THOUSANDS of workers from overseas answered the call to help rebuild health and social care after the pandemic. They came to the UK to turn around sectors in crisis, pulling them back from the brink. But now they’re being shown the door, and by a Labour government.

They arrived with the promise of being able to settle here after five years. Working on a visa sponsorship that’s meant being under the total control of their employer, and for many that’s amounted to putting up with years of coercion and abuse.

We would have expected a Labour government to bring an end to visa exploitation. But that’s not the case. The current one intends to extend the settlement period (giving them “indefinite leave to remain”) to 15 years. Three times longer to reach a point where they can be free from the control of a bad employer, where they can plan their futures properly and enjoy the rights of other workers.

I’ve seen first-hand the damage caused by our visa rules that make employment rights a distant dream for workers. One Unison care worker told us that every sentence their boss has said to them ended with the word “visa,” an ever-present threat to remind them of their precarious position.

Some employers have demanded back-to-back 12-hour shifts – or staff face dismissal. They’ve extorted tens of thousands of pounds from workers when it’s time for visa renewal. This cruelty is taking place in front of our eyes, sanctioned and encouraged by our rules, paid for by public money to outsourced private profiteers.

Unison and its members are clear – when we find exploitation, we organise against it. Unlike the government, we don’t demand to see someone’s citizenship before we decide if they qualify as members of the working class or fellow human beings. We don’t hold the dangerous view that migrant workers are somehow at fault for their exploited status or are undeserving of union solidarity.

A Labour government should have responded to this crisis by reforming the visa system, empowering workers and strengthening the employment rights of all workers. Instead, it has made migrant workers more vulnerable to deportation and exploitation. The current proposals weigh the worth of human beings by their pay. Low-waged workers don’t contribute enough to society, appears to be the view.

Lessons learned during the pandemic about how much society depends on key workers and front-line staff appear to have been forgotten.

Immigration rules don’t give a route for workers to take their employer to a tribunal. The countdown to deportation is far swifter than the whirring cogs of workplace justice.

On September 3, the announcement of protections for those experiencing “modern slavery” would have meant more if the steep thresholds hadn’t been raised and protections repeatedly watered down by successive home secretaries.

But, despite all the obstacles, it’s Unison’s migrant worker members themselves who’ve led the fight against exploitative employers. They’ve organised in their workplaces, become trade-union activists and reps. They’ve given us an inspiring lesson on how to organise in the most difficult of circumstances. They’ve not just fought for their rights, they’ve campaigned and organised for a national care service, for a fair-pay agreement, and for higher standards for the people in their care. When migrant workers organise, they fight for everyone.

We now take this fight to Congress and to the Labour Party conference. We’re demanding that proposals to keep low-paid migrant workers in limbo for 15 years should be dropped. At the very least, there should be no retrospective application of these unfair rules. We’re calling for reforms to our visa system to enable migrant workers to be empowered in the workplace, and for a fully funded Fair Pay Agreement in the social care sector.

Unison will always stand up for the dignity and worth of all the people it represents. Wherever they were born, whatever job they do and wherever they work in public services. At congress, we call on the wider union movement to join us.