Financialisation and Forced Labour
There is limited research on the relationship between financialisation and labour conditions. Drawing on data from the PRIME Project, this brief begins to address that gap by considering how corporate form can contribute to the risk of labour exploitation and forced labour in the United Kingdom’s waste management and recycling sector. By engaging with ownership models, market consolidation, and contractual relationships with the state, the research offers new insights into labour conditions and financialisation.
Waste management and recycling is a broad, highly financialised sector reliant on complex international supply chains. In UK municipal and commercial waste, sub-contracting arrangements, supported by Private-Public Partnerships, are widespread. Private equity-backed firms prioritise profitability to maximise investor returns, incentivising cost reduction through subcontracting, outsourcing, and offshoring. Further down the supply chain, dry waste sorting is often sub-contracted once again with further companies involved in contracting for subsequent export and processing abroad. Such practices have been described as ‘waste imperialism’ alongside allegations of waste dumping and evidence of forced labour in the UK and in “destination” countries.