Sunday Herald
A study of Scotland’s Polish population finds while most are in paid work, language difficulties leave many open to exploitation. Home Affairs Editor John Bynorth reports.
POLISH WORKERS moving to Scotland are at risk of exploitation by employers because most have only basic English skills, even several years after arriving in the country, and many are not registering with the home office.
The largest study undertaken into the lifestyles of some of the 86,000 poles who have moved to Scotland in the past three years suggests that almost half are unable to communicate in English.
However, more than 80% are not attending English classes because working commitments don’t allow it.
The study also found that one in four have not joined the home office Workers’ Registration Scheme (WRS), which must be done within one month of starting work in the UK.
That means the government has no record of their employment, leaving them exposed to unscrupulous employers who might fail to deduct tax and National Insurance from wages.
The Fife Partnership - a multi-agency group which co-ordinates the area’s local authority, police, NHS and other bodies - ordered the study in an attempt to understand better the needs of migrant workers, because of a lack of information about how many migrants lived in the area and the issues they faced.
The area has seen the largest influx of Polish migrants in Scotland in recent years, with unofficial estimates suggesting that 15,000 now live there; a figure that is double the 7000 living in Glasgow and more than the 10,000 estimated in Edinburgh.
The study found that: l More than 90% of migrant workers are currently in paid work.
l More than 70% did not make use of their qualifications and skills in their current job; 52% have a university degree or undergraduate-level qualification.
l 5% said their UK employers did not recognise their qualifications at all.
l 16% had not been given a contract and 6% did not receive a pay slip.
l 40% worked in factory or processing jobs, with a further 10% in the construction industry.
l More than half had English language skills “good enough to communicate” and only 11% said they were “very good”.
l 82% are not attending English classes, mainly because of their working hours.
l 2% of employers provide studies in the language; only 1% allow paid time off to study English and less than 10% allow them unpaid time off to attend lessons.
l 25% of the immigrants had experienced verbal abuse, while 5% had suffered physical abuse as a result of their ethnic background or nationality.
Some migrant workers complained to the Sunday Herald that unscrupulous employers are “taking advantage” of their lack of English skills and unfamiliarity with the WRS.
The results of the survey have led to renewed calls from an MP and trade union leaders for better working practices towards migrants.
Labour MP Ann McKechin is sponsoring a private member’s bill in the House of Commons which aims to end the practice of agency workers, who include many migrants, being employed on lower pay and worse conditions that regular staff.
McKechin claimed that not enough information about employment rights is provided for migrants and added that in her Glasgow North constituency the migrant, mainly Polish population, is “growing by 50% a year”.
She added: “You are beginning to see a lot of agency workers who don’t have English as their main language, and they are not familiar with their rights.
“Sometimes the Polish are reluctant to join the unions because of the political connotations it has back home, but when the Scottish Trades Union Congress STUC held a meeting in Glasgow a lot of them came forward with stories about how they hadn’t been paid for holidays and overtime. “We’ve done a lot of work helping asylum seekers, but there is no funding specifically for the needs of people from Eastern Europe and how we handle them.”
The STUC, which is supporting the bill, urged the government to end the practice of employing agency staff at a lower rate. Dave Moxham, deputy general secretary of the STUC, said the problems of migrants being denied access to career advancement would affect UK citizens attempting to get lower paid jobs in the long term and will eventually lead to social problems as the government attempts to get people off benefits and into work.
He blamed backlogs in further education courses for the failure of many migrants to learn English as a second language, despite increases in funding for English-language training from the Scottish and UK governments.
Moxham said: “Employers tend to teach them the minimum needed to get by. But that prevents them moving to other jobs up the skills ladder.
“The Scottish Government has given more funding to ESL (English as a second language) training, but there are still massive queues and backlogs in further education colleges with no resources to teach migrant workers to learn the language. If we don’t get these migrant workers up the career ladder, we are going to end up with lots of them competing with indigenous workers chasing the same low-skilled jobs, which is socially divisive.”
The STUC has called for the government and local authorities to work more closely together to provide contact centres and “umbrella” services for migrants in town centres.
Moxham added: “A lot of the problems of large numbers of migrants involved in prostitution start in the workplace. If, in your first job, it’s not explained that you need to register with the WRS, you immediately fall into an illegal situation. It’s a downward spiral as you have absolutely no recourse to advice and rights.”
The main point of contact for advice for migrant workers is the Scottish Government-backed Relocation Advisory Service. It has provided a range of information services, from getting a job to housing, for 17,000 people since it opened in Glasgow in 2004.
It provides a welcome package with details about living and working in Scotland, plus information on cultural networks, diversity and equality issues, how to seek employment, accommodation, and permits and visa issues.
Other support services for migrant workers across Scotland are overstretched. While many Poles turn to the Catholic Church to make friends, some travel 60 to 90 miles from Glasgow and Edinburgh to seek help from a Dundee drop-in centre.
Doreen Dowdles, who co-ordinates the city’s Advice and Services Centre, deals with a range of issues with the help of an interpreter.
Doreen has been known to take appointments from people by mobile phone at Polish airports as they are preparing to come to Britain.
She said: “We are swamped, dealing with anything from Home Office papers to organising National Insurance to finding accommodation. People tend to come here because there’s nothing like us across the board in Scotland. Dundee doesn’t have a problem with migrants, but we are mopping them all up.”
Maciej Dokurno, an interpreter and well-known figure in the Fife Polish Association who interviewed migrants for the survey, said the Scottish Government overall must do more to ensure information gets through to the community, claiming that money spent on translated leaflets is often wasted as migrants don’t pick them up.
Dokurno said: “I spend up to 40 hours a week on a voluntary basis helping people, attending meetings with Fife Council and trying to give people the basic information they should already have. What is needed is a strategic and organised centre where they can get information in Fife. Dundee is a good example.”
The Polish government is also taking a keen interest in the needs of Poles in Scotland. Last week, two senators met a group of migrants in Fife to discuss some of their concerns.
Senator Andrej Person said: “It’s still a better situation to be Polish in Scotland, than in Ireland and England, as relations between the Polish people and the Scottish are fantastic. We have to listen to their problems and set up strategies so that they understand the language, and their children understand Polish. It’s better to be Polish in Scotland than in London, because there is such a good sense of community here.”
