13. Migrant workers taking action
Building the union
After an initial meeting in a McDonald’ s, workers took on tasks: bringing more colleagues, collecting statements, and recruiting former employees who had been sacked. Meetings were held in cafés in Basildon town centre. Each time, more workers came, including some from outside the Indian community. At first the Nigerian workforce was difficult to reach because many were the manager’ s relatives, but eventually the organiser identified a Nigerian worker outside that family who was also unhappy with her treatment. With her help, others began to join too.
The organiser listened carefully to every story, making sure workers felt heard and safe.“ Listen to them when they say they’ re scared. Don’ t dismiss it. Give them space to air those feelings,” she explained. She set up a WhatsApp group and held regular online calls to keep the group united.“ It was constant communication, that’ s how they stayed strong.”
She also prepared the group for collective action: going through their stories over and over so everyone knew what to expect, helping them rehearse answers to employer questions, and ensuring each worker had evidence ready.“ They turned up with identical notebooks,” she recalled,“ each one filled with times, dates and details. They had photocopied all of their evidence so they could hand it over point by point.”
Behind the scenes, the organiser carried out detailed research on the employer, looked at other homes the company ran, and identified allies who could help apply pressure.“ You need to figure out the best pressure points. For this company, councils placed residents there – so that was money. I had leaders in the council ready to apply pressure if needed.” She also considered following up with the recruitment agency and targeting homes the same company ran elsewhere in Kent. Media options were prepared if the case was ignored.
Above all, she highlighted the leadership of Gopal, who held the group together.“ He was incredible, the one everyone trusted and turned to. I was lucky to work with him because he kept people strong when things got difficult.”
Collective grievance
Together, the group lodged a collective grievance against the home manager, the administrator, the care coordinator and the area manager. The grievance included bullying and harassment, racial discrimination, falsification of documents and even lying to the police. Importantly, the organiser escalated the grievance directly to the top of the company, making sure it could not be buried.“ I put it in as high as I could in the company, not just against the home manager but the area manager, administrator and care coordinator – so it had to be escalated.”
The company’ s initial response was hostile, but they quickly brought in an external HR consultancy when they saw the seriousness of the allegations. Management began to panic. Two dismissed workers were reinstated with compensation. The
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