2020 Nov 24: report from one of our signatory organisations, Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants : Work It Out
Foreword:
Nearly a year after the first documented case of Covid-19, no life has been left untouched by the pandemic. Many of us
have lost loved ones. Many more have lost jobs and livelihoods. We have all learned how important it is to feel safe, loved and cared for.
But throughout this crisis, countless lives have been saved and many of our communities have been kept afloat. Not by walls or hostility but by workers.
When the end of the pandemic is declared, we will owe our survival to the millions of workers who have risked their lives and their health to feed, carry and protect us. Standing shoulder-toshoulder with their British colleagues, they have come from all over the world
and made this their home. They deserve the right to work and live safely.
They deserve to be seen as so much more than a visa, a passport or a number. And they deserve more than the hostile rhetoric and short-sighted policies that have robbed them of the safety and security we all need.
In our hospitals, our classrooms, our retail and hospitality industries, migrant workers have helped to ensure that none of us are left behind. As we think about how to rebuild a fairer and more sustainable society after the pandemic, we must make sure we do not leave them behind. This publication offers simple but effective steps that we can and must take to better serve and protect those to whom we owe so much. There is a lot to fix, but we believe it can be fixed. We can work it out.
Satbir Singh
Chief Executive, JCWI
Read the full document here
In the gaps – experiences of migrant workers in the pandemic – see the whole comic here: https://www.jcwi.org.uk/in-the-gaps-experiences-of-migrant-workers-in-the-pandemic