursue claims in Employment Tribunals. In this they are sometimes aided and abetted by exploitative employers who are willing to use them to undercut the wages of UK staff. They also found that enforcement of employment rights in the UK is, at best, patchy

Long read: how to deploy the emergency brake to manage migration

Freedom of movement is one of the 'red lines' that preclude Britain's continuing membership of the Single Market: the PM believes the referendum was a clear rejection of the principle. But could the UK deploy an 'emergency brake' at regional (rather than national) level to help manage EU migration and thereby qualify for European Economic Area membership? Catherine Barnard and Sarah Fraser Butlin (University of Cambridge) look at how it might be possible to allay Leavers’ fears

Free Movement A Case Study in State Autonomy and EU Control

The area of free movement presents an interesting case study of, on the one hand, autonomy by the member states and, on the other hand, its erosion as the EU tries to exert its influence and control over the operation of a key pillar of the single market project. These tensions and schisms will be explored through two stories: first, the development of free movement of workers under Article 45 TFEU and second, the development of the EU’s approach to social welfare benefits. We wish to argue that these two stories show a historic and continued contestation between autonomy asserted by the member states, especially concerning social welfare benefits, and control asserted by the EU. In the case of the UK, that tension became so great that it ultimately resulted in the dramatic departure of the second largest member state from the EU, as the narrative took hold that, as a result of free movement, the UK was unable to ‘control its own borders’

The changing status of EU Nationals in the UK following Brexit: the lived experience of the EU Settlement Scheme

Following Brexit, European Union citizens now find their rights to live and work in the UK have changed and they had to make an application under the European Union Settlement Scheme, established under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, by 30 June 2021 to enable them to continue to live in the UK lawfully. This article examines the experience and perceptions of those navigating the European Union Settlement Scheme and how they feel about life in the UK post-Brexit. It raises questions about identity and belonging. We also examine the other routes European Union nationals, and their family members, are choosing to use to secure their status in the UK. Our research highlights how the impacts of Brexit and European Union Settlement Scheme are unevenly felt and experienced by different European Union national groups. The article concludes that it is likely that we will only be able to measure the true extent of the ‘success’ of the European Union Settlement Scheme after the application gateway has closed on 30 June 2021, by learning what happens to those who fall between the gap, especially those more vulnerable.Economic and Social Research Council. (grant number ES/T000716/1 ESRC

The Town, the Street, the House and the Advice Charity

In this chapter, we describe the House, the Street and the Town of our research. We do this to paint a picture of the environment EU migrant workers encounter when they first arrived in the UK and the context in which they now work, live and socialize. As noted in Chapter 1, legal geographers say that ‘nearly every aspect of law is located, takes place, is in motion, or has some spatial frame of reference’. So, we describe the Town (Great Yarmouth), the Street (St Peter’s Road) and the House (an HMO just off St Peter’s Road) where we examine how the law – EU law, Withdrawal Agreement law and UK domestic law – plays out

Beyond Employment Tribunals: Enforcement of Employment Rights by EU-8 Migrant Workers

Abstract Many EU-8 migrant workers work in low-skilled, low-paid jobs, particularly in sectors such as food processing and agriculture. Our interest lies in the experience of those migrant workers in the UK and specifically what happens when they are denied their employment rights. In earlier work, we have already shown that there was a significant underuse by EU-8 migrant workers of Employment Tribunals (ETs). So the questions for this article are three-fold. First, why do so few EU-8 migrant workers enforce their employment rights before ETs and to what extent do legal, economic, political and cultural landscapes, as they are experienced by migrant workers, constrain or enable enforcement action? Second, if migrant workers do not resort to ETs, what do they do? Do they simply move on, or do they use alternative enforcement mechanisms (such as the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority)? How effective are these other enforcement processes and institutions in protecting the rights of migrant and similarly vulnerable domestic workers? And third, what might be done to improve the enforcement of employment rights for EU-8 migrant workers and for other vulnerable workers on the UK labour market, including non-EU migrants, especially in the light of the new labour market enforcement agency (LMEA)? We argue that the establishment of a Pay and Work Rights Ombudsman might help address some of the problems experienced by EU-8 migrant workers and other vulnerable national workers.</jats:p