Diaspora, work, employment and community • Kurdish workers in London

Diaspora, work, employment and community

A report on Kurdish workers in London Jane Holgate Janroj Keles Leena Kumarappan Anna Pollert ISBN 978-1-906182-04-5-2

©UMIT AVCU

Contents Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Authors’ details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Summary and key implications . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Advice centres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Government funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Executive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Key findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Trade unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Bibliography and further readings . . . . . . . . . 31

Research methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Dissemination and key outputs from the research to date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Hackney and the Kurdish minority ethnic group as case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A multi-method approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Interviews and focus groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Visual methods: the use of photography . . . . . . . 9

Research team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Section one: The type of problems workers faced . . . . . . . 11 Working in the ‘ethnic economy’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Working outside the ‘ethnic enclave’ . . . . . . . . . 14 Racism, sexism and discrimination at work . . . . 15

Section two: A lack of employment advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Trade unions and Kurdish workers . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Articles and reports: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Dissemination of research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Appendix 1: On-line support services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Appendix 2: Basic demographic data on interviewees . . . . . . . 35 Appendix 3: Key respondent organisations interviewed . . . . . 38 Appendix 4: Topic guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Appendix 5: Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Community advice agencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Section three: Seeking advice in the Kurdish community . . 22 Community organisations as advice agencies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Section four: Knowledge and experience of trade unions 26 Positive and negative views of trade unions . . . 26 Trade unions in the community . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 COVER IMAGES: FRONT ©JIM HODSON • BACK ©ARIF BEKTAS Diaspora, work, employment and community iii

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all those who took part in this research project. Firstly, we would like to offer our thanks to all those individual workers who took time out of their busy lives to share their stories with us. Many of you had suffered deeply as a result of mistreatment at work. From some, we heard about cases of physical violence, where people had been attacked while carrying out their daily jobs. Others had endured months, if not years of bullying and harassment and undocumented workers faced super exploitation, insidious institutional racism and stereotyping. To all of you we would like to say thank you and hope that we can help publicise the extent to which many workers experience problems at work and the extent to which there is a lack of freely available employment advice. We would also like to thank the many ‘key respondents’ who also shared with us their experiences of employment advice in and around the London borough of Hackney – many of you worked for advice agencies and know only too well that more of you are needed. Thanks to Hackney Community Law Centre, Tower Hamlets Citizens Advice, Hackney Citizens Advice, Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Dowse and Co solicitors.

Many individuals in community organisations also provided much of their valuable time in talking to us about their work but also in assisting us with finding workers to interview – many thanks to the following groups: Kurdish Community Centre, Halkevi, Kurdish Advice Centre, Kurdish Studies and Students

Organisation, RenkArt, Kurdish Human Rights Project, Hackney Advice Forum, Alevi Cultural Centre, Fed-Bir, Kurdish Cultural Centre, Kurdish Museum Project, Youth Parliament, DayMer. Many trade union branches, officials and members were also extremely helpful – again in talking to us about their work and in assisting us with finding interviewees. Special mention to the local branches of the GMB, Unite, Unison, Hackney TUC, thank you for your support.

The photographs contained in this booklet were taken by members of the Renk Art photography group and photojournalist Jim Hodson – each of the photographs is credited to the individual. The research team were supported by a project advisory group who gave valuable feedback on the early stages of our research and our thanks go out to you too. Any errors or mistakes in the report are the full responsibility of the authors of the report.

This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council ‘Influences of identity, community and social networks on ethnic minority representation at work’. RES-062-23-0464. © JIM HODSON

iv Diaspora, work, employment and community

Authors’ details Dr Jane Holgate is Senior Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute and was the principal investigator on the project. Jane’s area of research is around minority ethnic workers and labour market discrimination. She has worked closely with the trade union movement on union organising and migrant workers and is currently conducting research into community organising.

low-paid non-unionised. She has also researched and written on gender and class, the concept of ‘flexibility’ in employment and the transformation of employment relations in post-‘communist’ Central Eastern Europe. © Jane Holgate, Janroj Keles, Leena Kumarappan, Anna Pollert

Janroj Keles is Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute and has been part of this research team since 2007. Janroj’s research interests are trans-national migrant communities, diaspora, ethnicity, media, identity and representation. He has recently submitted his PhD in Media Studies about the mediated Turkish-Kurdish ethno-national conflict.

Dr Leena Kumarappan is a Research Fellow at the Working Lives Research Institute. She joined this project at the end of 2008 and her research interests include trade unions, identity, workplace discrimination and representation. In the past she has worked with community organisations in Ealing.

Professor Anna Pollert is Professor of the Sociology of Work at the Centre for Employment Studies Research, University of the West of England, Bristol. Her areas of interest are in ‘voice’ at work, including individual and collective representation, and the experience of the

Working Lives Research Institute, 31 Jewry Street, London EC2N 3EY Contact: j.holgate@leeds.ac.uk www.workinglives.org/ research-themes/wlri-projectwebsites/$-emraw/research.cfm ISBN: 978-1-906182-05-2 © JIM HODSON

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©UMIT AVCU

Executive summary This study into workers who have experienced problems at work was concerned with understanding more about how individuals went about dealing with the issues they faced. We were interested in exploring to whom people turned and what help they received and the extent to which they were able to get a resolution to their problems. By ‘problems’ we are referring to disciplinary and grievance issues, where workers are subject to bullying, harassment, victimisation and discrimination – as well as breaches of statutory rights, such as health and safety, failure to pay wages (including National Minimum Wage), provide holidays and abide by the Working Time Directive, amongst others.

The study focused on minority ethnic workers, as there have been few specific studies in this area. We chose three different minority ethnic communities in London to enable us to compare and contrast a whole range of different issues (these are detailed in the methodology section). In-depth interviews were undertaken with a total of 185 workers – 100 individually and 88 in 16 focus groups (three focus group participants were also interviewed individually) and 64 interviews with ‘key respondents’ who were officials from trade unions, advice agencies and community groups.

In this report we will mainly concentrate on the research on Kurdish workers in the London boroughs of Hackney and Haringey. For details of the reports on other communities please take a look at our website where you will be able to download files (see back page).

Key findings qq It is clear from a wide range of other studies that there is substantial evidence that workplace problems among all Br itish workers are widespread. The Fair Treatment at Work Survey of 4,000 employees in Britain in 2008 found that a third of people had a problem at work and that eight months was the mean time taken to resolve a problem. The most common attempt to solve a problem was by talking to a manager (66 per cent)

and the least common was to make an application to an Employment Tribunal (3 per cent). qq While one study has shown that minority ethnic respondents are no more likely to experience problems than white respondents, others have found that minority ethnic workers were overrepresented among the low-paid, non-unionised in the labour force and that ethnic minority workers are at a greater disadvantage in the labour market as a result of prejudice, racism, xenophobia and the spaces in which they inhabit. qq Although unionised workers can seek support with their trade union these are now a minority – the majority of workers in the UK are not members of unions. In 2008, there was a further decline in trade union density from 28 per cent of employees in 2007 to 27.4 per cent in 2008 (density was 55.4 per cent in 1979). qq These figures show that while the majority of workers in the UK do not have access to trade unions as a source of help and advice when they face problems at work, what the general figures do not show is that, apart from black Caribbeans, the situation is even worse for some minority ethnic groups and in particular Kurdish workers. qq Evidence suggests that non-unionised workers seek advice primarily through management, their line manager or through friends and family and only a minority seek independent external advice. Yet, workers seeking external advice are limited by the scarce resources available. qq This report illustrates that finding appropriate, timely and informative employment advice is very difficult for the majority of workers in the three minority ethnic groups we studied – a finding very similar to that of research on other workers in Britain. While there are a number of government and voluntary sector advice websites and telephone help lines available to workers (see Appendix 1 for list) very few of the workers interviewed during this research knew about these or had used them when they had problems. While these may be very useful to some workers in providing basic or technical advice, we found that what workers really wanted Diaspora, work, employment and community 1

to do was to talk through the specifics of their case and to find an advisor who would represent them in dealings with their employer. qq The findings also show that there is a dearth of employment advice available, particularly for the most vulnerable of workers, but also for most workers without trade union representation. The lack of safe confidential spaces to seek employment advice was very evident not only from workers themselves, but also from the advice agencies based in the three local communities under study. qq Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres were among the main resources identified by the workers as their first port of call when faced with problems at work, but there were problems in getting access to information and representation due to restricted opening hours and ineligibility for legal aid. qq In some cases community organisations were providing basic advice to workers with problems but they mainly operated as referral points to other bodies – many of whom were only able to provide limited advice. The research found that there was scope for greater engagement between advice agencies and community organisations. qq Racism and sexism, however, were powerful forces affecting the problems faced by workers, even if these particular words were not articulated, instead workers used other discourse to describe their problems – usually bullying and harassment. A deep sense of isolation and alienation also came across through narratives of racism experienced at work. qq While many Kurdish workers articulated instrumental reasons for union membership, there was also a strong belief in unions as the best protectors of workers’ rights where collective strength was important in fighting for better terms and conditions. qq There was considerable support for the idea of unions being more rooted in the community, particularly among the non unionised and those in the private sector, although this was also the case for some unionised workers who looked back to 2 Diaspora, work, employment and community

the time when unions were much more active at a community level. qq The nature of migration of Kurds is very different to that of some other ethnic groups in the UK because the majority of Kurds have migrated from the disputed territory of Kurdistan as a result of the ethnic discrimination, political prosecution, displacement and war between the Kurdish national movements and states occupying Kurdistan including Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Therefore the Kurdish community in the UK has a high percentage of political refugees and although the Kurdish community has been described as relatively self-sufficient and business-like, there is behind this façade, considerably poverty, which is often found in refugee communities. This is especially the case for those who are unable to speak English and those who do not have relevant skills and who, as a consequence suffer considerable poverty and super-exploitation by working within sections of the Kurdish and Turkish ‘ethnic economy’. qq Many of first generation migrants are reliant on community-based voluntary organisations and on the ‘ethnic enclave’ for help, support and in finding work. While this ‘community solidarity’1 may be helpful to some people in finding work, the notion of ‘community solidarity’ and the benefit of social networks can be contradictory in practice.

Kinship networks or community solidarity means that employers are able to use their financial and symbolic power to exploit ‘vulnerable’ workers who are often forced to work for long hours and low wages and have little recourse to outside advice and support. This ‘exploitative solidarity’ is widely spread amongst Kurdish community. qq However, we found that within the Kurdish community use is made of a formal dispute resolution mechanism called the peace committee to deal with some of the more serious employment related problems and it was here that Kurdish community centres were able to play a role in helping to resolve difficulties between members of the same community. The peace committee is made up of respected community elders who are elected by

members of community centres. The committee, which had considerable standing in the community, would be called on to arbitrate and its decisions were expected to be binding on the parties involved (although, of course, had no enforcement in law).

In some unsolved or complicated cases, even the police have used the peace committee to solve the disputes within the community.

labour market. First generation Kurdish females are often employed in Kurdish shops and restaurants.

The second generation who have grown up or been educated in the UK often have more professional occupations and work mainly out side community in finance, legal, education and the health sectors.

