ABSTRACT
Employer sanctions intensify the precarious position of unauthorised workers, since workers continue to have more to lose from detection than employers, and significant primacy appears to be accorded to worker-focused immigration compliance activities. The employer-focused immigration offences accentuate the underlying power differential in migrants precarious employment. Reforms introduced in the name of preventing unauthorised employment, and the exploitation that so frequently attends it, have been better adapted to punishing employers and workers than to providing redress. Indeed, these offences dangerously conflate employment of unauthorised workers with exploitation of unauthorised workers. Such confusion arose during the parliamentary debates preceding the passage of the laws in 2007, as evidenced by one sitting member who observed that any person who is prepared to employ illegal non-citizens is exploiting those individuals. These offences may serve to obscure truly precarious employment by framing exploitation as an immigration violation rather than a labour abuse.
