A8 Migrants and Equality Issues

Lesley Irving

Equality Unit

The perspective in 2004

• A8 countries joined EU – allowed to work in UK May 2004

• Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia

• A2 – Romania and Bulgaria Jan 2007• Have to register with Workers Registration

Scheme or be self employed• No recourse to public funds for first 12 months• Few thousand throughout UK• More worried about asylum seekers from A8

countries

A Few Numbers (Two actually)

• c75,000 migrant workers have come to Scotland since 2004

• 20% in Edinburgh

• BUT- Data poor

• Local knowledge better than national

• Mainly young, single, in employment and without children

Open Arms or You’ll have had your tea?

• Racist incidents down 1% 2007/8• BUT – increased in Northern, Tayside and

Strathclyde• Positive experiences of living and working in

Scotland• Scottish public more welcoming of migrants than

other parts of the UK, excluding London• BUT - evidence that migrants seen as a threat to

jobs • Anecdotal evidence of increasing tensions• ‘Time for you to go home now’

Integration?

• Evidence that some migrants feel isolated • Possibilities to integrate limited in rural communities

and where migrants work long hours• Larger communities and specialist services reduce

need to integrate• BUT – Government supporting projects aimed at

integrating migrants (and asylum seekers/refugees)• More research needed on barriers and facilitators to

community integration, with good practice examples.

What doesn’t help

• Law breaking among migrant communities?• Considerable anecdote and speculation• Not based on evidence.• Potential to influence public feeling towards

migrants• Undermines cohesion and may lead to hostility

and abuse• BUT – migrants victims of hate crime, breaches

of employment law and human trafficking.

They’re all Poles

• No they’re not actually, though most are

Lithuanians in particular fed up of being called Poles

• Want to be understood as different

• Intra community tensions as well

Is it racism?

• Yes – not just skin colour

• BUT – need to refine understanding of racism

• Visible and invisible minorities

• Backlash from visible minority ethnic groups

• ‘Not black enough’

We bring our attitudes with us

• Challenges to integration

• Those who experience racism can be racist too

• Low incidence of visible minority communities in A8 countries

• Attitudes to women

• Homophobia

Is it worth it?

• Yes!

• Boost to local economies

• Reverse population trend

• Key sectors now dependent – tourism and agriculture

• Threads in the tartan