29 agosto, 2014 | Fundación Ideas para la Paz

work in place of officers at any of the IRCs [Immigration Removal True scale of captive Centres] that we manage and operate and thereby made a migrant labour revealed profit.” Employment lawyers told Corporate Watch the scheme is open to G4S, Serco, GEO and Mitie, which hold large government challenge on several fronts. The responded to our contracts to run centres across the UK, investigation saying “The long-standing practice of offering paid paid hundreds of detainees a total of £45,438 for working 44,832 work to detainees has been praised by Her Majesty’s hours – the equivalent of 6,000 working days — in May 2014, Inspectorate of Prisons as it helps to keep them occupied whilst according to disclosures under the Freedom of Information Act. their removal is being arranged. Whether or not they wish to The majority of detainees were only paid £1 an hour, with some participate is entirely up to the detainees themselves. This paid £1.25 for certain jobs. practice is not intended to substitute the work of trained staff.”

Detainees interviewed by Corporate Watch say the work includes Corporate Watch is continuing our investigation, so if you have cooking, cleaning and other jobs such as building maintenance any information to share please get in touch. Email that are all necessary for operating the detention centres. The contact[at]corporatewatch.org or call 0207 426 0005. cost to the companies of paying workers the £6.31 minimum Filmmakers at Stand Off Films are looking to interview wage for an equivalent amount of work in that month would have ex-detainees who worked in detention. Email been more than a quarter of millions pounds. Over the course of standoffilms[at]gmail.com or call 07901 306 946. a year, this difference could amount to nearly £3m more than the companies paid the asylum-seekers. * * *

The largest employer of detained migrants is GEO, an American As the government cracks down on undocumented workers and company that Corporate Watch estimates could be saving nearly forces employers to check their staff’s immigration status, we £1.5m annually by not paying detainees the minimum wage. This have found that over 900 migrants are working for as little as £1 is equivalent to more than a third of GEO’s gross profit from its per hour in detention centres where they are held after UK detention centres. The company even employs some immigration raids or asylum interviews. By contrast, the Home detainees for night shift work, including cleaning the floors with Office issued 1,270[4] fines to employers of illegal migrant power tools while the rest of the centre is locked up. workers last year.

[embedded content] The Corporate Watch investigation has found that the most prolific employer of detainee labour is GEO. A subsidiary of this Phil Miller speaking about asylum seekers working in detention American prison company runs two detention centres in the UK: centres[1] from Standoff Films[2] on Vimeo[3]. Harmondsworth, outside Heathrow Airport, the largest site in the People in UK immigration removal centres are held under country with 661 beds, and the smaller 217-bed Dungavel centre administrative detention powers, meaning they are not serving a in . GEO’s detainees worked 22,506 hours in May 2014, criminal sentence. Instead they are waiting for their immigration according to management data obtained by Corporate Watch. and asylum cases to be decided. Asylum-seekers are not normally They received £22,987 in pay. allowed to work outside of detention.

Although detainees are not forced to work in the centres, many of them say they need the job to afford essential toiletries, food and phone calls to lawyers. One detainee told Corporate Watch he was paid £17 per week for serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the canteen in Harmondsworth from Sunday afternoons to Wednesdays. He asked: “do they think we just got off a slave ship?”. Based on the data for that month, we estimate that GEO could Security giant G4S employed asylum-seekers in its two detention have saved nearly £1.5m last year by not paying the minimum centres for 10,067 hours during May 2014, paying them £10,192. wage for this work. The latest set of accounts for GEO Group UK Paying staff the minimum wage for that month would have cost showed a gross profit – described as a “key performance £63,523. Over the course of a year, that potential saving could indicator” — of almost £4m. So the wages potentially saved by amount to almost £640,000. using detainee labour is equivalent to more than a third of GEO’s gross profit for its UK detention business. Mitie paid detainees £2,948 for 2,948 hours in May 2014. One detainee told Corporate Watch he was paid just £15 per week for One detainee, who like all those we spoke to wishes to remain 12 hours work preparing bedding packs at the company’s anonymous, told Corporate Watch he works as a decorator at Campsfield centre. Harmondsworth and paints the walls from 10.30am to 5pm, Mondays to Saturdays. He is paid just £6 per day. He said the job Serco’s detainees worked 9,311 hours in a month and were paid keeps him busy and is “something to do”. just £9,311. A leaked job description shows Serco hired a detainee to “restock sanitary dispensers” and “clean the floor” at Other detainees told us that some are employed at the notorious Yarl’s Wood site. Serco told Corporate Watch it Harmondsworth to work a night shift from 10pm to 1am, “refutes the implication that we have used residents to conduct cleaning the centre while the other detainees are locked in their

1 cells. GEO told us that “Detainees at Harmondsworth do not and therefore the suggestion that this saves Serco money and routinely or regularly work night shifts. Now and again a few that Serco is profiting from this is factually incorrect and not detainees, who choose to do this work, will be employed at night true.” But several former detainees we spoke to insisted that to buff floors in public areas using power tools. This is for a few their jobs did replace the work of Serco officers. hours only and not throughout the night. This is done when other detainees are in their rooms so the work is not interrupted by people walking on the floors as they are being buffed. This is the only work in the evenings at Harmondsworth and there is none at Dungavel.”

Security giant G4S runs two UK detention sites (Brook House and Tinsley House) next to Gatwick Airport. Detainees worked 10,067 hours in May 2014. They were paid £10,192. We estimate that G4S would have paid £640,000 more each year if it had to pay the minimum wage for this work.