Bullying and sexual harassment were the most serious problems they faced in the workplace.

qq The British state’s policy to register overseas migrants according to their nationality, not their ethnic affiliation, makes Kurds invisible in the Census and the Labour Force Survey. As a result, there is no UK government data on Kurds in the UK, instead they are subsumed under the definition ‘Turkish’. The consequence of this has an impact on the information, advice and guidance available to people in the Kurdish communities, as their needs as Kurds are not catered for and as such some are unable to access local and national social services provided for migrants in Britain. qq Kurdish women face gender-based discrimination within the ‘ethnic economy’ as well as in broader ©ARIF BEKTAS

Diaspora, work, employment and community 3

Introduction This research came about because of concern about the lack of support for workers facing problems at work.

With over 70 per cent of workers in the UK labour market without union representation our concern was to find out what people do when they have a problem at work. While there has been previous work in this area we wanted specifically to focus both on recent migrants and minority ethnic groups – who represent some of the more vulnerable workers and who are all too often subject to discrimination at work. Our interest was to find out what individuals knew about the advice available and the extent to which individuals from minority ethnic communities were able to seek some support or help from within ethnic community based organisations.

We began this research by asking to whom minority ethnic workers turn for help, support and representation

4  Diaspora, work, employment and community

when they have problems at work. Was it colleagues in the workplace community, for example, managers, colleagues or trade unions, or support organisations in the local community, for example Citizens Advice or Law Centres? Did people use their social networks within their ethnic communities or did they turn to other forms of community organisations, for example faith, cultural, political or social groups, or did they do nothing?

Since the 1970s, there has been little academic work on minority ethnic communities and their relationships with trade unions and/or other work-related organisations, yet racism, discrimination in the labour market, migration and social exclusion are issues that have become increasingly central to social science and politics. Research has shown that tackling social exclusion requires that all members of communities have equality of access to work, housing, services and political participation, but in the context of work, this remains an aspiration.

Arguably, as major institutions of civil society and key agents of inclusivity in and beyond the workplace, trade unions are uniquely placed to work with minority ethnic workers who are seeking to challenge social exclusion.

Yet, although some unions have made inroads into forming alliances and coalitions with migrant minority ethnic community groups, to date, these initiatives are few (and very new) and have been little analysed in the UK2. Trade unions are the most significant representative and collective organisations in the UK, representing some six and a half million members, of which six per cent are from minority ethnic groups – yet 70 percent of workers have no union representation. To whom do these workers turn to for problems at work and what advice is available to them?

We found that some seek help from Citizens Advice Bureaux and others from Law Centres or other local advice agencies, but also that others do nothing at all3. A

survey of 501 workers with employment problems found that black and minority ethnic workers in workplaces where the majority of workers are from an ethnic minority, are more likely than others to seek help from friends and family4. Previous research has shown that some minority ethnic workers turn to informal in-work communities, anti-racist organisations including black women’s groups, external community-based organisations, faith-based groups, national charities, and informal self-organisation in trade unions, as alternative sources of support and guidance to trade unions5. And, other research6 has also noted, but not investigated, the importance of ‘community’ to different groups of minority ethnic workers and the steps taken by key actors to demonstrate mutual benefits of community and trade union joint working.

Our research project has built upon this previous research by focusing on ‘communities’, rather than trade unions, © JIM HODSON

Diaspora, work, employment and community 5

as places where people access support for problems at work – an area that has, until recently, received little attention. The purpose was to find out whether local community-based organisations or social networks can and do play a role in providing support for workers who have problems at work as well as to understand in more detail the problems workers face.

In addition, we wanted to explore the interplay between processes of social inclusion (and exclusion) among minority ethnic workers in London focusing on how the positioning of individuals in terms of class, migration status, ethnicity and gender influences their ability to build communities and the commonalties on which these communities are based. We therefore explored the experiences of place, ethnicity, class and religion and the role of these in articulating commonalties and differences and what characteristics of social spaces encourage community building.

Another aim was to contribute high-quality and rich empirical data upon which government, public bodies, minority ethnic communities, trade unions and related stakeholders can make evidence-based policy decisions

on how to address the exclusion of minority ethnic workers from the full benefits of union membership, and thereby more fully contribute to tackling social exclusion and disadvantage. To assist with this wider public engagement we have disseminated research findings through academic conferences, articles, reports and workshops in the UK and abroad. We have also written a number of papers that cover some of the main issues in more detail than we have the space to do in this report and they can be found in the section on dissemination and key outputs towards the end of this report.

Our research project has focused on the Kurds living in Hackney and Haringey and our research has mainly focused on issues around work, but also issues of community, belonging and social networks and how these are all intertwined with issues of employment.

While the research was undertaken with three minority ethnic communities in three different London boroughs we will only been considering the findings in relation to Kurds in this report. For information on all three groups see www.workinglives.org/research-themes/wlri-projectwebsites/$-emraw/reports.cfm. Š JIM HODSON

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Research methods We used a range of research methods to answer the questions set out on the previous pages. Some of these were traditional methods used in the social sciences, planned at the outset, while others were formulated in response to our work with communities when we felt we needed deeper understanding of particular issues. In this section we will set out the methodological framework used to collect and analyse data for the study.

Hackney and the Kurdish minority ethnic group as case study In an attempt to understand social networks in some detail, and the context in which people live their lives, the research focused on the Kurdish ethnic minority community in Hackney. Although it is accepted that people’s communities are not geographically bounded – either in terms of work or home life, the focus on local boroughs did provide us with the opportunity to investigate whether individuals with problems at work were aware of what was (and was not) available in their localities. The boroughs also provided a geographical research framework as useful contextual, quantitative data is collated at this scale (e.g. Census and Labour Force Survey) and community activity and support networks are often found organised at the scale of local boroughs.

The rationale for the choice of this ethnic group allowed for an exploration of a range of issues that influence the way minority ethnic workers access support for work related issues and these were: qq Kurds represent a significant under-researched ethnic group located in a particular geographical area within the boroughs of Hackney and Haringey. qq Kurds are a more recent minority ethnic comm­unity in the UK. The Kurdish community has a high percentage of political refugees. Although there are no verifiable accurate figures on the Kurdish population in Hackney, it is estimated from some data sources, that they represent one of the largest minority ethnic groups and form a substantial community in specific parts of the

borough (and the largest Kurdish community in the UK). qq There are sufficient numbers to enable the team to consider variables such as gender, age and occupation in Kurdish communities. qq Trade union membership among the Kurdish community is relatively unknown and undocumented. qq Many Kurds describe their religion as Alevi – a heterodox religion that has strong secular references. qq Although not homogeneous, many within the Kurdish community can be found working within the ‘ethnic enclave’ mainly in food processing and small businesses such as shops and restaurants. qq There are significant differences between first and second-generation migrants and also there are also a number of Kurdish workers who are working without documentation.

A multi-method approach We used a multi-method approach, and attempted to gather data from a variety of sources. We did an initial literature review to understand some of the key issues that affect the Kurdish community. This was followed by 21 interviews with ‘key respondents’ who were officials from trade unions, advice agencies and community groups. These gave us a wider perspective on work-related and other issues specific to Hackney and the Kurdish community (see Appendix 3 for full list). The next stage of the research was to conduct face-to-face in-depth interviews and focus groups with Kurdish workers.

Interviews and focus groups We conducted in-depth interviews with a total of 61 workers – 29 individually and 20 others in five focus groups. We used multiple access routes to find workers to interview: we sent out emails through trade unions; put up posters in local libraries and community centres; hung around or leafleted outside cafes, community spaces, factories and shops; spoke at union meetings; posters were printed in Kurdish languages (Kurmanji and Sorani) and also in Turkish in local the Kurdish Diaspora, work, employment and community 7

©UMIT AVCU

8 Diaspora, work, employment and community

Telgraf newspaper. We used social networking sites and the Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation’s email list to circulate information. We made an effort to get a cross section of workers according to sector, workplace, gender, union membership, age, etc.

All the participants were given a brief explanation about the research and assured full confidentiality before seeking their consent for the interview. They were also offered a small fee for their time. We then asked them to fill out a short questionnaire through which we collected data on age, gender, sector of work, pay, trade union membership etc (see Appendix 5). This information was later analysed using quantitative data analysis software SPSS. The focus groups followed the same pattern and there were between four and 12 workers in each group.

We conducted the interviews and focus groups in places convenient to the participants including their homes, workplaces, local community centres, cafes and at our office. Sixteen interviews were conducted in Kurdish and the rest in English. All interviews were recorded, translated where necessary, transcribed, and analysed using qualitative data analysis software Nvivo.

Visual methods: the use of photography Although the interviews were mainly concerned with how individuals dealt with problems at work we wanted to investigate where people went to access support and advice. To whom did people turn and what advice was available and how helpful was that advice? We were interested in finding out the extent to which people used friends and family or social networks in their locality and whether there were any particular ethnic-based organisations to which people turned. As such we also included questions on identity, ethnicity, community and belonging, which elicited a range of complex responses from the workers. The three ethnic groups and the three local areas had distinct characteristics, which were articulated by the workers in terms of collective identities. In order to explore issues of identity in greater depth we wanted to experiment with other methodologies. Initially we had commissioned a photojournalist to record events in order to build archives and produce images for publications, but then decided also to give the opportunity to workers from the communities to express their sense of collective identity through photographs.

We were most successful in this endeavour in Hackney where we came across a local Kurdish photography group who agreed to take part in the research. We asked them to take pictures that they felt expressed Kurdish identity in everyday life in London. This group produced around 60 photographs of street scenes, cafes, businesses, social events, family, political demonstrations and marches.

We then used some of these photographs to conduct a focus group with 20 participants. In this focus group we showed one photograph at a time on a large screen and asked ‘what does this photograph say to you?’ and ‘what does this represent?’ Through this process we were able to elicit an interesting and illuminating discussion around identity and representation from our participants. For more photographs and discussion on results please see our website on the inside cover or the back of this report.

This aspect of the research project was an important for us in terms involving participants in the research process and sharing of power in the research relationship. We hope that by involving workers in this way it did in some way help to minimise the inequality in the power relationships often evident in academic research.

For example, in Hackney, we have worked with local community groups to establish a Workers Advice Project where we have used the photographs and findings from the research in an attempt to provide support and union organisation for workers who are experiencing problems at work. For more information on this aspect of our work see our website (see inside cover or back page for the address) where you can download a paper on the use of visual methods.

Diaspora, work, employment and community 9

Research team This research was conducted by an ethnically mixed research team where between us we have a wealth of languages and trade union and community experience.

Jane Holgate has done extensive research with minority ethnic workers on labour market discrimination and has worked closely with the trade union movement for many years. Janroj Keles has researched Kurdish and Turkish communities and speaks Kurdish and Turkish, and has strong connections with community centres and other Kurdish organisations.

