BRITAIN’S biggest union today backed calls for the Employment Rights Bill to protect Britain’s up to 1.2 million undocumented migrants.

Unison head of policy Sampson Low said: “The new fair work agency must have proper resources so it can reach every part of the economy and ensure all workers are treated well at work.”

The United Voices of the World (UVW) union said: “Undocumented workers are among the most exploited in Britain, facing poverty wages, abuse and the constant threat of deportation.

“The Employment Rights Bill must include real protections for all workers, regardless of immigration status.

“Letting undocumented workers work legally would benefit everyone. It would boost the economy, strengthen public services and put an end to wage undercutting that drives a race to the bottom.”

Munya Radzi, founder of the Regularise campaign group, today told the Morning Star that the flagship workers’ rights Bill fails to tackle extreme worker exploitation of migrant workers “propping up” Britain’s economy.

He called for greater protections for the vulnerable group to be included in the Bill to prevent scandals such as when Boohoo sweatshop workers were discovered to being paid £3-an-hour in Leicester in 2020.

Mr Radzi, who founded Regularise in 2019 to help the vulnerable group a voice within the pro-refugee movement, said that the majority have worked in Britain’s care, construction, hospitality and gig-economy sectors for more than five years.

He said: “They consider themsleves a part of society in Britain but they are being denied their most basic rights.

“The government tends to frame all of this saying they are being exploited by gangs but the truth of the matter is the people are not being exploited by gangs — they work for regular companies and corporations in regular jobs but they do so in quite severe conditions of exploitation because they are unable to exercise their employment rights.”

He described how many of these workers are brought to suicide living in extremely over-crowded accommodation, suffering wage exploitation, rent extortion and sexual abuse due to the threats of being reported to the Home Office.

He said: “Undocumented people are integral to the UK economy and UK society as a whole.

“Many of them are working in jobs that many British-born people may not want to do themselves.

“These people are propping up the economy — if you deport 1.2 million people tomorrow, the economy collapses.”