'We sacrificed everything we had'

When Ubay* was told in January that he and his wife had been selected to work in the UK, they celebrated. The 37-year-old father of four from Uzbekistan, had seen his timber import business go bankrupt. Here was a chance to get his family out of debt.

He had previously received similar offers that looked like scams, but this time there was no reason to be suspicious. The recruitment drive was organised by the Uzbek government. There had been a formal interview process. He would be working on a UK government visa.

More than six months later, however, Ubay’s involvement in the UK’s seasonal worker scheme has left him unemployed and with yet more loans he can’t pay off.

Ubay is one of nearly 100 workers from Uzbekistan who paid hundreds of pounds to work on UK farms and have been left without the jobs they had been promised after the Home Office revoked the sponsor licence of the company that recruited them.

“Working in the UK gave me a lot of hope,” Ubay told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ). “But when we lost our jobs, we lost all hope … I don’t know how to repay the debt.”

The workers had each paid nearly £400 to the Home Office and a government contractor for seasonal workers’ visas before the UK-based recruitment company, Ethero, had its licence cancelled earlier this month. Some workers who spoke to TBIJ said they had quit their jobs in Uzbekistan and paid out as much as £800 for visas, flights and other costs.

Ethero was one of the six government-licensed recruiters that offer people from overseas a six-month temporary visa to work on farms as part of the UK’s seasonal worker scheme. It had offered jobs to more than 1,800 Uzbek workers but fewer than 400 had been sent to work in the UK before the company had its sponsor licence cancelled on 2 August, reportedly because it could not guarantee the required minimum number of paid hours.

The consortium to which Ethero belongs has told workers it will not be offering them compensation.

Ubay says he and his wife borrowed more than £800 – the equivalent of more than three months’ wages in Uzbekistan – to pay fees to the UK Home Office, the contractor in charge of processing visas and the Uzbek government, as well as for a medical certificate. Besides the money he has wasted, he says, he lost seven months of his life during which he turned down other jobs. With he and his wife both unemployed, they have borrowed more money to make ends meet.

The Uzbek government has offered to give back about £100 workers paid in administrative costs. At least one person has been told by the Home Office they would be entitled to a £300 refund if they withdrew their application. However, they would still be out of pocket by about £100, since there has been no offer to refund the visa processing charge or the cost of their medical certificates. Other workers told TBIJ they had not been contacted.

On Monday more than a dozen workers went to the offices of the Uzbek government’s ministry of employment demanding to be given the jobs they had been offered – or refunded the money they spent.

Ethero’s licence was initially suspended on 1 May, but workers in Uzbekistan were not informed until some time later – in some instances, several weeks.

An email sent to workers by Telpasc in May said the company had been handed a “temporary suspension” to its sponsor licence. “We hope and expect this will be lifted soon,” it said. Later correspondence from the company said the suspension would be lifted on 13 June, followed by emails saying a decision would come on 10 July, then 24 July.

However, on 6 August the workers were told that the company’s licence had been revoked altogether and that they would not be able to come to the UK.

“We lost our jobs, our money, our health – in short, we sacrificed everything we had for this,” said Bahromjon, 23, who quit his job as a solar panel installer after he was offered a placement in the UK. He is now unemployed and unable to look for work abroad because his passport is still with the company in charge of processing UK visas.

“We didn’t [do] something wrong. We just followed what Telpasc said to us and that’s all,” said Abdullo*, a 23-year-old former English teacher. “The saddest thing is that I have already resigned my work, and I was waiting for the visa […] for three months.”

He said the government and Telpasc should compensate people for the money they lost.

“The most important thing for me is to get back my money fully,” he said.

When contacted by TBIJ, Ethero declined to comment.

Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP told TBIJ that this case shows how vulnerable workers are to exploitation.

“There needs to be an independent review of the [seasonal worker visa] scheme to determine its fundamental overhaul,” he said. “In the meantime, the government must take immediate action to secure compensation from this company for these workers.”

Zack Polanski, deputy leader of the Green Party, said that the Home Office should ensure the workers are able to find jobs elsewhere given that many farmers might want to employ them.

“This is an appalling injustice that could leave these workers in a desperate situation through no fault of their own,” he said.

An Uzbek official said the country’s government agencies have been approached by workers asking for help in recovering the money they had paid out. “Every day, we are receiving lots of complaints, reports regarding this issue,” said the official.

The Uzbek government recently met with its British ambassador to discuss the situation, and it has contacted the UK’s Home Office and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA).

Caroline Robinson, executive director of the Worker Support Centre, which assists workers on the scheme, said the new government has a chance to make changes to the visa so that workers are protected.

“These risks are baked into this scheme which has been designed without input from workers,” she said. “We have a ridiculous situation where no one has stopped to think, until now, what will happen to those workers affected by this licence suspension and revocation.”

Workers such as Ubay, Bahromjon and Abdullo are vital to the UK’s horticultural sector, which is reliant primarily on migrants to pick crops in fields and pack them in warehouses. A recent government-commissioned review into labour shortages in the agriculture sector said that “unappealing working conditions” made it difficult to recruit British people.

Despite concerns over the seasonal worker visa scheme, it has been repeatedly expanded since it was launched five years ago. From an initial 2,500 workers in 2019, now more than 30,000 come each year from more than 60 countries around the world.

The visa relies on a handful of recruiters – called “scheme operators” – to sponsor workers’ visas and secure them placements on UK farms. Previously, many workers were given zero-hours contracts, but rules have been tightened and now scheme operators need to guarantee that people on the visa are given at least 32 hours of paid work per week. Ethero had its licence revoked for failing to fulfil this condition, according to the Grocer magazine.

The Seasonal Worker Interest Group, a coalition of NGOs and frontline organisations that support seasonal workers, has called on the government to compensate workers left out of pocket and for the immigration status of workers who are already in the UK to remain unaffected.

“Our organisations have previously pressed the government to have a publicly accessible plan in place to deal with the fallout of licence revocation for workers, and asked for information to share with workers since we knew the licence was suspended in May, to no avail,” it said. “This is yet another systemic failure in the governance and operation of the seasonal worker visa.”

The Home Office told TBIJ: “Sponsors must meet their obligations to workers or potentially face removal from the sponsorship register.”

It did not answer questions as to whether it would compensate workers.

A spokesperson for the GLAA said it had been contacted by the Uzbek government and was liasing with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Home Office.

“We have asked them to consider a response to the Uzbek government as they work to resolve this,” the spokesperson said.

* Names have been changed

By Emiliano Mellino

This feature first appeared on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism website on August 24.