Both Jane and Janroj live in Hackney and have been involved in many local groups and activities for many years. Leena Kumarappan speaks a number of Indian languages and has worked with community centres in Ealing. Anna Pollert has researched labour markets and vulnerable workers for many years. Through our combined connections and experience we were able to access a wide range of workers including sometimes hard to reach workers for the research. These connections persist and we continue to work with these community centres, organisations and trade unions through organising workers advice sessions and other events, such as photography exhibitions. Š JIM HODSON

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Section one: the type of problems workers faced Issues of belonging, class, gender, kinship and migration status each have a particular influence on the way individuals faced problems at work and seek to deal with these problems. Workers interviewed for this research experienced a wide range of work related problems – some extremely severe and others less so – but all had a negative impact on their lives. Incidents of bullying were unfortunately common. Individuals provided testimony of months and years of constant undermining and negative treatment. Long hours, where twelve-hour days were routine, and where paid holidays were not granted, also impacted on workers’ health and wellbeing. Workers told of their exhaustion, of being forced to work without adequate health and safety measures and of employers ignoring basic employment rights and regulations. It was common to find workers’ pay slips stating the minimum wage for 35 hours work, when in fact they were working for 70 hours – therefore receiving half the statutory minimum wage. In a number of cases workers felt helpless and believed there was little that could be done to solve their problems and in these circumstances they either left to find alternative employment or where this was not possible, they ‘put up’ with the situation and resigned themselves to the fact that nothing could be done in particular workers who worked in the ‘ethnic economy’.

Working in the ‘ethnic economy’ Today, Hackney and Haringey in north London have become the main areas for Kurds from Turkey7 and there are large Kurdish communities living, working and socialising in these north London boroughs. Early migrations of Kurds arrived in Hackney and established restaurants, supermarkets and small textile factories in this area because of its low rent and cheap housing, resulting in later waves of migrants choosing to settle where they had kinship links. All along the local high

streets of Hackney and Haringey are Kurdish shops and businesses – cafes, groceries, bakeries, hairdressers, pool halls, flower shops and the ubiquitous kebab shops.

The Kurdish communities have created localised spaces where they reproduce their economic, ethnic and political identities. As Enneli et al have noted; ‘the Turkish speaking community is probably one of the most self-sufficient communities in London with half a dozen local community-based newspapers, together with Turkish [and Kurdish] television channels and countless digital radio channels8. The community’s self-sufficiency also extends to its social and cultural activities, evidenced from the number of locally run community organisations.

However, behind the façade of this seemingly self-sufficient and business-like community, lies considerable poverty, which is often found in refugee communities9.

Many first generation workers faced with language barriers and low education and lack of relevant skills relied heavily on their kin and friendship network to find work. For many, families, friends and kinship networks within the community are the sole source of employment and this can create even greater levels of exploitation.

These jobs are low skilled, low paid jobs in catering or the retail trade mainly in local Kurdish and Turkish ‘ethnic economy’ where there are exposed to super exploitation in the labour market. Many interviewees who worked without contracts were forced to work long hours and paid below the minimum wage, having effectively normalised these poor work practices. Poor employment conditions were so common among Kurds that to complain to outside bodies seemed almost irrelevant.

While workers did raise concerns with their employers, they seldom were in a position to force a resolution to their problems, mainly because of their lack of English language, their undocumented immigration status or because of kinship/familial relationships.

We work at restaurants or off-licences. In these sectors there is not a complaint procedure. If you confront a problem at these workplaces, you have to solve it alone. There is not any institution or union help you. Either you solve the problems or you leave there.

Dijwar, Kurdish male, restaurant worker Diaspora, work, employment and community 11

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These disadvantaged workers are at the mercy of their employer, which is sometimes referred to as ‘flexible and exploitative solidarity’.10 This means that the understanding of employment in kinship/familial based economy differed from official definitions. Paid work and ‘helping out’ in the shops of relatives or acquaintances are interlocked at the expense of workers. This form of ‘mutual solidarity’ means that workers are forced to work 16 hours often paid below the minimum wage. Our findings suggest that many Kurdish workers who were documented were experiencing high levels of exploitation, particularly in relation to long hours and lack of paid holidays (or in some cases no holiday at all). For example, Aram, a 25-year old first generation restaurant worker explained what it was like in his workplace:

Some of the problems at work are about the long working hours…in these kinds of jobs, holidays and vacations are very limited.

Because there is no system, you need to work all the time. So you work all the time.

Aram, Kurdish male, restaurant worker Workers in the ‘ethnic economy’ were often exposed to poor working conditions and to super exploitation and this was even greater for undocumented young people.

Interviewer: You said that you are undocumented, but working here. What kind of problems are you facing?

A lot of problems. I did not work for six months after the fish and chips place. This was a big problem. Then my friends found me this place. For example if there is problem here and if you are undocumented maybe you can only mention this problem one time to sort it out, but if you are documented you can always defend your right. You have the fear of being unemployed. When I was without job for six months it was too difficult. If you are not working is too difficult to live here.

Agit, Kurdish male, chef

A number of workers stated that their daily life consists of nothing more than working, eating and sleeping. Ciya, a baker, explained how he worked 68 hours a week for a total of £250 and that a colleague had worked solidly for seven days a week for eight years without any leave.

Moreover many skilled people had lost their skills after becoming refugees and found themselves reliant on finding work within the community due to the fact that their qualifications were not recognised in the UK. Dersimi, who was an engineer and escaped due to political problems from his homeland, talked about his lost of social capital and how he had become deskilled in the diaspora.

You leave everything behind including your job, career and you come here to start working in a restaurant to do washing up.

We have faced such reality here. But we knew that a political escape could have such risk.

But when you consider your educational background you get sad. I was an engineer. I see a loss. Because of our belief and the way we see the world even 20-30 years after you don’t care about such thing and continue.

Dersimi, teaching assistant Second generation Kurdish workers w ho are educated in the UK and work within the community explained the unregulated employers and employees relationship clearly.

When I joined the Kurdish company, through my relatives and friends, they told me, asked me to be IT manager, but the trouble is, when you start for a Kurdish company, unfortunately they don’t have any kind of formal structure. No proper hierarchy there, no job description properly done, no contract is there…this is the main problem working for a Kurdish company. I’m not trying to say every Kurdish company is like that, but most of Kurdish companies I know don’t have the Diaspora, work, employment and community 13

kind of policies, like the health and safety policy, emergency policy or job contracts, job descriptions, hierarchies, managers, supervisors. They don’t exist in Kurdish working environments.

Rojan, Kurdish male, IT manager As quotations from our interviews make clear, workers are disadvantaged if they are unable to speak English, or if they do not have relevant skills. Those that are undocumented or working without contracts were often forced to work long hours and were paid below the minimum wage. For many these working practices were so common they had effectively been normalised for many workers who accepted that was ‘just how it was’. The government’s restrictive policies towards refugees in the labour market has contributed to pushing ‘vulnerable’ people into ‘illegal’ working in order to avoid becoming destitute11.

Moreover those workers in the small-business food sector, including Kurdish workers, are largely ignored by unions.

Working outside the ‘ethnic enclave’ While the most disadvantaged Kurdish workers worked in community based businesses most second generation Kurds, who have grown up and been educated in the UK and who have graduated with qualifications, are often able to find more skilled and professional employment outside of the ‘ethnic enclave’ and mainly work in law, IT, health, education and financial and small proportion of them for the local councils of Hackney and Haringey.

Kurdish workers employed outside of the community nevertheless still experienced difficulties at work including pay, stress, bullying, workload and discrimination, as well as isolation. However stress, bullying, discrimination and work relations are more likely to be a general problem of migrants and it is internalised and seen as deeply personal, making it difficult for workers to think about resolution in collective terms.

Most workers interviewed attempted to resolve their difficulties with their line managers in the first instance, but often it was line managers who were the cause of the bullying, harassment and victimisation, which meant that issues often went unresolved. Zana, a young man 14 Diaspora, work, employment and community

working in a bank in Hackney, who had experienced the overworking and burnout explained

You know working long hours and big stress…and I spoke to my line manager. He was saying that I just need to be patient, to carry on for a month or two and then it will all quieten down. Therefore, they will not really be supporting, to be honest, they turned on us. Unfortunately, I did not know if I could complain within the company, I did not know if there was people to those you can complain about work conditions and difficulties. They did not give me the answer I was looking for, or the solution I wanted.

My manager did not inform me about the complaint procedure.

Zana, Hackney Moreover the testimonies of Kurdish workers in professional jobs shows that long working hours including working at weekend is often taken for granted in order to be successful in their jobs and get promotion.

When I first had my problem with the stress and with the payment I first discussed it with few other my friends, management, there was one girl who has been employed to manage our department and I said to her; look we need to stand up, and can not be made to work from 9 to 9. We don’t have a social life, we can’t go out like we used to, some of my colleagues aren’t able to find partners because they don’t have time to go look for partners, so when I said this to her, she said ‘yes ok let’s do that, let’s write e-mail to everybody, let’s all have a meeting without the supervisors, without the human resources, without the partners or the bosses’. Let’s

just sit down as workers and discuss what we can do to change this system because it is fixed, it wasn’t like that four years ago when I worked there it was different you would work from 9 until 5, you would leave at 5, no one would say anything to you, but over the years there is competition in my job in order to get training contract or in order to get promoted you need.

Hejar, Kurdish female, solicitor The issue surrounding bullying was another serious problem many workers faced. Individuals provided testimony of months and years of constant undermining and negative treatment. Some workers talked about ‘culture of bullying’ in workplaces.

So bullying was a culture in the organisation.

If you did not have strong person behind your back you will lose unless you are white and chatty or stubborn person. I believed this was the way, bit of naivety I guess. I survived with the racism and bullying for about three years because I had to because I was going to university and I needed part-time job. I liked what I was doing and I believed what I believed because these things are important for me … I was shocked. I never have been bullied before. It was shocking. I did not even realise it was bullying.

Hawar, male, third sector worker) In a number of cases workers felt helpless and believed there was little that could be done to solve their problems and in these circumstances they either left to find alternative employment or where this was not possible, they ‘put up’ with the situation and resigned themselves to the fact that nothing could be done. However, one worker took her case to employment tribunal.

And after management changed the new general manager who came to this store, he hated me from day one. He was saying that my voice is not strong enough, nobody is going to listen to me. And he didn’t like the fact that I was a woman, too and he did everything to push me out. Like he was handwriting notes and sticking them on the wall and making notes on them like ‘you are the worst in the region’ ‘you are this and you are that’. And it was endless, like his demands were endless and I did everything to stay there, but at the end I thought it was too much because it was clearly harassment and it was bullying. And it was discrimination as well because I was doing like 18-19 hours a day … I have first did the internal grievance procedures, it took them five months to investigate into my complaints, but they came up with, resolved that they couldn’t find anything into harassment. That there wasn’t anything. And I thought it was the best thing to go to the tribunal and I did.

Jiyan, female, senior service manager

Racism, sexism and discrimination at work Out of all the types of problems related by the research participants, we will make a special mention of race discrimination experienced at work because there was an undercurrent of racism felt by many workers in the way they were treated or perceived at work. In Turkey, Kurds have experienced state and everyday racism through the prohibition of the use of their language and denial of their Kurdish ethnic or national identity12. This has led to many forms of repression over the past decades including the burning of villages and the forced migration of Kurds to western parts of Turkey13. Racism, albeit in different forms, may also continue as stateless Kurds migrate to countries in Europe. Many Kurdish refugees Diaspora, work, employment and community 15

© JIM HODSON

16 Diaspora, work, employment and community

and migrants have reported that they have experienced racism in the UK and in one study it was found that 38 per cent of Kurdish young people surveyed felt they had been discriminated against14.

