FEATURE: Can We Stop The Exploitation?

When Victor Armitage (Pseudonym to protect his identity) arrived in England a few months ago, his hopes of making good the opportunity thousands and millions of his compatriots back home are looking for were unparalleled. He believed he had whatever it takes to make it in a highly competitive environment like England: 6.3 tall, with a college education and a very undying spirit to mention but a few of his qualities.

His first shocker came when he called this writer to complain about the kind of jobs his fellow countrymen are engaged knowing their qualifications and standings back home, and how difficult it was for him to even get what he termed ‘a common cleaning job’.

The days became weeks and the weeks turned into months without any job to start with. Unfortunately, there are no free meals here in England. So the first three months of his monthly rent had to be sent from home.

According to him, luck finally came his way when was offered a cleaning job by MacLellan Cleaning Company for 3 hours cleaning each morning for August 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29 and 30th for a rate of £5.29 per hour working in halls of residence at Southampton Solent University.

Just like every labourer, Victor also deserves his wages. But contrary to his expectations, the payment of his wages became a hide and seek tale. All attempts, through numerous enquiries by phone, to get the company to pay him his wages were futile.

I personally intervened by calling the companies front-man, Mr Derek Blakeley, who promised to check his records and honour payment but to no avail.

Therefore, there was no option left for Victor than to report the issue to the Citizens Advice Bureau, Southampton (Ref: FE/RO, Tel: +44-23-8022-1406, Fax: +44-23-8023-7284), as I advised him to do.

As of the time of writing this piece (19/10/2006), wages for the aforementioned period are still unpaid. With rent and other exigencies to meet in a very individualistic society like this, one can imagine how victor is surviving in the circumstances.

It is even more serious for those who do not have the legal rights to work here. I have come across individuals who rendered services to some of these agencies and their unscrupulous agents for weeks and months only to be told to produce documentation which allows them to work here. The question is: when these individuals were being recruited, weren’t recruiting agents aware of their illegal status?

I am, however, certain that with the involvement of the Citizen Advice Bureau, Southampton, Victor will be paid his wages and appropriate actions will be instituted against this unscrupulous individuals working for this organization to stop them from exploiting other vulnerable individuals like Victor.

The advice to our people is that they should be very proactive to challenge some of these dodgy attitudes of employers who take them for ‘a wild ride’

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.