AnEvaluationoftheGangmasters

LicensingAuthority
AreportforOxfam

Dr.MickWilkinsonwithProf.GaryCraigandAlineGaus

ContemporarySlaveryResearchUnit(CRSU),
TheWilberforceInstitute,UniversityofHull

Acknowledgements
The Research Team would like to convey their gratitude to those migrant workers who
agreed to participate in this study, together with all other key stakeholders who assisted with
this endeavour. Our thanks also go to Krisnah Poinasamy and Farah Kurji at Oxfam for their
assistance in the research process.

Contemporary Slavery Research Unit

Wilberforce Institute

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University of Hull
October 2009

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Table of contents

1 Introduction 6

2 Background 7

3 Aims of the research 9

4 Methodology 9

5 The operation of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) and Act 10

5.1 Raising the standard 10

5.2 Raising standards 11

5.3 The positive impact on retailers and labour suppliers 11

5.4 Widespread support for the GLA 13

5.5 Cooperation with other statutory enforcement agencies 14

5.6 Compliance and revocation 15

5.7 Enforcement: the need for greater penalties 16

5.8 Phoenix companies 19

5.9 The need for formal support during revocation proceedings 20

5.10 Limited action against labour users using unlicensed labour providers 21

5.11 Exploitative farmers directly employing workers 21

6 Unlicensed, rogue gangmasters 21

7 Exploitation within the GLAs field of operation 22

7.1 Deceit/facilitation fees/debt bondage 23

7.2 Systematic theft by deliberate miscalculation of wages 24

7.3 Systematic theft by spurious/illegal charges 25

7.4 Enforced excessive working hours 26

7.5 Removal of identification papers 27

7.6 Violence/threat of violence 27

7.7 Unfair dismissal/threat of dismissal 28

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7.8 Accommodation 29

7.8.1 Tied accommodation 29

7.8.2 The failure of local authorities to enforce housing standards 29

7.8.3 Overcrowding and substandard accommodation 30

7.8.4 Failure to provide a tenancy agreement 31

7.8.5 Cheating on utility costs 32

7.8.6 Cheating on bonds 32

7.8.7 Lack of personal privacy 32

7.8.8 Evictions and homelessness 32

7.9 The scale of the problem 33

7.10 Under-reporting/Barriers to coming forward/Undercounting 34

7.10.1 The fear factor 34

7.10.2 General isolation/cultural and language factors 35

7.10.3 Few agencies proactively investigating the abuse of migrant workers 36

7.10.4 Migrant worker ignorance of their rights and of enforcement agencies 36

7.10.5 Complaints not being passed on to the GLA by non-enforcement agencies 36

7.10.6 Taking it on the chin 37

7.11 The power of the supermarkets 37

8 The need for greater resources 38

9 Raising the game 39

10 To boldly go 40

10.1 The call for expansion into other sectors 41

10.1.1 The GLA displacing gangmasters into other sectors of the economy 42

10.1.2 The ineffectiveness of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate 43

10.1.3 Weak trade union organisation 46

10.1.4 Resource implications 47

10.1.5 Economies of scale and cost efficiency 47

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11 Exploitation in sectors outside the GLAs current remit 49

11.1 Construction 51

11.2 Hospitality, catering and cleaning 55

11.3 The care sector 58

12 The enforcement framework 60

12.1 Recent government proposals for change 61

12.2 Key concerns around the machinery of enforcement 62

12.3 The governments proposals considered 66

13 Undocumented migrant workers 70

13.1 The form and scale of exploitation 70

13.2 The operation and impact of the civil penalty regime 74

13.3 Proposals for change 76

14 Conclusions and recommendations 76

14.1 Recommendations to government 77

14.2 Recommendations to the GLA 80

14.3 The future operational seat of the GLA 81

15 References 82

16 Appendix 90

16.1 List of organisations and individuals consulted for this study 90

16.2 Decent Work for a Decent Future: Reviewing Labour Supplier

Practices in Europe 91

16.3 A4 poster issued by the research team to voluntary agencies

(and produced in a variety of languages) in order to recruit migrant
workers for interview. 102

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These industries have always used foreign workers and they always will, and they will use
temporary workers. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with temporary workers or foreign
workers, but what is wrong is that people should not be exploited; and the scale of this has
increased dramatically over the past ten to fifteen years and continues to increase.