The testimonies of second-generation Kurdish workers for this research show us that they are confronted with ‘ethnic penalties’15 in the labour market. Some workers related incidents of overt harassment including name calling by managers or co-workers, while others described their sense of isolation and alienation from more insidious form of covert racism and stereotyping.

Incidents of being passed over for promotion, being required to perform inappropriate tasks, being humiliated in a variety of ways, and being socially excluded were expressed by men and women working in range of occupations, from low paid workers to highly paid professionals. In addition, the testimonies of Kurdish workers show us that they are confronted with multiple discrimination based on statelessness, immigration statues, and exclusion from the labour market. For example the testimony of a low paid Kurdish restaurant worker working in an Italian restaurant tells us how new migrants subjected to super exploitation and racism in the ‘ethnicised’ economy where the long work hours, lack of holiday entitlements, low payment without any proper contract become normalized. He stated that

I mean many times, I have told him that I work full time, why do you make me appear as part time, as you don’t pay me full wages, he said, I will show you full time, but in that case, I will pay you £150/£200. I said, ‘how can I live on that?’ I mean, his thinking is that people who come from Kurdistan, Turkey, from other countries, that’s how they think, £200 is even too much for them, they don’t consider that these people live here, they have to pay rent, they eat and drink and travel here, they don’t think that. Everyone, well I can’t say everyone, but where I work, that’s how it is, you know.

Merdan, Hackney

In some cases workers who faced discrimination blame themselves for getting paid less than the minimum wage.

The testimony of Avashin, a 22-year-old Kurdish student working part-time in a chemist shop shows us that some workers faced discrimination in labour market due to their ethnic background.

I don’t think I experienced any racial discrimination, but when I first started my work, I was paid a really low amount like £5.15. I don’t know why but it was, I think when I started it should have been £5.35 and I knew that but because I needed the job I accepted it…I didn’t think it was racial, to do with me not being British [note: all other employees were paid £5.35]. I think it was because it’s just they just look for the cheap labour and because I accepted it. I think it was my fault for not knowing how much the minimum wage was, otherwise I could have told him this is how much it is it I’m getting paid. Maybe that would have changed how much I was getting paid. So it was because of me, my fault for not knowing it, and I think it was because it was my first job and I really needed the job and so I just accepted it.

Avashin, Female, chemist shop worker In some cases many Kurdish workers avoided using the term racism, instead they talked instead about ‘prejudice’ in the sense of different treatment. For example a criminal solicitor with Kurdish background tried to explain that he was the only ethnic person in a law firm and continually passed over for promotion but the claim that has not subjected to racism but that he experienced ‘prejudice’.

The main difficulty that you have is, I’m the only ethnic person that’s in my firm.

So the main difficulty that you have is competitiveness and the way people see you.

I’ve not experienced any racism, I wouldn’t Diaspora, work, employment and community 17

say it’s racism, but I have experienced people getting preference over me. And it’s not explained by way of a higher education or a better degree classification or a better command of the work, that’s not the basis. So therefore, one can only conclude that there is some sort of prejudice underlying what’s going on.

Ezdan, Kurdish male, solicitor A similar way of describing issues around discrimination and racism as ‘prejudice’ in the labour market was highlighted by Zozan, a 24-year-old operations consultant.

So yeah, inevitably, or indirectly, those things do get in the way, your culture, where you’re from, your ethnicity, definitely…

Discrimination, I don’t, I wasn’t directly discriminated, but like I said…without realising, you might be facing discrimination without the person maybe not having the intentions to discriminate you. But because of their own beliefs and their ignorance, they may be discriminating me, if that makes sense.

Zozan, Kurdish female, operations co-ordinator

Indeed the testimonies of a number of research participants show that they faced indirect racism in their workplaces. However they described the different treatments they faced not as racism but as ‘prejudice’ because firstly their understanding of ‘racism’ is different than the judicial definition in the UK. As many of interviewees stated, they felt that racism and discrimination was more related to state discriminative policies targeted an individual or a social group on the ground of their ethnicity or religious background. This different understanding of the term racism or discrimination is more related to their or their parents’ experiences in occupied Kurdistan where the occupiers have used national state violence against Kurdish people by different means including genocide, torture, and displacement. In comparison to the systemic and routine discriminative experiences in occupied Kurdistan, the indirect racism in workplaces in the UK seemed more likely to be conceptualised as prejudice rather than discrimination.

In general, employment among women, particularly those without education, is very low within the Kurdish community in the UK. Those who do work can often be found working in restaurant kitchens or family businesses, and increasingly younger, second generation female workers tend to find work outside of the community. The women interviewed for this research, highlighted sexual harassment in additional to experiencing isolation, bullying, racism and discrimination.

Sexual harassment occurred predominantly, but not only, in local businesses where women work in the kitchen or as waiters in restaurants. Sozan, a part-time student ©UMIT AVCU

18 Diaspora, work, employment and community

worked for Kurdish and Turkish restaurants as a waitress where she experienced sexual harassment and consequently left her job and decided never to work in the ‘ethnic economy’ again. She sated:

Moreover a woman, working for a multinational company mentioned how is difficult to work in maledominated societies who are not able to accept the position of women in the labour market.

If you need job as waiter or waitress…I am chef actually, I am a very good chef…I decided not to work with Turkish, Kurdish people…I was working for X restaurant. We were guesting 150 people every night and I was doing everything, but in the end you know they treat you like ‘if you sleep with me kind you know, if you be with me, if you be in secret relations with me, secret girlfriend’ … still we actually need to fight against this very masculine, dominant culture over us, even here.

Sozan, female, student

I am working as a sales engineer for XXX company…I just moved here two years ago as a product specialist…They produced laboratory instrument. They supply this instrument all around the world. My responsibility to give technical support to 30 countries…I am the first woman in this position in this company. My age and also being a woman, coming from a nonEuropean country, I confront automatically pre-judgements. Most of men think that women don’t have knowledge about technical issues. So the problem I faced where ever I go, which ever country I go, when they see a women, I can read from their face, automatically they think, ‘a young woman will not able to sort out our problems related to the products’. Just an example, I was trying to sort out a problem between instruments in X country. All the men, over 50, the first question they asked me, whether I have a husband or not, I am potential bride anyway, and so they speak and they shout.

Ok that’s another thing…I don’t get angry easily.

Rezan, female, sales engineer

Sexual harassment in wider labour market – outside the community was also reported. Rojda, a fast food worker for a national chain, explained how female migrant workers were exposed to harassment from managers and colleagues:

In my work place, in XX in West London, students from Eastern Europe or Europe come to work during the summer. Most of them are female. We thought of making complaint with couple of friends. It didn’t work. Everybody knows sexual harassment is happening there, but nobody does anything against sexual harassment … I think the women get sexually harassed many times in such jobs. I have seen it I have experienced it.

And we can’t get support from anywhere. As an individual I did not know where to go or where to apply.

Rojda, female, fast food worker

Except Jiyan, none of the women interviewed who reported sexual harassment had managed to achieve a satisfactory resolution to their problems despite having evidence and following their employer’s complaints procedures. And again, each voiced a reluctance to raise racism and sexism as reasons for their ill-treatment even though this was central to the way they were treated.

Diaspora, work, employment and community 19

Section two: a lack of employment advice Our purpose in undertaking this research was to understand how Kurdish workers try to resolve the difficulties and problems they face at work and to find out to whom they turned when seeking help or advice. Our interest was whether local community-based organisations play a role in providing support for workers from minority ethnic communities who have problems at work and issue we shall return to shortly. Firstly we take a brief look at what the situation is like for those seeking employment advice.

A survey of low-paid, unrepresented workers (non-unionised) with employment problems (the Unrepresented Worker Survey, URWS, 2004) found that minority ethnic workers in workplaces where the majority of workers are from a minority ethnic group, are more likely than others to seek help from friends and family16. Similarly, an earlier survey that questioned whether or not people from minority ethnic groups have different experiences of the civil justice system found that there were ‘distinct differences between black, Asian and white respondents in relation to advice seeking behaviour and experiences of accessing advice in the civil justice system’. However these authors17 conclude that, the survey did not provide adequate information as to why this was the case and this is the information we sought from our interviewees.

It is clear from a wide range of studies that there is substantial evidence that workplace problems among all British workers are widespread. In 2001, the British Worker Representation and Participation (BWRP) survey found 38 per cent of respondents had problems at work18. Other surveys suggest the figures are higher.

In one, 49 percent of workers reported that they had experienced one of ten problems cited and in another19, 42 per cent20.

While a study of the civil justice system 21 has shown that minority ethnic respondents are no more likely 20 Diaspora, work, employment and community

to experience problems than white respondents, the Unrepresentative Workers Survey, which focused on workers with problems, found that minority ethnic workers were over-represented compared with their representation among the low-paid, non-unionised in the labour force22. This finding fits with evidence that demonstrates that ethnic minority workers are at a greater disadvantage in the labour market as a result of prejudice, racism, xenophobia and the spaces in which they inhabit.

Trade unions and Kurdish workers So, while there is a long history of trade union membership amongst black and minority ethnic workers – despite the problems they have and continue to face, this is not the case for newer groups of migrants. For example, the extent of Kurdish membership of trade unions is undocumented in the UK and there is little anecdotal evidence that suggests much involvement in unions.

In a sense, this is unsurprising given there is not much information on work practices within this community other than the tendency for people to find work within local ethnic businesses. However, there was one high profile industrial dispute that is documented, which took place at JJ Foods, a food factory, in Tottenham in October 1995 when 45 Turkish and Kurdish workers were sacked for joining the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU). The working conditions in the company were poor with people working 60-70 hour weeks without overtime, sick pay or holiday pay. The sacked workers began to picket with the support of local leftwing solidarity groups who picketed a JJ Foods outlet.

By December, the management was prepared to stand down and to re-instate some of the workers – but only the Turkish employees. The management did not wish to re-employ the Kurdish workers who they had identified as ‘ringleaders’. The Kurdish workers were left to fight for their jobs in the courts and eventually won their employment tribunals where they were found to have been unfairly dismissed. Apart from this incident, local unions interviewed for our research so far, are not conscious of any significant number of Kurdish workers within their membership. However, trade unions at a national level do have a connection with the local Kurdish communities through their international sections, because of the war between the Turkish state and the peoples of Kurdistan. For example, during the 2004 European Social

Forum in London, Kurdish community groups and trade unions organised a number of workshop on topics such as war and peace and social justice and solidarity.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has also been to Kurdistan several times to monitor human rights abuses and the TUC has made a statement on ‘finding a peaceful and democratic solution for ‘Kurdish question’ in Turkey’.