G4S refused to comment on these figures, saying that it was “commercially sensitive information”, but insisted the company worked in accordance with Home Office rules. G4S said “the Detention Services Order for the provision of paid work opportunities provides the standard to which we must comply, including pay rates”. In September 2012, women detained in Yarl’s Wood organised a David Goggin from Home Office Immigration Enforcement “Movement for Justice” group and voted on a set of demands for explained that “Detainees are exempt from the provisions of the an immediate improvement to conditions at Yarl’s Wood. Those minimum wage by way of Section 59 of the Immigration, Asylum demands included: “Pay us at least the minimum wage for the and Nationality Act 2006. There are two tiers of pay: 1) routine work we do in detention”. The members refused to go to work work will be paid at a rate of £1.00 per hour, 2) specified projects and were reportedly sacked by the management for protesting. (as authorised by the Home Office Centre Manager) will be paid at a rate of £1.25 per hour.”

G4S has outsourced the canteen at Brook House to catering company Aramark, which is allowed to use the detainees to prepare meals for the centre. Aramark declined to comment. G4S runs a similar scheme in its prisons[5], offering “a committed workforce and low overheads” to firms that set up shop inside. The inmates manufacture furniture and even run a call centre.

Detainees in Serco’s notorious Yarl’s Wood women’s centre and the high-security Colnbrook site are also hard at work. A leaked job description from Yarl’s Wood confirmed that a detainee was being employed as a laundry assistant “to maintain the cleanliness of the area, help other residents [sic] with the Screenshot from Yarl’s Wood website machines as required and ensure area is tidy at all times”. The worker had to “empty bins in laundry, wipe down machines and The number of detainees employed at Yarl’s Wood appears to clean the floor”. The job was to be done in three 30 minute shifts have fallen since then. Prison Inspector Nick Hardwick said last each day. “You will receive £1.50 per day”, Serco’s job year “The amount of paid work at the centre had reduced since description states. the previous inspection, to approximately 50 places.”

A Serco spokesperson told Corporate Watch: “the practice of paid work is not intended to substitute the work of trained staff

2 in the form of electronic credits that can only be spent at a shop inside the centre that is run by the same company that employs and detains them.

Employment lawyers told Corporate Watch that the scheme is open to challenge on several fronts. Solicitors warned that the lack of holiday pay or a pension scheme are employment rights that were not ruled out under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, so detainees may still be eligible for them. Another issue is sacking detainees for conduct not related to their work – the Home Office’s own guidance[6] says this can include resisting a deportation attempt.

A handful of detention centres are run by the Prison Service Mitie is a well known employer of cleaners and facilities rather than private companies. Our data shows the state-run maintenance staff. But at its Campsfield detention centre outside centres also use a high level of detainee labour. In May 2014, Oxford, it was the detainees that did many of those jobs for the detainees worked 15,297.5 hours at Morton Hall, in Lincoln. company, clocking up 2,948 hours in May 2014, and receiving They were paid £15,297.5. At Dover, in the same month, the just £2,948. One detainee who prepared bedding packs at detainees did 6,822 hours work for £6,822. From these figures, Campsfield said he was paid £15 per week for 12 hours work. we estimate the Prison Service could have saved £1.4m last year Mitie is taking over the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook centres from detainee labour at Morton Hall and Dover. However, the at the end of August 2014. difference is that the Prison Service appears to provide more Francesca Litchfield, Business Development Manager for Mitie’s training and qualifications to the detainees in their centres Care and Custody division that runs Campsfield, told us Mitie compared to those run by the companies. Hardwick’s report on cannot comment directly because it had to refer all media Morton Hall found that “Detainees participated in an unusually enquiries to the Home Office, “as agreed as part of our client wide range of workplace learning, and received some relationship”. well-planned on-the-job training, allowing them to learn and develop vocational skills. Education staff regularly visited A Home Office spokesperson responded to Corporate Watch, on detainees in workplaces across the centre and provided them behalf of all the contractors, and said: “The long-standing with employability skills training, leading to a certificate. Quality practice of offering paid work to detainees has been praised by assurance arrangements for learning and skills were thorough Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons as it helps to keep them and effective.” occupied whilst their removal is being arranged. Whether or not they wish to participate is entirely up to the detainees Written and researched by Phil Miller themselves. This practice is not intended to substitute the work Referencias of trained staff.”

However, Nick Hardwick, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has 1.^Phil Miller speaking about asylum seekers working in made strong criticisms of the scheme, particularly the fact that detention centres (vimeo.com) all recruitment is vetted by the Home Office before any of the 2.^ Standoff Films (vimeo.com) contractors can employ a detainee. Hardwick has consistently 3.^ recommended that this vetting practice should cease. At Vimeo (vimeo.com) Harmondsworth, he found that the “recruitment processes 4.^1,270 (www.bbc.co.uk) enabled the Home Office to veto individual applications for work 5.^prisons (www.corporatewatch.org) for reasons of non-compliance, which amounted to inappropriate 6.^ interference in the centre’s ability to manage the population.” own guidance (www.gov.uk) His recommendation is repeated in all his detention centre inspection reports: “Detainees’ cooperation or failure to cooperate with the Home Office should not affect their ability to work.” At Yarl’s Wood, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons found, “much of the work was mundane, presenting little challenge and not offering suitable opportunities to those detained for long periods to develop their skills”.

Although detainees are not forced to work, many of them say they need the job to afford essential toiletries, food and phone calls to lawyers. One detainee told Corporate Watch he was paid £17 per week for serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the canteen in Harmondsworth from Sunday afternoons to Wednesdays. He asked “do they think we just got off a slave ship?” In an echo of the ‘sharecropping’ system, where newly-freed slave farmers in the southern states of America had to pay the landowner a share of their harvest, detainees get paid

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