BY Felicity Lawrence, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
The Guardian, United Kingdom; Mar 09, 2004

Tens of thousands of migrant Ukrainian workers in the UK are being exposed to routine exploitation even when they have permits to work here. Their plight is exposed in a report published by the TUC today, which includes extensive interviews with workers in agriculture, food processing, catering and construction. [TUC-Trade Union Congress]

The report reveals that they are often paid less than half what British workers are paid for the same jobs. They also suffer frequent industrial injuries and live in overcrowded conditions. Many have come to the UK legitimately on government schemes for seasonal agricultural workers (SAWS) or for specific sectors needing unskilled labour (SBS), but find the conditions so harsh that they are driven into the black economy in London.

"Gone West - The Harsh Reality of Ukrainians at Work in the UK," documents their stories. Stepan Shakhno, a Ukrainian student and chairman of the European Youth Parliament in west Ukraine, spent several months last summer collecting evidence from Ukrainians for the TUC report.

"They often live in complete wretchedness and with a constant fear of deportation. When they do find work, they are usually treated much worse than they would ever be at home," he says.

Vasyl's case is typical. He paid $1,000 in bribes in the Ukraine to get onto the SAWS scheme. When he arrived to work on a strawberry farm, he was told he would be paid pounds 2 for every box he filled. But when managers found he and his fellow Ukrainians worked hard, they cut the rate to 50p per box.

The hours were long and of ten involved working all day in the rain. "Many people got ill, but of course they couldn't stop working. We were completely dependent on our employer as he could fire us at any moment," he said.

Paul's experience was similar. "I was working cleaning and packing cabbages, and packing mushrooms, standing by a conveyor belt on cold concrete all day. When my visa expired my employer left me on the same job but my salary was now less than half what I'd earned before. During police raids, I had to flee into the forest just like all the others."

Friends had not been paid by their agency for weeks, and were then turned in to immigration.

"A migrant's life is not an easy one. You constantly risk being cheated, robbed or deported. You have no rights, no moral support. You simply don't feel like a human being anymore." Paul said.

Peter came as a student and pays bribes to his English language school to keep his visa valid even though he does not attend. He works full time instead. "I have a younger brother - I am paying for his university. My father works very hard, but he can only make $60 (pounds 32) a month, which is not even enough for groceries. My mother has cancer. I miss them so much, but I am their only hope. I am the only one who can support them."

Although official figures are not available, estimates put the number of Ukrainians working in London as high as 40,000, with possibly up to 100,000 Ukrainians in the UK as a whole, according to Mr Shakhno. "It is easy to condemn these people but we shouldn't forget they have been compelled by force of utter need to leave their family and friends," Mr Shakhno said.

Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and privatisation in 1991, the Ukrainian economy has floundered. About 70% of the population live in poverty as defined by the Ukrainian government. Research by the International Labour Organisation found that a quarter of those surveyed had not received their wages in the preceding three months.

The result has been an exodus, with between 5million and 7million Ukrainians leaving the country to look for work abroad in the last 10 years.

After May 1 and the enlargement of the EU, Ukraine will be on the eastern border of the union. The TUC predicts that once other eastern European countries that have been sources of illegal labour in the past join the EU, bad employers will look outside the EU for replacement undocumented workers they can employ on low pay for long hours.

The Ukraine already provides a fifth of entrants under the recently expanded SAWS scheme and many of those on the SBS work in meat and fish processing, mushroom growing and hotels and catering. Poland is the only country contributing more workers on these schemes.

In 2002, more than 2,800 visas were issued to students from Ukraine, many of whom also work. Very few Ukrainians claim asylum - only 365 out of a total of 84,000 applications in 2002. The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, called on the government to change the way employment schemes were administered so that they were not abused.

"Hundreds of unscrupulous agencies, gangmasters and employers are getting very rich very quickly off the back of migrant workers. Media and political anger should be directed at these exploiters, not the migrant workers coming here to build themselves a better life back home."