Although we endeavoured to establish levels of trade union membership as part of this research there was no information held by trade unions relating to Kurdish workers. We know from our first hand knowledge of the Kurdish community that many employment problems thus encountered, such as finding work, or dealing with problems at work, seem to be resolved within the community (or left unresolved), such that many may not consider trade unions to be relevant – particular in this small ethnic business sector. As already noted, Kurdish migrants seem to avoid seeking help or finding the solution for their social and economic problems outside of the family or Kurdish community and this is perhaps due to experiences from their homelands, where Kurds have had to confront institutionalised racism and imposed national identities. As a consequence, there is little trust in state institutions, even in diasporic communities. In Britain, state institutions are viewed with suspicion as a result of detention centres and deportation of Kurds seeking asylum seekers23. The strong social norms, values, kinship and social networks within the Kurdish communities ‘have diverted attention away from the socio-economic difficulties that a disproportionately high number [of Kurdish migrants] face today’24. An engagement with this minority ethnic group can therefore shed light on and reveal the obstacles to their involvement in voluntary organisation such as trade unions and other locally based (non-ethnic specific) community groups.

London. We get a lot of calls here from people in the initial stages, who just want to know what’s happening to them and there’s a big need for some sort of advice at that ‘triage’ level’ (Interview LCF). Law Centres have reported that, the Legal Services Commission (LSC), the body responsible for distributing legal aid (free legal support), has introduced measures that mean that Law Centres find it difficult to take on complex employment cases, as the funds available often do not cover the cost of employing the solicitor to do the work. Even these cases where they secure legal aid funding, this is only for initial advice or case preparation, it does not cover representation in the employment tribunal or county court.

If a case proceeds to tribunal individual workers must represent themselves, unless an advisor from a CAB is able to accompany them – but this would be unpaid, and work constraints on advisers mean that fewer are able to accompany clients to tribunal – often against a solicitor or barrister who will be representing their employers.

Workers may approach local solicitors to take on their cases, but unless they have the funds available, they are subject to the same rules on legal aid funding as local Law Centres or advice agencies with LSC funding.

Community advice agencies Community-based law centres do have qualified legal advisors but there are only 64 of these across the UK, with only 52 having employment specialists and many are in financial difficulties due to cuts from funding bodies and changes to the way legal aid is administered.

The Law Centre Federation (LCF) has said that ‘there’s a huge demand for employment advice, particularly in Diaspora, work, employment and community 21

Section three: seeking advice in the Kurdish community Our findings also show that there is a dearth of employment advice available, particularly for the most vulnerable of workers. The lack of safe confidential spaces to seek employment advice was very evident not only from workers themselves, but also from the advice agencies based in the local communities we studied.

There was little knowledge among the workers we interviewed about Law Centres or other community based advice organisations, although knowledge of Citizens’ Advice was fairly widespread. Advice agencies reported that they were working over capacity and were finding it difficult to survive financially. Hackney, for example, had a Law Centre, which had been operating for over 30 years, but each month brought a crisis of whether there was enough money to pay workers’ wages. Changes to the way legal aid funding is allocated by the Legal Services Commission had reduced its cash flow making survival precarious. Other than the Law Centre, there was little other employment advice provision in the borough. Although there was a CAB in Hackney it did not offer employment advice other than at the most basic level (generally helping people to write letters to their employer).

Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres were among the main resources identified by the workers as their first port of call when faced with problems at work. We also spoke to officials from these and other advice agencies to find out the extent of specialist employment advice available and the problems that the agencies are facing in providing services. Lack of resources, lack of specialist employment advice and inability to represent workers at employment tribunals were highlighted as problems by our key respondents from various advice agencies.

Previous studies of individuals seeking CAB advice have highlighted access problems because of limited opening hours, long appointment waiting-times and difficulty in making telephone contact25. Interviewees from our 22 Diaspora, work, employment and community

research made clear that this still remains a major barrier to obtaining support and it reflects under-resourcing.

A study of CAB and Law Centre employment advisers for the TUC’s Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) found that CAB managers and advisers were spending increasing amounts of time in seeking funds to function26.

Following the 1999 Access to Justice Act, provision of legal aid for employment advice was broadened from solicitors to the voluntary sector and while the CAB initially benefited, the contracting system was complex and rationed legal. Since then, many CABx (and private solicitors) have opted out of Legal Service Commission contracts, finding them unviable. This has left few legallyaided specialists to which general advisers could refer complex employment problems and has created an ‘advice desert’. The remaining Legal Service Commissionfunded CABx cover much larger geographical areas and resort to greater telephone advice, which is not funded by the LSC, and hence depletes resources further.

Currently, the CAB refers most workers needing specialised employment advice to ‘no-win, no-fee’ lawyers, the system extended from personal injury to other areas of law since 1998, allegedly to extend ‘access to justice’ for those confident of winning their case. The need for specialist advice is apparent from the types of problems CAB clients experience: the Unrepresented Workers Survey found that workers who approached a CAB for advice were more likely to suffer problems in areas such as dismissal, pay, discrimination and working hours – a finding confirmed by the 2008 CoVE survey of employment advisers. While some grievances, such as unpaid wages, may be relatively simple to address, others, such as dismissal and discrimination, require greater legal expertise. The conditional fees arrangement is risky and expensive for low earners. While no fees are charged if a case is lost, a higher fee than ‘normal’ is charged if it is won and wider concerns about the quality of the conditional fees arrangements recently prompted the government to commission a review of its operation27.

The most salient findings from our research were worker isolation, powerlessness and discrimination, while attempted individual resolution to grievances by an external agency, such as the CAB, was weak. And while most workers appreciated its efforts to help, few were

satisfied with the support they obtained, others were dissatisfied for several reasons reflecting the findings in the other studies mentioned above: difficult telephone access, restricted opening hours which prevented those still in employment from gaining advice (as opposed to those dismissed, or who had left their job), delays in reaching advice, discontinuity between advisers and inadequate expertise.

Community organisations as advice agencies?

One of the aims of our research was to find out the extent to which locally based community organisations operated as formal or informal advice providers and whether workers used these as places to which they might turn.

We asked if workers knew of or belonged to community-based groups and we defined this quite broadly to include, faith organisations, ethnic community organisations as well as social, cultural and political groups. All our research participants were aware of the multitude of Kurdish community centres, for example, the Halkevi (established 1984), Kurdish Cultural Centre (established 1982), Kurdish Advice Centre (established 1988) and Kurdish Studies and Students Organisation (established 2005), Kurdish Housing Association (established 1988), all of which play an important role for Kurds, both first and second generation in the context of being a repository of Kurdish identity, helping to retain links back to the homeland, but also encouraging the expression of Kurdish culture and language, which has been forcibly suppressed over decades. They have advice surgeries for people with housing, finance or migration problems.

When we first came here we did not speak English. If you had the problem you would go to community centre. If you wanted help you can go to community centre. And especially our community centre provides different activities. Like the language school, teaching Kurdish at GCSE level courses.

They provide translations. They provide help to the elderly. They provide help to the mentally disabled. The list goes on. I would use my community centres more than I would

use Citizen Advice bureau or Law Centre, because in the community centres we have friends who are lawyers, friends working in different positions. So it’s a big resource actually to tap in to. I do use it … Keeping the identity alive, the Kurdish identity and forwarding that identity to the new generation by creating schools, education and all this. And in our case of Diaspora community organisations, they have multi duty rather than one. It’s not only to keep the community alive, but also because we don’t have a united government back in homeland, our community organisations they are acting as branches of government. As institutions that would duplicate and regenerate the sense of identity and the amount of communication and unification of the Kurdish identity that you see in the Diaspora, you don’t see it back home.

Kurdish male, housing officer A large proportion of interviewees stated that they attend weekly activities at Kurdish community centres, therefore we expected that the workers in particular those work in ‘ethnic economy’ might turn to these community centres for help and advice when they facing problems at work.

While workers talked about the using advice services for issues of immigration, housing and language, this was not really the case for employment problems. The reasons for this are complex. Firstly many workers believe that community centres can help only for those who new arrived to the UK, those who have housing, immigration and financial problems and unable to solve themselves due to lack of English language skill. Secondly, the lack of specialist employment advisors in the advice surgeries made it impossible to use the community organisations for employment matters. Workers those faced problems at work were refereed to Law Centres or CAB or solicitors. However few Kurdish workers used Law Centres or CAB, mainly due to language barriers, difficulties relating Diaspora, work, employment and community 23

to access and long waiting times. As Mehabad, a third sector worker made clear:

For people community centres are more important. Because I can explain the way I want and they will understand me more easily than in the Citizen Advice Bureau really. And they are, like Kurdish Community, they are open all the time. You know, you could call even when the staff even are not at work, you can tell them your problem, but Citizen Advice Bureau, they are opening 10 to 12. Then make 20 people waiting outside.

Mehabad, Hackney Thirdly, many workers are reluctance discuss what they considered to the ‘private issue’ of employment in these public spaces (despite the surgeries being conducted confidentially and in closed offices).

I think you wouldn’t get a proper advice because Kurdish communities already they have lots of other pressures and problems already … if I have another problem, not my private social life or employment life, but a Kurdish issue, maybe yeah, I can come here and then we can make a movement or make a team. Although maybe this is the right place [to discuss employment issues]. But I don’t feel actually I should come to Kurdish community centres to discuss my private or employment life.

Rojhan, male, software developer Fourthly, the kinship nature of the much of the employment among Kurds is another important factor in contributing to workers’ reluctant to use the community centres because Kurdish employers and employees are members of the same communities and all use the community centres as social and cultural centres. In these tight social networks where people 24 Diaspora, work, employment and community

are well known to each other, it is understandable that there is caution about raising complaints against other people within the community. However some workers mentioned that there was a formal mechanism within the Kurdish communities for dealing with some of the more serious employment related problems and it was here that the community centres were able to play a role in helping to resolve difficulties between members of the same community. The director of one community organisation explained that a ‘Peace Committee’ was established, made up of respected community elders who were elected by members of the community centre.

As he explained, this committee, which had considerable standing in the community, would be called on to arbitrate and its decisions were expected to be binding on the parties involved (although, of course, had no enforcement in law):

What they will do, they will just call the business owner, because the naming and shaming is a big issue [in the community], so this business owner will come over and they will say ‘look this person says that he works for you and you do not pay him, why is that’?[He might say] ‘Ok, he worked but he left early’. [The Peace Committee] they will find a consensus. So they will either make him pay, they will ask him to pay all the money he owes, or if the person that works for him has not fulfilled his promises, if he hasn’t worked for four weeks, if he worked only for two and a half weeks, he will get two and a half weeks’ pay.

Kurdish male, Director of Halkevi, Kurdish community organisation This dispute resolution procedure is only for the most serious of cases and open to those Kurdish workers working for Kurdish employers. It is also subject to the social network constraints mentioned above, meaning that many may be reluctant to avail themselves of the service.