Paul Whitehouse, GLA Chairman, BBC Radio 4 You and Yours, 15 August 2007.

1 Introduction
The Gangmasters (Licensing) Act was introduced in 2004 to curb exploitative and fraudulent
activities by gangmasters/labour providers supplying labour in the agriculture, forestry,
horticulture, shellfish-gathering and related food processing and packaging industries. The
Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) is responsible for the implementation of the Act via
its operation of the Gangmaster Licensing scheme. All labour suppliers within those sectors
have to be licensed in order to operate.

It is a criminal offence to operate as a gangmaster without a licence, or to use an unlicensed

labour provider. The maximum penalty for the former offence is a prison sentence of ten
years and a 5,000 fine, for the latter a prison sentence of six months and a fine of 5,000.

General conditions for issuing and continuing a licence are that the labour provider:

Pays the National Minimum Wage, tax, National Insurance and VAT.
Does not subject workers to debt bondage, harsh treatment or intimidation.
Provides suitable accommodation (where accommodation is provided with the job).
Respects general employment rights (including no excessive hours and proper
recruitment and contractual arrangements).
Follows health and safety requirements.
Uses only licensed sub-contractors.
Does not employ illegal workers.

The GLA began accepting licence applications in April 2006. It spent the best part of the next
two years establishing the regulator at its offices in Nottingham, and introducing the licensing
scheme. As of June 2009, there are 1,230 gangmasters licensed by the GLA, which operates
on a budget of approximately 3.4m.
Early in 2008, the GLA turned its focus towards a second phase of compliance and
enforcement. Attention shifted from getting gangmasters on board to ensuring that
licensing standards were being upheld, and the value of having a GLA licence maintained.
This shift has involved two dimensions: firstly, developing sharper-toothed intelligence,
compliance, enforcement and prosecution activity; and secondly, ensuring that the outcomes
of this activity are disseminated to enable the GLA to punch above its weight. 1 In April
2008, Mr Ian Livsey, Chief Executive of the GLA, explained to the House of Commons
Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking in the UK 2008-09, that: The acid test for
this body... is over the next two to three years when we start to root out those who have
evaded us, those who are operating illegally; and continue to police the standards so that
nobody working in this field should be exploited. 2

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The GLA Chairman, Paul Whitehouse, has consistently stated that the key mission of the
Authority is, first and foremost, to prevent workers being exploited. The number of
documented migrant workers working within the agricultural sector within the GLAs remit
has been estimated at between 420,000 and 600,000. 3 And, certainly as the GLA Chief
Executive informed the same Home Affairs Committee: This is mainly a migrant worker
issue; it is mainly an A8 Accession state migrant worker issue. 82 per cent of the
gangmasters we deal with employ Polish or some Polish workers; only about nine per cent of
them employ just British workers. 4 The GLA describes itself as an intelligence-led
organisation. Since 2006 it has received over 3,000 intelligence reports from a variety of
sources from other government organisations and enforcement agencies, licence-holders
who have reported people who they feel are undercutting them, labour users, and also from
migrant workers themselves. The GLA is keen to assert that they always action pieces of
intelligence. 5

2. Background
Migration and trafficking for forced labour has been fuelled over the past decade by global
inequalities and by poverty, conflict and environmental degradation in developing countries.
The process has been encouraged by the increase in demand by employers for low-cost,
flexible labour in the increasingly free-market economies of developed countries, and by
consumer demand therein for cheap goods and services. There is a demand in the UK for
cheap, mobile, flexible labour across a range of sectors, including care, construction,
cleaning, hospitality and catering, and food production. Surveys have consistently found that
UK employers prefer to employ migrant workers, because they consider them to be hard-
working and reliable, and willing to work unsociable hours. 6 Many businesses now depend
upon them, as do entire sectors of the economy both private and public. Studies sponsored
by the Home Office, the International Organisation for Migration, the Institute for Public
Policy Research, and the Royal Society for Arts have all argued a net benefit to the UK
economy of the order of 2bn-3bn per annum. 7

