Guest Blog: End the exploitation of home care workers in Wales

Olga Mutamba is campaigning with Unison to end the exploitation of home care workers in Wales.

I am a migrant home care worker in Cardiff, invited here in 2023 on a care visa with my family. There are around 500,000 care workers on the same visa as me, and 70% of us are women. 

Since arriving in the UK, many of us on the social care visa have come to understand how bad pay and conditions in the care sector really are. We understand now why we were invited here. British staff cannot be persuaded to stay in these jobs. Low pay and tough working conditions mean even those who care so deeply are leaving. If Welsh Government cannot deliver a fair pay deal for social care then care services – and the NHS that depends on them – are facing a serious crisis. 

But as sponsored staff, we face another pressure. Our visa is owned by our employers. Our right to stay in the UK with our families is determined by them. I don’t think many of us understood what that would mean when we arrived. 

Most home care staff like myself are only paid for time spent with clients. We are out of the house from 7am to 11pm, sometimes 6 or 7 days a week, but lucky to get paid for half of that time. In the winter, we sit in cars without heating waiting for our next shift to begin. In the summer, we sit in the heat without air conditioning. 

Do we care about our work? Of course! It is a privilege to look after people. But what kind of care do you expect someone who is mentally and physically exhausted to provide? 

In our Cardiff network we know home care workers who have faced: 

• 16-hour shifts for as little as four hours’ pay

• Months without a day off

• Hospitalisation due to stress and exhaustion

I came here to live and work. But I have not started living in the three years I have been here. I don’t know my neighbours. I can count the number of times I have been able to attend church, and I am not able to participate in any of the social activities there because of work. How do I raise children that I hardly ever see? How do I ensure I am contributing to my community and to my family while I feel like I am serving a prison sentence? I leave the house before my daughter wakes up and I come home after she’s gone to sleep. I’m missing her life. 

Joining a trade union has shown many of us what is possible when we act together. Together we persuaded Cardiff Council to change their home care system, so that we can begin to tackle the kind of shifts and unpaid hours home care workers face in the 75 companies contracted by the council. We will not feel the benefits of this until 2027. That is hard for many of us to accept. But we know that if we had not stood up and called for change, no one would have even noticed us. And we are determined not to be ignored or wished away. 

We have taken our campaign to Westminster twice. The UK Government has ended overseas recruitment, but it has still not de-linked the care visa from employers, which is the cause of so much exploitation. Companies know that when they own your visa, they own you. We are calling on the UK Government to create a certificate of common sponsorship. And we are asking them to reconsider extending our right of settlement to 15 years, which will keep us and our families in permanent limbo. My daughter is a gymnast. Her dream is to be part of Team GB. I don’t know if that dream is possible any more.

In Wales, we are meeting organisations one by one to make sure that our struggle is not invisible. We hope you will support us.  

Find out more about the campaign and how to support it here.