Indian man awarded almost £30,000 after UK employer failed to provide work | Employment law

An Indian national who came to the UK to work as a care worker under the post-Brexit visa scheme has been awarded nearly £30,000 in damages in a landmark case after her employer denied her a single day of work for a year.

An employment tribunal ordered care company Swan Care Solutions Ltd to pay Shabin Shaji for work he was “ready, able and willing to do”.

Believing there was a “major shortage” of healthcare workers in the UK, Shaji migrated from Kerala to Stafford, England, bought a car for work and began studying online in 2023.

He told the court he received advice from a YouTube influencer about job security in the UK before coming to the UK.

The court heard he contacted agents and paid them £17,000 before interviewing for a role at Swan Care Solutions on WhatsApp.

Shaji was then issued a certificate of sponsorship giving him the right to live and work in the UK with Swan Care Solutions as a Home Office approved sponsor employer.

But the computer science graduate, who had previously worked in healthcare in India, faced poverty after his Staffordshire-based employer refused to give him any shifts despite repeated requests.

His sponsored visa prevented him from working more than 20 hours a week for anyone else. He eventually managed to secure sponsorship from another employer in April 2024 – a year after his arrival in the UK – but later returned to India in ill health.

The 33-year-old worker won his wage claim after seeking help from employment justice charity the Center for Work Rights, which said “thousands of people” were paying recruiters and “coming to the UK and remaining ghosts”.

Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the charity, added: “We have seen cases of migrant care workers selling out a dream in Britain, leaving their careers and families behind to face poverty and abandonment by their employers and the state.

“The skilled worker visa should be completely reformed to make it easier to change employers when rights or contracts are violated.”

The court heard staff at Swan Care Solutions suggested Shaji take cash jobs and use a food bank when he said he was struggling and told him they would be in touch when it was “his turn”.

At a hearing in May the company was ordered to pay costs of £8,700 in addition to £28,843.54; In addition, it was decided to pay him salary and holiday pay due to the failure to provide him with a written contract and the failure to comply with the complaints procedures.

At a hearing in Birmingham earlier this year, employment judge Kate Edmonds said: “The claimant had done what needed to be done to start working… He was now in the country, had the right permits and was living in the right place. But the defendant did not provide him with work and did not pay him.”

“Essentially, what the defendant did was treat the plaintiff as a zero-hours employee… The problem, of course, was that the plaintiff was not a zero-hours employee.

“The defendant withheld employment from him…Therefore, an unauthorized deduction was made from his salary.”

“I was broke and had to rely on charity. To survive, I drank tap water and bought bread that was close to its expiration date,” Shaji said. [and] I scoured local shops in Stafford to find free bananas and bread for those struggling.

“I went to church, and on Sundays after worship, the good people who attended shared tea and snacks with me, for which I was very grateful.”

He added: “I thought it would be a great opportunity, but when I came to the UK I saw expats and Brits struggling. I was in a terrible position, feeling like no one in authority cared whether I was alive or dead.”

He told the hearing that Swan Care Solutions’ actions had “serious long-term detrimental effects on my personal and family finances”.

Judge Edmonds said it was “not entirely clear” how Shaji initially came into contact with Swan Care Solutions, but it was clear “he was in contact with individuals to whom he appeared to have transferred a sum of money”.

The judge added that Swan Care Solutions’ license to issue sponsorship certificates was “finally revoked” in 2024, in part because it failed to pay workers until training was completed.

Swan Care Solutions did not respond to a request for comment.