Tribunal orders company to pay Shabin Shaji for care work he was not given after coming to UK, in landmark case
An Indian citizen who came to the UK to work as a care worker through the post-Brexit visa scheme has been awarded nearly 30,000 in a landmark case, because his employer failed to give him a single day of work for a year.
An employment tribunal ordered the care company Swan Care Solutions Ltd to pay Shabin Shaji wages for the work he was “ready, able and willing to do”.
Believing there was a “major shortage” of healthcare workers in the UK, Shaji emigrated from Kerala to Stafford, England, bought a car for the job and undertook online training in 2023.
He told the tribunal that before arriving in the UK, he had sought advice from a YouTube influencer on securing work in the UK.
She connected him with agents whom he paid 17,000, before he was interviewed for a role at Swan Care Solutions on WhatsApp, the tribunal heard.
Shaji was then given a certificate of sponsorship, entitling him to live and work in the UK with Swan Care Solutions as his Home Office-approved sponsoring employer.
But the computer science graduate, who had previously worked in healthcare in India, ended up in destitution after his Staffordshire-based employer did not give him any shifts, despite his repeated pleas.
His sponsored visa prevented him from working for anyone else for more than 20 hours a week. He eventually managed to secure sponsorship from another employer in April 2024 – a year...
Ukraine reveals motive behind Kremlin's latest nuclear plant disinformation push Russian propaganda has circulated another false claim alleging that the Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the Zaporizhzh...