© JIM HODSON

Diaspora, work, employment and community 25

Section four: knowledge and experience of trade unions One of the main avenues of support for workers with problems is, of course, a trade union, but given that over 70 percent of UK workers are not members of trades unions, that leaves most workers without representation should they face a problem at work. We would, perhaps expect that new migrant workers would be more likely to have a lower union density than the rest of the population due to the sectors in which they are seeking work tending to be non-unionised as well as unfamiliarity with the UK union movement. However, it is not the case that minority ethnic workers are opposed to union membership and history has shown that some groups of minority ethnic workers are more likely to be union members compared to the rest of the population28. Factors such as workplace sector, union militancy, union support, political consciousness and discrimination at work have played a role in ensuring higher than average trade union membership among different minority ethnic groups at different times in UK history.

Migrant workers also bring knowledge and experiences of trade unionism from their home country to the UK. A number of older Kurdish workers had been part of the Turkish and Kurdish trade union movement, which was not only involved in seeking solutions for workers’ rights, but was also involved in political struggle around democratisation of the country and for a peaceful solution to Turkey’s Kurdish question. We found that first generation Kurdish migrants who were involved in political and social movements in their homeland felt that trade unions in the UK should be more active in participating in social and political issues, rather than concentrating too narrowly on workplace matters. In particular, and in a number of interviews with Kurdish workers, their understanding of the function of trade unions differed from their experience of trade unions in the UK and in some cases this coloured their views. To some of these workers, unions appeared to be more detached from 26 Diaspora, work, employment and community

their members, overly bureaucratic and lacking in power.

Dersimi, a Kurdish schoolteacher, expressed this view: ‘we look at the world from different perspective. Their understandings are more bureaucratise. This is how they understand the trade union struggle’.

Kurdish interviewees in Hackney who were employed in the public sector were, in the main, members of trades unions. However, Kurdish workers in Hackney, who tend to work mainly for small locally-based, family-owned firms, had little opportunity for unionisation. Trade unions have largely abandoned any attempts to recruit workers in small workplaces, as this is labour intensive and there is often high turnover in sectors such as restaurants. Trade union membership was very low amongst the Kurdish workers interviewed and only nine interviewees held union cards. Most Kurdish workers had little experience of trade unions in the UK, although we found that there was considerable support for trade union membership. Some workers related a collective knowledge of past attempts by the Transport and General Workers Union to recruit and organise a food processing factory following a lengthy industrial dispute in the 1990s and more recently a number of Kurdish workers had been involved in a strike at a bus company.

But overall, contact with or knowledge of trade unionism was very limited among this group of interviewees.

Positive and negative views of trade unions Nearly all of the Kurdish workers interviewed who had a trade union presence at their workplace were union members and we found a strong trade union consciousness among many of these interviewees. While many workers articulated instrumental reasons for union membership, there was also a strong belief in unions as the best protectors of workers’ rights where collective strength was important in fighting for better terms and conditions. Many had experienced the benefits of trade union membership either from their own personal experience or from that of friends or colleagues. Rojhan was a well-paid IT worker in Hackney and although not a union member himself, he explained:

I have always believed that unions are important. I believe that when you work

in an industrial sector a union is very important. One of my friends had a problem and the union helped her a lot. She was pregnant and her pregnancy time off period was an issue there. And the union helped her a lot.

There were also a considerable number of negative views about trade unions expressed both by advice workers and worker interviewees. Advice workers in CABx or Law Centres generally asked if a client was a member of a trade union and would in most cases refer their client back to their trade union. When questioned whether advice workers asked if clients were members of a trade union, one CAB workers responded:

We do, that’s the first thing, well more or less the first thing we ask them. If they are members of the trade unions unfortunately we don’t see them because they are regarded as having alternative legal help. So we tell them to go back to their unions. Then they will say to us, ‘well the unions we haven’t found them useful’ and it’s not fair. Most trade unions are not worth their names. They are always either afraid of their position at work, or they won’t fight the management… this is why they look for somebody else.

CAB advice worker

Trade unions in the community There was considerable support for the idea of unions being more rooted in the community. As with the research by Perrett and Martínez29, we found there was support for more engagement between unions and local community groups. In Hackney, however, there were no real trade union links between trade unions and the Kurdish community groups, although a number of interviewees expressed how this would be beneficial given the level of exploitation among Kurdish workers. One worker taking part in a focus group said:

First of all Kurdish community centres should realise that this is an issue and they have to play their role. Most of the Kurds see the community centres as authoritative body here. Most of the time if they have the problem they go to community centres to solve it. Community centres definitely have the role in such dispute. At least they have cultural understanding. I think rather than trade union go there I think they should go and raise the issue with the trade union. They should go and say ‘this has been reported to us by our people working places and how can we find the solutions’?

And Shilan, a bar worker concurred:

I am sure if union works with the community, it will be better. Because then people that are going to be start working are going to trust themselves more, because there is going to be union there where they know they can get help. But because they don’t see any backup from anyone, they just accept whatever people say, if it is less paid or long working hours, but if the union tells them their rights, I am sure people wouldn’t work this long hours for this much pay. And I am sure people need this support a lot. Mostly the people that just came to the country and they don’t know the rules, they don’t know the money. They don’t know how things work in this country. At least people should about the national minimum wage.

It appears, therefore, that there is a great willingness for unions to be more visible and active in community spaces, but that most union branches are organised on a workplace basis and have few links with local community groups.

Diaspora, work, employment and community 27

Summary and key implications Advice centres Most non-unionised workers who need advice on their employment problems and rights cannot afford a solicitor and rely on the voluntary sector for free support – chiefly Citizens Advice. However, the CABx can usually only provide general advice, and where professional legal case-work is needed, refer workers on to lawyers.

However, few of the latter provide free advice under legal aid, which has been incrementally rationed since the 1999 Access to Justice Act, and the general pattern for solicitors is conditional fees arrangements, which can be expensive for workers. Moreover, ‘no-win, no-fee’ arrangements are a poor incentive to lawyers in employment grievances of low-paid workers, since their percentage takings are small, being usually based on workers’ low wages.

We found widespread dissatisfaction among our respondents with the CABx, primarily because of difficult access, disappointment with the quality of advice and the frequent discovery that after a long wait, they were simply referred to a solicitor or another advice body. Many workers recognised the reason for their difficulty: underfunding and under-resourcing. Nevertheless, this did not help them. Their concerns were echoed by advice workers themselves, who re-iterated their resource difficulties.

In some of the London boroughs we studied, such as Lambeth and Ealing, there were other free advice centres, such as Law Centres, which, in contrast to CABx, employ legal professionals, and local advice centres. But all of these covered large (and growing) populations of need and were over-stretched. Some centres, such as the Brixton Advice Centre, although of long standing, were hardly known by our interviewees. The lack of visibility suggests the need for investment in raising public awareness of employment rights and advice, but also, lack of reputation, which could reflects low activity in providing employment expertise. Resource shortage meant that in Hackney, the Law Centre was under constant financial crisis.

28 Diaspora, work, employment and community

Š JIM HODSON

Government funding Our findings show a chronic funding shortage for voluntary sector advice organisations, due to static or reduced local council funding and rationing of legal aid in terms of tightening contracting regulations with the Legal Service Commission. Advice provision suffers not only because of staff shortages, but because existing staff (most of whom are unpaid volunteers in any case) spend increasing amounts of time in securing funding from a shrinking pool of donations from the private sector, the National Lottery and even the European Union.

In the meantime, the employment effects of the recession are worsening the experiences of workers: redundancies continue, terms and conditions of work come under increasing strain, and as of 2010, cuts bite into the public sector. These same cuts will further deplete the resources to help the growing body of increasingly vulnerable workers (and the unemployed).

As this report goes to press, the recently (May 2010) elected Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government has announced cuts in the public sector of ÂŁ6.2 billion in response to the deficit in the government budget. It is estimated that 20 per cent of this will come from local government, which is the chief financial source of both the CABx and local communities30. Thus, the already straitened circumstances of voluntary sector advice bodies are likely to deteriorate further.

Communities Our findings show an uneven pattern of community support for employment problems. In Hackney, where the Kurdish immigration is more recent, there is a vibrant community culture with several community organisations, which our respondents found supportive for their identity. Yet while some found helpful employment advice, the fact that much work in the borough is in ethnically-based small organisations, community support could take the form of social control, rather than independent advice, since employers and workers were closely intermeshed.

The Kurdish community centres have a direct connection to Kurdish workers and play an important role in their orientation and adaptation in this country including providing English language class, advice on housing, Diaspora, work, employment and community  29

education, and immigration. Local government has encourage these centres through funding and knowledge but there is little employment law provided and this is a particular problem due to the nature of much employment in the Kurdish community and that fact that unionisation is very low meaning there are few avenues in which to seek employment advice.

Lack of free specialist employment advice leaves workers, non-unionised workers in particular, especially vulnerable to exploitation by employers. Even where support is available, there is a lack of awareness amongst workers of basic employment rights. Lack of knowledge about how to access advice and support for the difficulties they face adds to the distress and feelings of helplessness.

Funding is required to maintain community organisations, and while local populations raise their own funds, without a basic subsidy from local councils, local community centres are likely to go under. The current dictum of the Conservative government of a ‘small state’ and ‘big society’, in which self-help is the latter’s wellspring, makes no mention of the fact that this costs money: inadequate state funding will kill the very source of local self-activity which it seeks to promote31.

From our research we find that there is a need for major investments to rebuild advice and community organisations, as well as for a drive to unionise workers. Stronger links between various advice agencies, community networks and trade unions are needed.

Trade unions Most of the Kurdish interviewees in our study were not trade union members, although some, had experience of a far broader and more political form of trade unionism than is the British tradition. The majority of the non-unionised worked in non-unionised workplaces, and they, as most research shows, were non-members primarily because of lack of union presence at work and never having been asked to join one. There is thus an urgent need for unions to reach them.

Among the unionised, the importance of the quality of individual representation, whether or not the problem was successfully resolved, mattered enormously and greatly advanced positive views of trade unions. Yet there were also negative experiences, of lack of individual support and a perception that some union representatives valued a close partnership with management more than their role in representing their members. These views were echoed by some key informants, such as CAB advisors, who always referred the unionised to their union but often helped them if they returned, frustrated by inadequate union support.

Individual union support for workers’ grievances is increasingly the prime role of trade unions. This is labourintensive, and usually done during representatives’ spare time. Yet, unless unions can demonstrate their commitment to help individual workers, their status as collective representative and organisers will not be established.

30 Diaspora, work, employment and community

Trade unions have an enormous knowledge and practical experiences of employment problems. This knowledge could be shared with other advice and community organisations in benefit of Kurdish workers, most of whom are not unionised. The forging of links between trade unions and Kurdish community centres could be helpful in helping to reduce the social and political exclusion of Kurdish workers. A trade union officer from the Kurdish community could play a crucial role in connecting Kurdish workers with local trade unions by developing training session on workers rights and trade union organisation. Trade unions perhaps need to reconsider their approach to the organising of small workplaces – particularly where there is a geographical concentration of workers who have a willingness to hold trade union membership.

Bibliography and further readings Dhaliwal, S (2006) ‘Trade Union and Worker Responses to Racism from the Public: An Analysis of findings from the Health Sector’. Paper presented at the 56th British Universities Industrial Relations Annual Conference. National University of Ireland, Galway 28-30 June 2006.

