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TV Features

You are in: London > TV > Television > TV Features > Rice Bowl Politics

London's Chinatown

London's Chinatown

Rice Bowl Politics

A labour shortage is forcing a crisis in Chinese catering and as a consequence many livelihoods. Owners say changes in the immigration rules are threatening the Chinese restaurant as we know it. Kurt Barling reports

The Chinese community has a reputation for getting on with it with very little complaint. 

For generations of Chinese migrants, one of the primary ways of making a livelihood has been through the catering industry.   There can hardly be a High Street in the capital without at least one Chinese take-away and a restaurant.

At a rally in central London this week it became clear that restaurant owners are really angry and confused about what the new immigration system means for the running of their businesses.   It's doubtful several hundred business owners would come to a political rally and lose valuable income if there wasn’t a genuine grievance.

"This has been one of the most successful and aspiring migrant communities. "

Kurt Barling

The immigration system is changing.  The government has said it needs to manage migration in the national interest.   It wants to regulate the number of non-EU migrants coming into the country.

The government has introduced a new Points Based System which works on the assumption that certain scarce skills will attract a greater number of points.

So for example, specialist cuisine (Chinese and Indian cuisine being obvious examples) may attract extra points for a chef or waiting staff front of house but that’s unlikely for less skilled tasks in the kitchen. 

The Chinese community are not alone in voicing their concerns.  Bangladeshi restaurant owners in Brick Lane and beyond have also been lobbying the government on the same grounds.

A Migration Advisory Committee will advise the government on how to draw up the list of shortage occupations.  This grouping will take soundings from a Migration Impacts Forum which will assess the on the ground implications of the new rules.

At the same time as doing this, a more robust intervention by the Border and Immigration agency dealing with employers who take on workers without settled status is, says the Chinese Immigration Concern Committee, putting a complete spanner in the works.  Nationwide raids on restaurants, starting last October on Chinatown, have sparked off a wave of fear that livelihoods are under threat.

The problem is the micro-economy of the Chinese catering business has come to rely on the use of cheap migrant labour.   It has helped them avoid complicated language barrier problems and in an environment which requires hard graft they have enabled restaurants to prosper in a highly competitive market.  It’s also probably meant more authentic cuisine at cheaper prices.

Wing Kwok owns a restaurant in Essex.  His father began the business in 1971.  He plans to close down within the next month because he says he cannot get the workers he needs from the job centre.   He reckons that he’s tried local workers before but they never last.

So he, like many other restaurant owners, has relied over the years on a supply of new migrants and asylum seekers.  Immigration status has not been a barrier to casual (as opposed to contract) employment in the past. 

But now the prospect of being prosecuted, going to prison and losing everything under the proceeds of crime act means the risks of running a Chinese restaurant in the old fashion are too high.

Li Kong is 50 and has been in the UK for six years.   He is a failed asylum seeker and has resorted to anything to get by; selling pirated DVDs is just one line of business.   He says he was forced down this route when the restaurant where he was working released him for fear of being prosecuted for employing him. 

It is well documented that even when a failed asylum seeker is ready for removal from the country, it may take some years for this to happen.  Since last year asylum seekers have not been allowed to work.   Migrant worker organisations have continued to lobby government saying this is not only unfair but means migrants cannot survive. 

It forces them into criminal activity.   From a practical standpoint the Chinese catering community say they need these workers.

This is a real conundrum and one which the Migration Advisory Committee has been set up to arbitrate.  It will advise the government on where migration might sensibly fill gaps in the labour market. It’s inevitable that the unskilled pool of Chinese migrant labour will diminish.

Chinese food stall

This has been one of the most successful and aspiring migrant communities.  In a way, the Chinese community have become a victim of this business and social mobility success.  One consequence is that each generation of Chinese migrants has seen their children amongst the highest educational achievers.  

Academic success has meant that their children have mostly not wanted to continue in the profitable family business.  This has left the restaurateurs in a quandary.  This is a labour intensive industry and by and large not a highly skilled one. 

So at this point in the economic evolution of the Chinese catering sector in the Capital there needs to be a hard look at which workers are needed.   Chinese restaurant owners are now arguing running their businesses requires culturally specific skills.  

In short Chinese restaurants need Chinese chefs and Chinese servers in the same way as Italian restaurants need Italian authenticity to attract customers.   But do menial tasks in the kitchen require this?

The strength of feeling across London’s Chinese community is possibly more intense than it’s ever been.  There is a feeling they are being targeted, even criminalised, for the practices which have helped their businesses prosper.  But there are real questions about how this sector needs to adjust so it can continue to prosper without an exclusive reliance on migrant labour.

In Chinese culture the rice bowl is a symbol of that prosperity and livelihood.  As part of their protest on Monday Chinese restaurant owners laid hundreds of empty rice bowls in front of the entrance Home Office.

