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» Feature » Learning and organising
How migrant w are learning thanks to t Migrant workers in East Anglia are learning about their rights at work while improving their English, thanks to the GMB’s Liliya Brabbs.
By Martin Moriarty
12 » autumn 2008
M
ore migrant workers have registered to work in East Anglia than in any other part of the country over the past four years. While some of them are IT professionals or doctors, many are fruit-pickers, factory-workers and builders whose experience of living and working in this country has been tainted by exploitation and discrimination. Luckily, some of them at least have found practical help and concrete support from the local trade union
movement, not least in the form of the GMB’s Migrant Workers Learning Projects Co-ordinator for the region, Liliya Brabbs. A migrant herself, Liliya moved to the UK from the Czech Republic four years ago to live with her daughter, a professional photographer who had recently moved from the US to work here. “I had a good job as a television journalist, and I was progressing in my career, but my daughter persuaded me to take a break