Asylum seeker support worker speaks out:
Eira Hadfield-Jones, Rhondda Cynon Taff Socialist Party
When I found out I would be working for Migrant Help, a charity supporting migrants, I was overjoyed that I would be helping vulnerable people in the UK asylum system, despite knowing virtually nothing about how it operated.
Turns out, I was actually being employed by a private company that provides call centre services to multiple major charities. The charity I worked at was contracted by the Home Office to provide support for millions of pounds, but then it outsourced its phonelines to another company! Despite the inconceivable amounts of money being passed around, I did mentally gruelling work in horrible conditions for just £12 an hour.
I soon learned that the entire UK asylum system is run for-profit. The Asylum Accommodation and Support Contract (AASC) will cost the government an estimated £4 billion over its ten-year duration. The housing contracts are divided between 3 private companies: Serco, Mears and Clearsprings, each of which have long histories of scandals and are well known for the awful conditions in their asylum accommodation.
The housing system for asylum seekers is a two-stage process. Asylum seekers start in ‘initial accommodation’. This is usually a hotel or hostel but has also included military barracks. What was initially intended to be a short-term solution often lasts a year or longer. After which, asylum seekers are moved to ‘dispersal accommodation’. Complaints about everything from food (if provided), to maintenance issues and cleanliness are common. The AASC lists timeframes for maintenance issues to be completed within, which are so long that they are functionally worthless. Issues such as rat infestations and prolific mould have a 21-working day timeframe to begin the first treatment. During these waits, issues get so severe that houses can fall into complete disrepair.
Asylum seekers who were being housed in the Penally army camp in Pembrokeshire, known for its awful conditions, formed the union “Camp Residents of Penally”, which aimed to “work democratically, transparently and fairly, to include and empower [residents] to meet their own needs and to benefit the wider area”. Their work to oppose their conditions with mass action and the support of the local community led to the successful closure of Penally camp.
Stories like these point to how asylum seekers can get organised and build links to struggle alongside the wider trade union and socialist movement. Asylum seekers are all-but barred from working in the UK, but their interests still align fundamentally with the working class and can be met with collective mass action. Asylum seekers are treated as cogs in an asylum system that, while failing on every humanitarian ground imaginable, is a massively successful capitalist project, with huge profits being made. Ultimately, while the Home Office continues to see the needs of refugees as a money-making venture, the UK will just exist as another country it’s unsafe for them to live in.
