The day that changed my life
Claire Walford
26 years ago, Shayne Tyler’s life was turned upside down overnight.
He was working as the operations manager for a fresh food manufacturer in Cambridgeshire when the factory was exposed on a BBC Panorama programme for the illegal employment of more than 200 staff.
The business itself had not broken the law, but it had been infiltrated by a criminal gang and many of its workers were receiving as little as 17p an hour and returning to exploitative conditions at night. Shayne can never forget the details of that day – though he did not live the trauma personally, he is still haunted by what he was told by fellow workers.
Since then, he has devoted himself to fighting labour exploitation, initially working as a Compliance Director in a large food business, responsible for health, safety and worker welfare in the business and its supply chains.
Welfare comes first
In 2022, he left his role as a Compliance Director and set up his own business, TylerBladon Practical Ethics, helping businesses identify issues and risks within their supply chains and creating frameworks that ensure compliance, demonstrate good practice and protect the welfare of workers.
Shayne likes to say he looks after the “welfare, safety and health of workers” in that order. He says: “Welfare comes first, then make sure workers are safe and then provide the health.
“I find, investigate and remediate cases of worker exploitation. I help businesses put together true remediation – prevention and disruption of the crime – by using a different lens, seeing the supply chain from the perspective of the worker.”
The blame game
Shayne continues: “I do not believe that modern slavery and worker exploitation is a business or a supplier issue alone. It is not their fault. Exploitation exists in businesses because it exists in society. Business is simply the environment in which it surfaces, and we can choose to challenge or ignore it. That distinction matters as it determines how we respond.
“If we treat modern slavery as a supplier problem, we audit, sanction and then move on. But if we recognise it as a societal problem, we change our role. We’re not here to punish because we don’t have the power to punish – I can’t solve a problem in Kyrgyzstan from a farm in Gloucester! Rather we’re here to shine a light, take appropriate steps to deal with what we find and prevent it from happening it again.
“We need structural change that makes it harder for exploitation to take place in the first place. We need to build systems where vulnerable people are not just protected on paper, but we genuinely hear them, or in the case of The Clewer Initiative, we genuinely see them.”
Worker exploitation in legitimate businesses
Most of the time, UK businesses want to do the right thing, but criminals can still infiltrate the employment process. Shayne shares a recent example - Sara*, a Nigerian woman, worked in a business for several years. The HR department discovered she didn’t have the right to work and “in a drive to understand” began investigating her employment status. They spoke to the recruitment consultant who had placed her, a man from Nigeria, and he immediately became defensive and withdrew Sara* from the business. They never saw her again.
Prior to her disappearance, she told her supervisor that, on arrival in the UK, she was immediately separated from her companion, and she did not know where he was. She didn’t have any paperwork, visa, passport or payslip. She was receiving some money but not the full amount.
Shayne was contacted by the business who wanted to learn from their mistakes and protect future workers. When the team opened up Sara’s personnel file to report the case to the Police, all her personal details were fake. The well-meaning business had not got the right systems in place to detect criminal activity and even worse, when it found a case of exploitation, it didn’t get its approach to the victim right either. Shayne helped them review and amend their systems, processes and policies but unfortunately, it was too late for Sara*.
Shayne tries to “think like an exploiter” and look for criminal opportunities in recruitment processes and supply chains. He finds that people open up to him, often sharing their stories and highlighting the presence of exploitation. For example, when recently assessing a recruitment pathway overseas, he identified 170 risks and saw that the business’ due diligence was totally inadequate.
New perspective
Shayne’s big passion is challenging businesses (and people in general) to change the “lens” through which they see people.
“Worker engagement is never just going to be solved by a poster on a wall. Instead, it is solved by truly “seeing” workers and creating an environment where they can be heard safely in their own way. If we can’t do it safely, they will never come forward.
“We need to keep asking ourselves: “Do we see through our lens or theirs? We must put ourselves in the place of the exploited worker and look at the world from their perspective. They are usually invisible to us because the systems we have built make them invisible. We need to meet people where they’re at, not always on our own terms.”
Workplaces that truly care
In terms of worker interviews and worker engagement. Shayne thinks asking a list of specific questions is the wrong approach. He explains: “Think of the most horrendous thing that has happened in your life, something very shameful. And now tell me about it… How does that make you feel? You’re never going to want to speak. Instead of thinking “what do we want to find out?” ask yourself, “What are they wanting to tell us?”
“We must create work cultures where workers can talk freely. Managers must show they are really listening, and then at some point, in the future, they might, if it is right for them, open up. It is not our job to get them to confess to a situation of worker exploitation on day one.”
I ask Shayne if he has seen this sort of work culture in action and he proudly tells me story after story of businesses and employees caring for one another, listening, showing integrity and victims speaking up.
Shayne concludes: “Exploitation can’t breed in an environment where we care for one another. That’s the vision and the hope that gets me up every day!”
Question to ask yourself as you reflect on Shayne’s story and experience of fighting worker exploitation: How can you help grow care and listening in your community and workplace?
*Sara's name has been changed to protect her identity.
