A recent UK Employment Appeal Tribunal decision has dismissed a claim of direct racial discrimination brought by a Nigerian woman employed as a domestic worker in “appalling” conditions. She allegedly suffered threats and abuse at the hands of her employer, worked 80 hours per week and at one stage was paid just £50 per month. She was permitted only limited break periods and her passport was confiscated by her employer. A similar case was decided before the Employment Appeal Tribunal one month earlier in which a claim of direct and indirect racial discrimination against a domestic worker, also from Nigeria, was dismissed.
Though the claimants were unsuccessful on racial discrimination grounds, they succeeded before the Employment Appeal Tribunal in relation to failure to pay minimum wage and violation of the Working Time Regulations. The claimants argued that their treatment was a result of their status as migrants, which is inexorably linked to their race/nationality. The Court held however that while the claimants’ status as migrants was relevant, the “features which enabled exploitation are not indissociably linked with migrant status”. The Court instead found that the exploitation of the claimants was a result of their vulnerability, largely due to their low socio-economic position. The Court said that their status as immigrants was only a component of this vulnerability. The claimants in both cases have been granted leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Renaissance Chambers blog Free Movement describes the decisions as “a blow for the civil rights of domestic workers whose situation in the UK had already become extremely precarious following changes to the Immigration Rules last year…” These changes, introduced in April 2012, mean that migrant domestic workers cannot leave an employer who is abusive and seek work elsewhere. Before the 2012 changes, migrant domestic workers were entitled to change employers, bring their dependents to the UK and obtain further residency rights and eventually citizenship. Reforms introduced limited, non-renewable six month visas for overseas domestic workers. Domestic workers rights campaigners Kalayaan were highly critical of the reforms, arguing that the inability to change employers greatly increases the vulnerability of domestic workers to abuse.
Click here to read an article on the Free Movement blog.
Click here to read an article by Kalayaan on the tied domestic workers’ visa.
Click here to read the Employment Appeals Tribunal decision.