Fitzgerald, I (2008) ‘Working in the UK. Polish migrant worker routes into employment in the North East and North West construction and food processing sectors’. Newcastle: TUC. Fitzgerald, I and Stirling, J (2004) ‘Black Minority Ethnic Groups Views of Trade Unions’. Newcastle: TUC: Northern Region.

Healy, G, Bradley, H and Mukerjee, N (2004) ‘Individualism and collectivism revisited: a study of black and minority ethnic women.’. Industrial Relations Journal. 35: 5: 451-466.

Holgate, J (2004) ‘Black and Minority Ethnic Worker and Trade Unions. Strategies for organisation, recruitment and inclusion’. London: Trades Union Congress.

Martínez Lucio, M and Perrett, R (2009) ‘Meanings and dilemmas in community unionism: trade union community initiatives and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK.’ Work, Employment and Society.

23: 4: 693-710.

Martínez Lucio, M, Perrett, R, McBride, J and Craig, S (2007) ‘Migrant workers in the labour market.

The role of unions in the recognition of skills and qualifications’. London: Unionlearn, Research paper 7.

Perrett, R and Martínez Lucio, M (2006) ‘Networks, communities and the representation of BME workers in employment relations. The realities of community politics and trade unions’. Working Paper. No 06/16: Bradford University School of Management.

Pollert, A (2007) The Unorganised Vulnerable Worker and Problems at Work: the Weakness of Individual External Remedy and the Case for Union Organising.

London: Institute of Employment Rights.

Pollert, A and Charlwood, A (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work.’ Work, Employment and Society. 23: 2: 343-362.

Wills, J (2002) Union Futures. Building Networked Trade Unionism in the UK. London: Fabian Society.

Wright, T and Pollert, A (2007) ‘The Experience of Ethnic Minority Workers in the Hotel and Catering Industry: Routes to support and advice on workplace problems’. London: ACAS Research Paper 03/06, London: ACAS. ©DONDU DEMIR

Diaspora, work, employment and community 31

Dissemination and key outputs from the research to date Articles and reports Holgate, J. Keles, J. Kumarappan, L. and Pollert, A. (forthcoming) Kurdish migrant workers in London: experiences from an ‘invisible’ community. Journal of Migration and Ethnic Studies.

Holgate, J. Pollert, A and Keles, J. Kumarappan, L. (forthcoming) Geographies of isolation: how workers (don’t) access support for problems at work.

Antipode.

Holgate, J, Pollert, A and Keles, J (2009) Union decline, minority ethnic workers and employment advice in local communities. Industrial Law Journal 38:3.

412-416.

Holgate, J. Pollert, A and Keles, J. (2009) Ethnic minority representation at work: An initial review of literature and concepts. Working Lives Research Institute: London Metropolitan University: Working paper 6.

Holgate, J. Pollert, A and Keles, J. (2009) To whom do I turn when I am invisible?: The experience of Kurdish workers who have problems at work? Working Lives Research Institute: London Metropolitan University: Working paper 7.

Holgate, J. Pollert, A and Keles, J. (2009) The influence of identity, ‘community’ and social networks on how workers access support for work-based problems. Working Lives Research Institute: London Metropolitan University: Working paper 8.

Holgate, J. Pollert, A and Keles, J. (2009) Union decline and the lack of employment advice for minority ethnic workers in the UK: can community support organisations help to fill the gap? Working Lives Research Institute: London Metropolitan University: Working paper 9.

32 Diaspora, work, employment and community

Dissemination of research Help and representation for problems at work. What has happened to support networks and advice centres? A report on ethnic minority workers in London launched at the TUC 13 September 2010 with a range of practitioner speakers at an afternoon workshop.

We have to put long hours so we can make a bit of money to survive. Long hours and low pay: Kurdish workers’ stories in Hackney. Photo exhibition and publication launch, Café Mostra, Stoke Newington High Street, London, 16 June 2010.

Work, identity and community in Ealing: a photographic exhibition. Ealing Library, Southall. 20 July 2020.

Religion and radicalism: union organizing in migrant communities. Paper presented at the British Universities Industrial Relations Conference July 1-3, Manchester Metropolitan University.

Faith in unions, from safe spaces to organized labour? Paper presented at the 7th Annual CIRA Conference/International CRIMT Conference.

Université Laval, Québec, Canada 16–18 June 2010.

We have to put long hours so we can make a bit of money to survive. Long hours and low pay: Kurdish workers’ stories in Hackney. Photo exhibition and presentation Hackney Unites. Stoke Newington School, London, 5 June 2010.

Minority ethnic groups: work and representation.

Presentation to TUC Black workers Committee, TUC, 3 June 2010.

Messy methods: the use of visual methods in research.

Working Lives Research Institute staff seminar. 2 June 2010.

Community, Network and Ethnic Politics of Migrants in London: The Case of Kurds. BSA Theory Study Group Symposium. Department of Sociology, University of Leicester, 14 May 2010.

Visualising ‘community’: an experiment in participatory photography among Kurdish diaspora in the UK. Paper presented at BSA Annual Conference, 7–9 April 2010, Glasgow University.

Workers Advice Centre session and photographic exhibition in collaboration with Hackney Unites.

Saturday 13 February 2010, Dey-Mer Community Centre, Hackney, London.

Adapt or decline: a trade union future for black workers? Paper presented at Critical Labour Studies Symposium 21–22 November 2009. School of African and Oriental Studies.

Union decline and the lack of employment advice for minority ethnic workers in the UK: can community support organisations help to fill the gap? Paper presented at the International Industrial Relations Association Annual Conference, 24-27 August 2009, Sydney.

To whom do I turn when I am invisible? The experiences of Kurdish workers who have problems at work. Paper presented at the British Sociological Association Annual Conference, Cardiff, 15-17, April 2009.

The influence of identity, ‘community’ and social networks on how workers access support for work-based problems. Paper presented at the International Labour Process Conference, Edinburgh, 6-8 April 2009.

Appendix 1: On-line support services ACAS www.acas.org.uk Community Legal Service www.legalservices.gov.uk/civil.asp Department for Business, Innovation & Skills www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/ index.html DirectGov www.direct.gov.uk/en/employment Equality & Human Rights Commission www.equalityhumanrights.com Health and Safety Executive www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/index.htm Law Centres Federation www.lawcentres.org.uk Lesbian and Gay Employment Rights www.lager.dircon.co.uk National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux www.adviceguide.org.uk Pay and Work Rights www.direct.gov.uk/payandworkrights workSMART from the TUC www.worksmart.org.uk

Diaspora, work, employment and community 33

34  Diaspora, work, employment and community

Appendix 2: Basic demographic data on interviewees

Gender of participants from the three London boroughs

Age of participants in the three boroughs Diaspora, work, employment and community  35

Sector of work

Trade union membership

36  Diaspora, work, employment and community

Whether born in the UK

Year of migration to the UK

Diaspora, work, employment and community  37

Appendix 3: Appendix 4: Key respondent Topic guide organisations Section 1: Work questions interviewed

1. Can you tell me very briefly – without going into too

Key respondent organisations interviewed Hackney Hackney Law Centre DayMer x3 Unite Kurdish Advice Centre Halkevi Kurdish Human Rights Project Hackney Advice Forum Alevi Cultural Centre Kurdish Community Centre Duncan Lewis Solicitors Fed-bir Dowse and Co solicitors Learning Trust Hackney Citizens Advice Kurdish Cultural Centre Kurdish Museum project Hackney Councillor Youth Parliament

much detail – about the type of difficulty, issue or concern you last experienced at work?

2. To whom did you first turn to when you had your

difficulties at work? l Did you get help at the first place you went to? l What different stages did you go through?

3. Did you get a satisfactory resolution to your difficulties at

work? l If not, why not?

4. If you had similar difficulties at work today, where would

you first go for help or advice? l Would it be the same as before? l Why, or why not?

5. Scenario: If you were unfairly sacked from work, or

accused of serious misconduct and suspended, or if you were racially abused by a fellow worker or client and you couldn’t get help from your manager or HR, where would you turn for help and advice?

Section 2: questions about trade unions 1. Are you a union member? How long have you been a

union member? Have you ever been active in your union – either by attending meeting or being a union rep?

2. How much do you know about trade unions?

What do you think of when people mention unions?

How do you expect them to be able to help you if you have a problem at work?

3. Have you ever gone to your trade union with any

problems?

How useful have you found them? l If you did not find your Union helpful – can you tell us a little more about the reasons why you think you didn’t get help or advice from your trade union?

38 Diaspora, work, employment and community

4. There has been a strong tradition of trade union

membership among Asian/black workers in the UK but less so among younger black workers – why do you think that is?

5. How do you think trade unions could provide better

support for people/workers like yourself ? What would you like them to do that they are not doing?

Section 3: community and faith type questions 1. Do you participate in any community groups or other

organised groups like faith or political or cultural based groups? Can you tell me about these activities? l Probe for faith, culture and political groups.

2. Have you ever considered using any of these when you

have had a problem at work?

3. What support networks/advice centres or other

organisations would you like to see in your community that could help people with difficulties at work?

4. Can you name any local organisations (in Ealing/

Lambeth/Hackney) that provide advice and support for people who have problems at work? l If not, try prompting – what about the CAB, Lambeth Law Centre, Brixton Advice Centre, etc.

5. Have you considered a solicitor to help solve the

difficulties you were having at work? – Why? Why not?

6. Do you think there has been a change or decline in local

ethnic based community organisations over the last 10, 20, 30 years? Do you think they play the same role in supporting your community that they did in the past?

Why is that?

7. Do you do any voluntary work? Probe – where? Why?

I want to ask you some questions about your local community now.

1. When people talk about community what does it mean

to you?

What comes into your mind when you think of the word community?

Do you have a sense of belonging to any particular communities?

2. What communities do you feel part of or identify with? l Prompt for different types – local – ethnic – religious –

elderly – young – work. l Try and explore these a bit – for example, is it important that there is a black community to which you feel you belong – if so why – in what way?

3. What do you like/dislike about your local community (or

Southall, Ealing, Hackney, Lambeth)?

Has it changed over the time you have been living here?

In what way? – For example, people moving out/different people moving in?

Has that changed affected how you see your community?

I just want to ask you a few questions about identity 1. You chose to describe your ethnicity on the form as

XXXXX. Can you tell me a bit about why you describe yourself in that way? Why this term rather than something else (e.g. Asian/black/Turkish etc)? Why is the term you have chosen important to you in describing who you are?

2. What about your parents or children – do you think they

would describe themselves in a similar way? If no, why not.

3. What about your friends or people from a similar

background to you? – Are there differences in the way your friends describe themselves? Is it the same/different across different generations?

4. In terms of terms/labels that describe people’s identity, are

there any that you really dislike or don’t feel comfortable with? Or are there any that you would use in addition to the one you put on the form? l W hat about equal opportunities forms? Do you feel those labels properly describe who you are?

5. How important is your sense of identity to you? What

does it mean?

6. What other aspects do you think help to define your

identity, community or culture – for example, music, dance, food, types of behaviour, etc.

