Migrant transport workers are seeing the doors shut on their futures (Pic: Wikimedia commons)
The Labour government’s policies on immigration are ruining people’s lives.
Transport workers Adeoye, Ade and Arjun have seen their plans for the future shattered by changes brought in by the government’s white paper, unveiled in May. They face losing their jobs and the threat of deportation.
But they are not going to sit idly by and let this happen. They are prepared to fight it with the support of the RMT union and their colleagues.
The three have been living in Britain on two-year graduate visas. All of them took on jobs with Transport for London (TfL) believing they could apply for a skilled worker visa when their current visas expired. This visa would require sponsorship from a government approved employer.
Adeoye came to Britain to study at the University of Hull. After he graduated last year, he moved to London and began working as a customer service assistant with TfL.
He told Socialist Worker, he chose to work for TfL “because it had good opportunities. It was a good job. We could get sponsored if we worked hard, we could progress.”
This has all been swept out from under him. The Labour government increased the minimum salary threshold for a skilled worker visa to £41,700. And it removed essential transport jobs from the approved list of roles that qualify.
The changes came into effect on 22 July. They have jeopardised the status of TfL employees whose graduate visas expire in the next year.
Adeoye told Socialist Worker that TfL had already started advertising their jobs. He said, “We’re all just numbers to them. I’m just one customer service assistant, they can get another. They don’t think about what happens to me after. No care at all for the person actually doing the job.”
Adeoye’s wife and two-year-old child live back in Nigeria and visa changes mean they will be unable to join him.
He said, “I want my family with me. I had emailed TfL before the rule change, and I told them about my circumstances. I told them this is in your hands, if you sponsor me with my present job, and before 22 July, I can bring my family over.
“Before the government brought in the rule change, being sponsored meant that you could bring your family. We could have lived here together.”
“TfL replied saying that it didn’t matter about my circumstances, I had to wait until three months before my visa expired before we could have a conversation about sponsorship.
“I said, if you wait till then the rules will have changed. I told TfL, I cannot be with my son. I cannot watch him grow. I only see him two times a year. And still all they said was that we cannot have a conversation about sponsorship until three months before the expiration, and that’s that.
“It caused so much anxiety, so much pain. Both my parents are dead, it’s just me and my brother. He lives in Wolverhampton with his own family now. Both our lives are here.”
Arjun works as a member of TfL’s special requirements team. Along with his wife and their dog, he came to London from India in 2023 on a student visa.
He said, “We did everything the right way. Go to university, get a job, work your way up. We sold all our possessions for the chance at a better life, to be able to afford to just get here. It cost us £50,000 in that first year, just to breathe in this country.”
Arjun told Socialist Worker, “Because a student visa only allowed my wife to work up to 20 hours a week, I had to get a job the first week I arrived. I got my security industry licence and started working in Chiltern Railway security. Then the station offered me a job and I started working for TfL.
“I worked horrendous hours. We had so many fees to pay to live here. We still have to pay an NHS fee every year. It’s thousands of pounds each.”
He added, “Everything changed after the white paper. We kept emailing TfL asking if they were going to sponsor us before the rule came into effect. They kept saying everything will be fine. Then on 1 July, with three weeks’ notice, the company said our jobs would not be eligible.
“They sent out a pathetic, inhumane computer reply saying that they would contact us with more information at a later date.”
“Because they waited so long to say that there was nothing they could do for us, there are no other routes that we are eligible for. We’re completely undesirable because employers won’t take on people who have less than a year left on their visas.
“I don’t know why this is happening. It’s wrong. I don’t know how else we could have contributed, what more could we have done? We paid our taxes, all the fees. We worked hard.”
Arjun was awarded five “Make a Difference” awards in his first five months working for TfL. One was for volunteering to stay hours after his shift ended when “a person suffered life threatening injuries after falling from the top of the escalator”.
“This is the story of every one of us. As immigrants we try harder than anyone to try to prove ourselves in the hopes to be accepted,” said Arjun.
“We’re called ‘spongers and skivers’ but for the working class migrant, it’s the opposite. We give so much, and spend so much because of the cost of the visa fees. My colleagues always ask me ‘Why are you doing so much overtime?’ and I tell them I’m just trying to pay the government.
“And still, even though we did everything by the book, they then smashed the book in our faces.”
The Labour government’s racist crackdown on migrants is part of a trajectory. It has lurched rightwards in response to far right party Reform UK’s surge in the polls.
Arjun told Socialist Worker that he felt lied to by Labour. “I was a paying member of the Labour Party. When they got into power I signed up for membership. “But Keir Starmer went back on everything he promised, and obviously now I have rescinded that membership. I’m signed up to Your Party. Maybe they will bring about a fairer system.”
Like Adeoye, Ade is a TfL customer service assistant. Ade and his wife moved from Nigeria on a student visa in 2023. The new immigration rule means they will be forced to leave Britain when the visa expires in February 2026.
Ade told Socialist Worker that the number of people affected was actually far more than the estimates. “It’s up to 100 customer service assistants and 80 customer service supervisors facing deportation when their visas expire.
“TfL could have sponsored the workers prior to 22 July in order to protect them from the implications of the rule change, but did not.
“We were told that we were key workers, that we do an important job, and then overnight suddenly we’re no longer seen as skilled workers.”
“People have abandoned their lives back home to make a life here. We’ve been here for two to three years. Doesn’t anyone think about what will happen to us? We have nothing to go back to. We’ve made Britain our home.
“This is a big injustice, but I have to keep the faith that this is a fight we’re going to win.”
Adeoye, Ade and Arjun are determined to fight against sackings and deportations. Adeoye said the RMT union and his colleagues are prepared to take collective action over the plans.
“We are trying to support each other to force their hand,” said Adeoye. “We didn’t have the unions involved early enough. We should have gotten them involved the minute TfL sent out the email confirming that our jobs would no longer meet the thresholds for skilled worker visas.
“The RMT has to move fast now, some workers’ visas expire really soon. I know people whose visas expire in October and November. They might be forced to leave before we even get a chance to win the fight.
“To put the pressure on TfL and the government, I think that will mean we have to go on strike. Other members of staff will have to understand the impact these rules have on us so that they come out and stand with us. Then we stand a chance of getting TfL and the government to undo this.”
Arjun echoed Adeoye in praising the RMT, “I don’t know what we would do without the RMT. They have been a rock for us, they have been our only hope. Of course, there’s still a feeling of hopelessness there, but everyone has been so supportive.”
Ade said, “We reached out to the union after TfL confirmed we were on our own. The RMT have tried to get the word out. They are doing everything they can to support us.”
He added, “We have to speak out and bring attention to what is happening to us. We’ll fight this. We have no choice. We’re going to be having a protest on 11 September where we’ll be able to tell our stories.”
“It is only because of the union, and knowing my colleagues are behind us, that we can keep our hopes up. We are not in this alone.”
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