The Voice of the Drowning Man

Two years have passed since 23 Chinese workers died at Morecambe Bay. And today the gangmaster Lin Liangren, found guilty of 21 counts of manslaughter, and two of his associates will be sentenced. (David and Tony Eden, the buyers, were acquitted of minor immigration-related charges.) But despite the outcry over the drownings, and the guilty verdicts, migrant workers are still selling their labour on the sands under the same appalling conditions.

The cockle pickers who were there on the night of the tragedy know nothing has changed beyond the conviction of a few at the bottom of the chain. And they strongly believe that labour contractors such as Lin - the gangmasters - are not the only ones who share responsibility for the workers' deaths.

Long before cockle picking became a job option, at least 70,000 unauthorised Chinese workers were already toiling away in food-processing chains, agriculture, catering and construction across Britain. These were made up of three groups: failed asylum seekers, destitute asylum seekers waiting for Home Office decisions, and migrants who were never known to the immigration authorities. Twenty of the 23 drowned cocklers were impoverished farmers and workers from Fujian province - the home of most Chinese workers who have fallen foul of New Labour's immigration policy.

With asylum rights curtailed and manual-labour migration discouraged, the workers resorted to cockling. In some cases they were looking for better-paid jobs to send money home; some moved from job to job because of the casual, seasonal nature of work demanded by multinational retailers; others were driven out of urban centres into higher-risk occupations by fear of police raids as a result of their vulnerable immigration status.

Chinese workers were discovered by local gangmasters as "a half-price ... more punctual and productive workforce", in the words of a local businessman, and cockling was developed into a profitable business not by Snakeheads (as often assumed) but by local middlemen supplying large seafood-processing businesses. The middlemen controlled the workload and set production targets for the 30-40 Chinese cocklers in each team, and were referred to as "bosses". Contrary to the picture painted in much of the media, the Chinese cocklers, first recruited in 2002, were making huge profits for the seafood industry, not the people smugglers. The industry in effect endorsed the working conditions under Chinese gangmasters and played a decisive role in their exploitation.

Lin Liangren told me: "The ultimate responsibility for the Morecambe Bay deaths lies with the top bosses, the English suppliers and their international clients, who put enormous pressure on us to produce." Delayed payment by industry middlemen led directly to delayed wages by gangmasters. Frequent price cutting by the middlemen pushed gangmasters to impose a harsher regime to produce more, for lower wages.

Lin Guo, a survivor, told the court the cocklers were never told about safety and had to just use common sense to judge what to do when in danger. Workers were never given tide tables, were unaware of local conditions, and weren't provided with safety equipment. On some nights business representatives worked alongside gangmasters, but the attitude towards health and safety was "that's really up to them".

While the Gangmasters Licensing Act (due to come into force next month) was debated in the aftermath of the Morecambe Bay tragedy and a crackdown was carried out against illegal Chinese immigration, gang-labour exploitation continued. Now Polish workers are working under similar conditions to the Chinese. Led by Polish gangmasters, the workers, with no experience at sea, confide that the worst thing about the work is the lack of safety. Nothing has changed.

For them the vicious circle continues: poor working conditions in food-processing factories and dairy farms in the north-west have pushed many into cockling on the Pilling and Fleetwood cockle beds south of Morecambe, newly opened in December despite safety concerns. There is still no system to limit the number working the sands, and no protection against abuse of gang labour.

On Knott End and Pilling Sands, where the bay's flatness means fast tides, scores of cocklers can still be seen. Many work two exhausting shifts a day, getting paid £10 per 25kg bucket. Workers say they haven't even been told to dial 999 in case of emergency. Local middlemen supervise the work daily but claim no responsibility for conditions.

The Gangmasters Licensing Act will offer only the most limited protection, and tougher immigration-law enforcement may drive illegal migrant workers into even more dangerous conditions. Unless the government acts to protect all workers, regardless of their immigration status, tragedies like Morecambe Bay seem bound to be repeated .

Lin Liangren blames "bad luck" for the Morecambe Bay tragedy. But Li Jinyun, the widow of one of the victims, believes otherwise: "It's the working conditions in Britain that killed our loved ones." Yang Shangjin - a Morecambe Bay cockler who had earlier worked on construction sites in Shanghai - told me he blamed the brutality of capitalism for the tragedy.

hsiao-hung.pai@guardian.co.uk