Diaspora, work, employment and community 39

Appendix 5: Questionnaire Ref: L15

All information given here will be treated as confidential your name will not be recorded

Initials: Date:

Please highlight your answers in BOLD

Q1. Gender (please tick √)

Male

x Female

Q2. Please tick which age band you fit into (please √ one of these boxes) 16-19 30-39 50-59 20-29 40-49 60-64

65+

Q3. What is your job title? ____________________________ Q4. Roughly, how long have you worked in your current main job? ___ Q5. Do you work in the public or private sector, or for a private company working for a public sector organisation?

Public Private Private sector organisation operating in public sector Q6. How many people work for your employer at the place where you work? (please give a rough estimate and tick one of these boxes) Less than 25 250-499 Unsure/don’t know 25-49 500+ 50-249 Don’t know, but over 50 Q7. Is your main job full-time or part-time?

Full-time

Part-time

Q8. Is your main job permanent or temporary?

Permanent If temporary, what type of work is it e.g. agency, sub-contract, other?

Q9. On average, how many hours do you work in a normal week?

Q10. Is there a trade union or staff association in your workplace?

Temporary…

35________________ Yes

No

Q11. Has anyone asked ever asked you to join a trade union at your current workplace?

Yes

No

40 Diaspora, work, employment and community

Q12. Are you a member of a trade union or staff association?

Yes

No…

If no, have you ever been a member of a trade union or staff association?

Yes

No

Q13. Does your workplace have a complaint or grievance procedure?

Yes…

No

Don’t know

Q14. If yes, to Q13 did you use it when you had difficulty at work?

Yes

No

Q15. How would you describe your ethnicity?

Q16. How long have you lived or worked in the borough?

Q17. Were you born in the UK?

Yes

No…

If no, what year did you come to the UK?_________ Q18. What is your highest qualification)?

NVQ Level 1 or equivalent (inc. BTEC first / general certificate, GNVQ Foundation, City and Guilds Foundation Part 1 and other qualifications below GCSE level) O level / GCSE or NVQ Level 2 or equivalent (inc. BTEC first / general diploma, GNVQ Intermediate, City and Guilds Craft Part 2 Modern Apprenticeship) A-Level or NVQ Level 3 or equivalent (inc. BTEC National Diploma, GNVQ Advanced, City & Guilds Advanced Craft Part 3, Advanced Modern Apprenticeship) Degree or NVQ level 4 or equivalent (inc. PGCE, HNC/HND) Masters degree or Postgraduate or other Level 5 qualification No qualifications Other (please specify)________________________________________ Q19. In the job where you had the problems, what was your annual pay before tax? ______ If you don’t know, what is your hourly pay before tax?___________________ Does or did your employer pay you in cash

Yes

No…

Thank you!

Please return this to EMRAW, Working Lives Research Institute, 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY

2

Diaspora, work, employment and community 41

Endnotes 1 Erdemir A and Vasta E (2007:20) Differentiating irregularity and solidarity: Turkish Immigrants at work in London Working Paper No. 42 2 For exceptions see: Fitzgerald, I. (2008) ‘Working in the UK. Polish migrant worker routes into employment in the North East and North West construction and food processing sectors’. Newcastle: TUC. Martínez Lucio, M. and Perrett, R. (2007) ‘Social inclusion and representation strategies in the workplace and community: black and minority ethnic workers and innovative trade union responses’. Leeds: TUC. Martínez Lucio, M. and Perrett, R. (2009) ‘Meanings and dilemmas in community unionism: trade union community initiatives and black and minority ethnic groups in the UK’, Work, Employment and Society, 23 (4): 693-710. Perrett, R. and Martinez Lucio, M. (2009) ‘Trade Unions and Relations with Black and Minority-Ethnic Community Groups in the United Kingdom: The Development of New Alliances?’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35 (8): 1295-1314.

3 Pollert, A. (2007) The Unorganised Vulnerable Worker and Problems at Work: the Weakness of Individual External Remedy and the Case for Union Organising. London: Institute of Employment Rights.

4 Pollert, A. and Charlwood, A. (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work’, Work, Employment and Society, 23 (2): 343-362.

5 For examples see: Dhaliwal, S. (2006) ‘Trade Union and Worker Responses to Racism from the Public: An Analysis of findings from the Health Sector’ Paper presented at the 56th British Universities Industrial Relations Annual Conference. National University of Ireland, Galway 28-30 June 2006. Healy, G., Bradley, H. and Mukerjee, N. (2004) ‘Individualism and collectivism revisited: a study of black and minority ethnic women.’, Industrial Relations Journal, 35 (5): 451-466. Holgate, J. (2004) ‘Organising Black and Minority Ethnic Workers: trade union strategies for recruitment and inclusion’.

University of London. Unpublished PhD thesis. Wills, J. (2002) Union Futures. Building Networked Trade Unionism in the UK. London: Fabian Society. Wright, T. and Pollert, A. (2007) ‘The experience of ethnic minority workers in the hotel and catering industry: routes to support and advice on workplace problems’. London: ACAS Research Paper 03/06, London: ACAS. 6 Fitzgerald, I. and Stirling, J. (2004) ‘Black Minority Ethnic Groups Views of Trade Unions’. Newcastle: TUC: Northern Region.

Holgate, J. (2004) ‘The influence of race, identity and community in union organising in west London’ Paper presented to 54th British Universities Industrial Relations Annual Conference. University of Nottingham 1-3 July.

7 While a large percentage of the Kurdish community is of refugee status others came to the UK for economic and educational reasons as well as to be with family (see Erdemir and Vasta 2007 for a discussion on this topic). Workers interviewed for our research included refugees, asylum seekers and UK born Kurds.

8 Enneli, P, Modood, T and Bradley, H (2005) ‘Young Turks and Kurds: a set of ‘invisible’ disadvantaged groups’. Joseph Rowntree Foundation 9 For example see Erdemir A and Vasta E (2007:20) Differentiating irregularity and solidarity: Turkish Immigrants at work in London Working Paper No. 42 and Jodon and Düvell (2002) Irregular migration : the dilemmas of transnational mobility Cheltenham : Elgar 10 Erdemir A and Vasta E (2007) Differentiating irregularity and solidarity: Turkish Immigrants at work in London Working Paper No. 42

42 Diaspora, work, employment and community

11 Sargeant, G. and Forna, A. (2001) ‘A poor reception, refugees and asylum seekers: welfare or work?’. London: The Industrial Society.

12 Beşikçi, I. (2007) ‘European has debt to the Kurds’: www.pdk-bakur. com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=433. Last accessed 7 March 2008.

13 Gürbey, G. (2004) ‘Optionen und Hindernisse fur eine Losung des Kurdenkonflictes in der Turkei’, Kurdologie, 1.

14 Enneli, P, Modood, T and Bradley, H (2005) ‘Young Turks and Kurds: a set of ‘invisible’ disadvantaged groups’. Joseph Rowntree Foundation 15 Heath, A and Cheung, SY (2006) ‘Ethnic penalties in the labour market: Employers and discrimination’. London: Department for Work and Pensions. Research Report No 341.

16 Pollert, A (2008) ‘The Experience of Vulnerable and Unorganised Workers’. Bristol: Centre for Employment Studies Research, Bristol Business School.

17 Pollert, A and Charlwood, A (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work.’ Work, Employment and Society. 23: 2: 343-362.

18 Gospel, H and Willman, P (2003) ‘Dilemmas in worker representation: information, consultation and negotiation’ in Gospel, H. and Wood, S. (eds.) Representing Workers: union recognition and membership in Britain. London: Routledge.

19 Casebourne, J, Regan, J, Neathey, F and Tuohy, S (2006) ‘Employment Rights at Work – Survey of Employees 2005’ DTI Employment Relations Research Series No. 51. London: Department of Trade and Industry 20 Pollert, A and Charlwood, A (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work.’ Work, Employment and Society. 23: 2: 343-362.

21 O’Grady, A, Balmer, N, Carter, B, Pleasence, P, Bucky, A and Genn, H (2005) ‘Institutional racism and civil Justice’. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28: 620-638.

22 Pollert, A and Charlwood, A (2009) ‘The vulnerable worker in Britain and problems at work.’ Work, Employment and Society. 23: 2: 343-362.

23 Keles, J. (2007) ‘The impact of transnational media on a migrant population: The case of Kurdish and Turkish language Media’. Paper presented at a conference entitled: Communication and Conflict: Propaganda, Spin and Lobbying in the Global Age: University of Glasgow: 7-9 September 2007.

24 Thomson, M., Mai, N., Keles, J. and King, R. (2006) ‘“Turks” in the UK. Second MIGSS Report’. Centre for Migration Research: University of Sussex, p.3.

25 Genn, H (1999) Paths to Justice: What People do and Think about Going to Law’. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Pleasence, P, Buck, A, Balmer, N, O’Grady, R, Genn, H and Smith, M (2004) ‘Causes of Action: Civil law and Social Justice’. London: The Stationery Office.

26 Pollert, A, Danford, A, Tailby, S, Wilton, N and Warren, S (2008) ‘Survey of Employment Rights Advisers from Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres’. TUC, Commission on Vulnerable Employment: London: Trades Union Congress. www.vulnerableworkers.org.uk/.

27 Ministry of Justice (2008) ‘No win, no fee under scrutiny’ 25 June 2008: www.justice.gov.uk/news/newsrelease250608a.htm. [last accessed 5 February 2010]. Moorhead, R and Cumming, R (2008) ‘Damage-Based Contingency Fees in Employment Cases: A Survey of Practitioners’. Cardiff: Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University; at: papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1306308 [last accessed 5 February 2010].

28 See chapter 3 in Holgate, J. (2004) ‘Organising Black and Minority Ethnic Workers: trade union strategies for recruitment and inclusion’.

University of London. Unpublished PhD thesis.

30 Guardian 24 May 2010 Local government to bear brunt of £6.2bn cuts www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/24/ cuts-local-government-loses-2bn

29 Perrett, R. and Martínez Lucio, M. (2006) ‘Trade unions and black and minority ethnic communities in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Employment representation and community organisations in a context of change’. Leeds: TUC.

31 Guardian 31 March 2010, David Cameron bigs up society www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/31/ david-cameron-big-society-communities

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Diaspora, work, employment and community 43

The Working Lives Research Institute is a centre for research and teaching, based at the London Metropolitan University. We undertake socially committed academic and applied research into all aspects of working lives, emphasising equality and social justice, and working for and in partnership with trade unions.

We emphasise the way changes in work are experienced and shaped by workers and workers’ organisations, recognising the centrality of race, gender, sexuality and disability to their experiences. In acknowledging that work is contested and the subject of political choices, the Institute aims both to further academic understanding and to inform and support the policies of trade unions, social movements and public and private sector organisations.

The Institute’s links with trade unions, community and voluntary organisations, campaigns and progressive institutions are key to the development of its research programme. Research is undertaken and commissioned both locally and at European level and there are strong relations with European Institutions.

Working Lives Research Institute London Metropolitan University 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY Tel + 44 (0) 20 7320 3032 www.workinglives.org September 2010 ISBN: 978-1-906182-04-5