{"id":470,"date":"2018-08-14T09:30:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T08:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/business-and-society\/?p=470"},"modified":"2018-08-09T10:37:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T09:37:50","slug":"modern-slavery-exploitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/business-and-society\/2018\/08\/14\/modern-slavery-exploitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Some people trapped in \u2018modern slavery\u2019 are underworked \u2013 and they pay a heavy price for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

People trapped in modern slavery situations endure terrible conditions, threats to their safety, and limits on their freedom. Yet sometimes, they actually do less work than they really want to. In an article originally published on The Conversation<\/a>, Andrew Crane<\/a> explains how this business model of exploitation has its own warped logic.<\/em><\/p>\n

The term \u201cmodern slavery\u201d usually describes<\/a> the very worst forms of human exploitation. Whether it is young girls forced into prostitution, construction workers trapped in bonded labour, or migrants forced onto fishing vessels to work for years at a time for no pay, the creativity with which exploitation is used to generate profits for some, at a terrible cost to others, knows few bounds.<\/p>\n

The economic logic of extreme exploitation appears to be pretty simple. By using violence, threats or deception to force people into work they would not otherwise do, the exploiter solves a labour supply problem, reduces labour costs, and gets a lot more work out of people than if they were freely employed.<\/p>\n

Most accounts of forced labour include descriptions of arduous and dangerous work, long working days, few (if any) days off, and squalid conditions. So surely it stands to reason that a ruthless \u201cemployer\u201d would work their \u201cslaves\u201d as hard as they can.<\/p>\n

Well, not quite \u2013 or at least, not always. Our research<\/a> into the business models of modern slavery in the UK explored various situations where workers were forced into working long hours with little pay. But we also came across situations where apparent slaves, especially in the agricultural sector, appeared to be given very little work to do. Sometimes, this could be no work at all for stretches of several weeks, or only a few hours or one or two days per week.<\/p>\n

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Debt collectors<\/h3>\n

At first this perplexed us. Why would you coerce workers into a situation of forced labour if you were not going to work them as hard as you could? And make no mistake, these were forced labourers. They were intimidated by threat or force to stay with their employers. As the United Nations agency the International Labour Organisation<\/a> (ILO) puts it<\/a>, they were under \u201cmenace of penalty\u201d if they tried to leave. So why were they given so little work?<\/p>\n

The answer, we believe, comes from understanding the underlying business models of modern slavery. There are a variety of ways that people make money from modern slavery, and sometimes we have to go beyond the idea that it simply reduces labour costs. In the case of the underworked agricultural slaves, the business model of the companies employing them differed from how we might ordinarily understand the business of modern slavery.<\/p>\n

Two features stood out in particular. First, the main way that \u201cemployers\u201d exercised control over their workers was through debt bondage \u2013 usually instigated at the point of recruiting migrant workers overseas. As one of our informants explained:<\/p>\n

People [are] being told: \u2018Well, you come to the UK, we\u2019ll lend you the money, or if you get here we\u2019ll provide you with accommodation and wages, work.\u2019 And then when they get here they deliberately don\u2019t give them any work to do. They say: \u2018Look, in another two weeks\u2019 time, three weeks\u2019 time we can give you work. At the moment there\u2019s none but don\u2019t worry about it, you can stay in the accommodation we provided. [Here\u2019s] a bit of money so you don\u2019t starve, pay me back when you start getting your wages.\u2019 So they sound very nice and reasonable, but the thing is to build up this bondage so they can\u2019t just walk away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n