He is just one of many Kosovars who have entered Britain illegally in the past year in a bid to escape the ravages of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Serbian police and army units. He has now found a kind of sanctuary on London's building sites, but it comes at a price. He and fellow Kosovar workers are paid derisory wages by contractors exploiting their illegal employment status 鈥� even in National Construction Week, when the industry is trying to clean up its image.
Jeton and his colleagues have been working as labourers on high-profile construction projects in London, but are paid less than half the 拢50-60 day-rate that their British counterparts get. Their stories are strongly denied by all the contractors involved.
Jeton's escape from the blood-soaked valleys of Kosovo brought him to the seedy London offices of one subcontractor. Gathered outside the office at 6.30am, Jeton and 30 or so other Kosovars wait to be dispatched to sites around the capital. Sometimes, when no work is available, they are disappointed but are always told to return the next day.
Similar scenes occur throughout London every day. On a street corner off Cricklewood Broadway in north London, large groups of Kosovars and other East Europeans gather in the early hours of each morning, hoping to be picked up for casual work on sites.
Jeton's new life began when he fled Kosovo in September after the Serbian government ethnically cleansed his hometown of Prizren.
He and his family escaped to Skopje, Macedonia, where he paid DM3000 (拢1200) to be smuggled into Greece in the back of a container lorry. After a four-day journey inside the container, Jeton and two companions reached Belgium, where they were switched to another container in which they crossed the Channel. They were eventually dropped outside London and caught a bus to Victoria Coach Station.
Jeton quickly made contact with other Kosovars, and they put him in contact with their subcontractor employer. Jeton is glad of the chance to work, but wishes he could earn more money to send home to his family in Albania. He worries about his family. Tears well up in his eyes when he talks about them, and when he speaks of his home in Prizren. "It is gone," he says with his head bowed. "It was fire and is ashes." Jeton's family are safe with relatives in Albania, but he is anxious to send them money so that they will not be a burden.
Selami, a Kosovar who has been given temporary asylum, recently earned 拢120 for working a 50-hour week on a site in London's Square Mile. His English is almost non-existent. All he remembers about the site he worked on was that it had a large canteen that he never used. The canteen, he explains, was for "rich workers, English [and] Irish [who] earn good money".
He, too, paid a lorry driver to enter the UK, but he is reluctant to talk about it. He is trying to gain permanent residence in Britain and is frightened of any publicity.
"I work, but I spend my money to buy these," he complains in broken English, pointing to a pair of work boots. His employer picks him up at the office in the morning and takes him back at night. Selami says he is always nervous travelling in the van that transports him. He is frightened that it will be stopped by the police, whom he fears will deport him for working.
Selami was never asked for a National Insurance number. Despite this, he was told that PAYE income tax had been deducted from his wages. "That was why they say my money was 拢120," he explains.
The local authority has provided Selami with a place to live and supplied him with what he describes as "food paper" (vouchers), which he can use at his local Tesco. He does not receive any additional money to live on. He says that if the local authority found out he was working in construction, he would lose his entitlement to food vouchers.
Like Jeton, Selami wants to work so he can send money back to his family in Macedonia. "They have nothing there and I must work to help them," he says.
Kosovars are not the only East European immigrants working in the black market. Nicolai, an illegal Romanian immigrant, arrived in this country eight months ago on a tourist visa. He also found work with a subcontractor on a West End site. Paid by cheque, Nicolai's take-home pay for working six 12-hour shifts is 拢180, or 拢2.50 an hour.
A spokesman for the major contractor in charge of the site said all workers were employed in line with the Working Rule Agreement and that it had checked all their National Insurance numbers.
A subcontractor said the three men's stories were "rubbish". "I can assure you that nobody working for us is earning less than the [拢3.60 an hour] minimum wage," he said.
"I was up until 3.30 last night filling wage packets and placing cheques in envelopes. All the amounts were over the minimum wage level. It's the cheque-changing bureaus that must be shafting them." The "cheque-changing bureaus" referred to are an important part of the story. The vast majority of illegal workers are paid by cheque, which they can cash in various London pubs.
In fact, the cheque-cashing business is so popular that one landlord has built a special kiosk in the corner of the pub where workers can cash their cheques without bothering his other customers. Most Thursday and Friday evenings, the pub is packed with Kosovars and other East Europeans queuing up to turn paper into cash.
Other pubs have also been quick to cash in on the fact that illegal workers do not have bank accounts, charging an average of 拢5 a time for cashing wage cheques. Many East Europeans are grateful for this service, as it allows them to be untraceable.
They are also willing to go through a middleman, however shadowy, to secure work. Workers on two London sites gained labouring shifts with a London contractor in this way. Brian Craze, construction officer with the Transport and General Workers Union, complained to the contractor which, he said, was using the men on site.
The contractor admitted using labour supplied by the middleman, but insisted it was not aware that it had been supplied with illegal workers. A spokesperson said: "If there are people there, we don't know about it. We check the NI numbers of workers on site. I'd be surprised if anyone got through our net."
But streetwise subcontractors often have a pool of bona fide National Insurance numbers with matching names. Quite often, the same numbers and names are used on several sites at once. But as few major contractors bother to cross check National Insurance numbers, workers with bogus credentials have little chance of getting caught.
Jeton is studying English at night school. With improved English, he hopes to get a better job. He has a friend who makes 拢25 a day washing up, 拢5-7 more than Jeton. Whatever the future holds, Jeton does not want to remain in construction. "It not a good job," he explains. "It keep you poor."