If the government and businesses don’t find an accommodation on this issue Londoners may well see fewer Chinese Restaurant’s and Take-Aways but also a steady rise in the price of that essential accompaniment to a quiet night in.

last updated: 20/05/2008 at 14:08
created: 05/03/2008

Have Your Say

The BBC reserves the right to edit comments submitted.

Bob
There are less than a thousand of asylum seekers that is Chinese specifically. If they are referring to Chinese immigrants, there are at least 1 million of them and it kept increasing in a fast rate, and the main way they immigrate is through work permits to these restaurants. It's cheap labor for the restaurants and a "well-paid" job for the worker since these immigrants do not usually get paid that much in their own country, comparing to UK. However these employments took away employment oppotunities for the British in their own country and other EU migrants. The policy is a good way to protect the country and end this economic "invasion" from immigrants.

sally Daly
A changing climate for Chinese restaurants in the UK

lisa
The UK ask's "Do menial tasks in the kitchen require these immigrants/ migrants?"If not, I aske the UK "Would an ordinary English man or woman on jobseekers allowance do this?"Most folks in the UK deem this work to be too downgrading, but someone has to do it.

daniel
andy have you worked or run a chinese restaurant and tried employing non ethnic staff.. give it a try then tell us is it ONLY COOKING.

Ming
Our restaurant has been closed for two weeks, just because we cannot find the kitchen,s staff. No local people interesting to work in the Chinese Kitchen and cook Chinese food. A lot of bills still waiting for us to pay. I don't Know how long my restaurant can survive? Why the goverment chose to pay the income support but not the working permit for who really want to work?

ann
why they have created this rules which will make the matter complicated?why dont they think in others way instead to help the eu member to get a job which dont need the skill like the job in industrial area.a simple question, if we can employ someone who we think they can , then why should we waste our time to look around for the suitable one ?easiest solution is improve our economic for the whole picture which will create more vancancies for everyone sake.

Jakeedin
Referencing to Andy's comment, "not exactly rocket science, its only cooking". Is that the reason why we in this country rely on Ready to eat foods in supermarkets because people really in this country cannot cook. I own a restaurant and I have no idea how many young female customers who cannot tell the difference between raw pork and chicken. In the past 12 months I have interviewed 15 NVQ level 2 chefs who came to us because chinese restaurants cook from fresh meat and veg. Not one of them passed our aptitude test. The catering and hospitality industry across the noard in this country is indeed crying out for labour. Not just chinese sectors. Its not moaning its a telling the government to sort it out. Closed the gates, release ready availble resource that we have, integrate NVQ into the Chinese communities, overseas employees must promise that they will pay all taxes and no claim to public funds. That way, the British citizens will see the benefit of taxes going into their pensions when all turn sixty. NHS improvements all paid by overseas workers. Today, overseas workers are already funding the NHS, NIC and DSS its just that the government have never explained to the British public. Overseas workers do not get SSP nor are they allowed to use public funds. Unlike us British born folks.

A FAILD ASYLUM SEEKER
firstly,i don't understand why uk govenment ban us the right to work.it's another way to ban people's right to survive.if so how come u can always put'the human rights' out of your mouth? (sorry for my anger)be honestly,there is so many illigal worker who same as me feel helpless.if so wat they gona do? break the law doing some criminal things?i think uk govement do not wish this happened right?

Andy
For goodness sake stop moaning and employ some non ethnic staff. Its not exactly rocket science, its only cooking.

Lee
Make it easy for restaurant owners to get work permit for the worker they need.

Vivian
I have just started secondary school in September and I am 12 years old. Everyday I need to go to work with my mum, which means that I don’t get back till midnight. I try my best to study really hard in school but because I don’t have enough sleep and enough time to do my homework I cannot succeed. I have to go work everyday because my mum cannot employ anybody.

Ruth
I do think that Assylum seekers should be allowed to work. This helps them to earn a living. For God's sake this is a first world and not a third world where people have to starve. My suggestion is that the Government should allow everyone inside and then close the borders. Then solve the problems inside before allowing anyone inside a gain. A lot of cases of most for Assylum seekers have not been solved for many years. I know of people who have been here for 15 years and no feedback from the Home Office. Does the government expect such a people to wait until when. It's like being in prison. They wast a lot of time waiting plus sending the tax players money and then returned without paying it back. I feel angry at the situation but at the same time the law should be strict. Don't allow more people in and let the ones inside free.

Ms Xin Zhang
Thousands of Chinese including failed asylum seekers are already in the UK, we do not need to find labour outside country. Forget about the Eastern EU workers, because they cannot help. Our restaurant now think to closeing down, we cannot find the workers.The British food supplier also lose the big customer like us.

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