As migrant workers, EU-8 nationals enjoy a right to equal treatment with nationals in respect of their terms and conditions of employment. While some employers have tried to meet their legal obligations towards EU-8 nationals, others have taken advantage of these workers and have denied them their employment rights under UK law. In this paper we explore how EU-8 migrants make use of Employment Tribunals to enforce their employment rights. How many cases do they bring before Employment Tribunals, and what are they about? Are claims brought alone or with support, and if so, from whom? How are EU-8 workers treated once they are before a Tribunal and how successful are their claims? If there is evidence that EU-8 migrants are successfully bringing claims to enforce their employment rights, then fears about undercutting and exploitation of vulnerable workers are perhaps less serious than they would first appear. If they are not, then concerns about (mis)treatment are justified and prompt the further question as to how their rights could be better protected in practice, particularly given the introduction of fees for accessing Employment Tribunals.
Drawing upon empirical data collected during HMP Birmingham's privatisation in 2011, this article explores the prospects of competition increasing performance in the delivery of 'probation services' in England and Wales. The constraints and challenges that stem from the public procurement rules and their manner of implementation are highlighted, alongside the adverse impacts that competition can have upon organisational culture. Together with current evidence about the (mixed) performance of privately managed prisons, the article argues that the Government's faith in competition as a panacea solution to improve public services is misplaced and that too few lessons are being learned from commissioning mistakes.
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.
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