Introduction

In this chapter we explore important issues concerned with the social exclusion and social segregation of migrant workers in the UK. Our main argument is that social and employment protection for this group of workers is often inadequate and that the UK government has a moral obligation to address these deficits. We argue that the UK has one of the least regulated labour markets of all ‘developed’ economies, and that the government's open invitation to migrant workers to meet the needs of the ‘flexible’ economy has generated a large pool of exploitable, largely unprotected labour. Many migrant workers in the UK do so under levels of exploitation that would meet the international legal definition of ‘forced labour’. The chapter first sets out the national context of migration policies in the UK, reflecting on the long history of immigration to this former imperial power, and the historical significance of questions of ‘race’, ethnicity and racial discrimination to the integration of, especially, immigrant workers of the post-war period, and later their families as well.

The main body of the chapter examines the situation of migrant workers in the UK, in order to understand the very real and changing effects of interacting migration policies, labour market conditions and welfare policies on migrant workers. While restrictive policies were introduced to deal with marked increases in the number of asylum seekers from the early 1990s, similarly to other European countries, it is in the area of labour migration that most recent and contemporary policymaking has focused, with the introduction of a range of work permits for different categories of worker (for different economic sectors and skills levels) in the early 2000s, the ‘open door’ policy to migrants from the 2004 EU accession countries, to once again more restrictive policies from 2007/08. In addition, there is also in the UK an estimated substantial population of migrants residing or working illegally. Drawing on findings from two recent studies in England, the chapter goes on to assess the implications of the high degree of informalisation and flexibilisation of the UK's labour markets, combined with the lack of regulatory capacity, even where regulation should apply, for migrants’ segregation and exclusion.