Such are the benefits to British industry, that the then Director General of the CBI, Sir Digby
Jones, called in April 2005 for the government to resist any thoughts of a cap on immigration,
arguing that every one per cent increase in immigration generated a 1.5 per cent increase in
national wealth. He added: If it was not for immigrant labour, especially in leisure, in
tourism, in agriculture, in construction, then frankly many of our businesses would not have
the workers we need. 8

If we also consider the demographic time bomb both in the UK and other western European
countries, where an ageing population means that those active in the labour market represent
a diminishing proportion of the workforce and those beyond retirement age constitute a
growing proportion. The implications for the dependency ratio of economically inactive to
economically active people are clear, and this is reflected in an increasing dependence on
migrant workers. The UK needs migrant workers. 9

In order to meet that demand, over the past two decades UK governments have developed a
programme of managed migration. This actively encourages the flow of temporary
migration in the interests of the UK economy, by expanding existing temporary worker
schemes and adding new programmes. As a result, the number of work permits issued to
foreign born workers rose from 40,000 a year in the mid-1990s to over 200,000 a year in

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2004. 10 That process culminated with the Worker Registration Scheme in 2004, to facilitate
the arrival of A8 Accession state nationals.

Alongside this, since the early 1980s there has been a drive, across the major Western
economies, to reduce business regulation to a minimum. UK governments have played a
significant role in this, both at home and in Europe. In 1973, the UK government introduced
the Employment Agencies Act, 11 under which all labour providers had to register and comply
with legal standards. However, under the Conservative government of John Major, a more
liberal labour policy introduced the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994, 12 through
which the system of agency licensing was abolished and action against exploiters became
primarily dependent upon the complaints of victims.

The GLA Evaluation Study, Baseline Report, 2007, found that: Whilst the UK has one of the
most significant recruitment industries in Europe, it is also one of the least regulated.
Moreover, employment/workplaces have generally been subject to low levels of
inspection/enforcement in the UK relative to other EU Member States. 13

The GLA Annual Review noted that The UK has a relatively high level of temporary
employment, a relatively low level of regulation, and relatively limited union powers. In
addition, migrants make up a very significant share of the temporary workforce. 14 In
addition, research has found that 80 per cent of UK employers now subcontract parts of their
business. 15

The resulting labour market conditions provoked the General Secretary of the Transport and
General Workers Union (TGWU) to assert that: Flexibility and casualisation have spawned
a culture of worker abuse by creating opportunities for rogue employers to thrive across the
economy. 16

There have always been gangmasters in agriculture. Their traditional role has been to provide
temporary labour, at short notice, to meet the seasonal needs of farm production. However,
first in the 1970s with the growth of employment agencies, and later with the arrival post-
Millennium of large numbers of Portuguese labourers and then Accession 8 workers, labour
provision began to take on new and less benevolent dimensions. Reports of abuse of workers
within the food and agriculture sector began to surface on a scale and of a type not previously
encountered.

The GLA came about following concerted pressure around the Temporary Labour Working
Group, convened by the Ethical Trading Initiative in 2002. It generated a broad coalition
which included trade unions, major retailers, growers, suppliers and labour providers. It held
a consultation process across industry about the state of the temporary labour industry, and
generated a rapid consensus of a need for licensing and registration. 17 In the face of
Ministerial reluctance and Department of Trade and Industry antipathy, the proactive
support of the major retailers was vital in keeping licensing on the agenda: Look at the
history of the gangmasters legislation. It was called for chiefly by labour, trades unions and
employers organisations which included some big supermarkets but also the Association
of Labour Providers they didnt want to be tarred with this particular brush. And the big
supermarkets didnt want to damage their brand name by having these people in their
supply chain. And I think, without their support, it probably wouldnt have gone through. It
certainly would have been watered down further. TUC Representative on the United
Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) Prevention Committee.

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 Finally, in the wake of the Morecambe Bay cockle pickers tragedy of February 2004, the
government felt compelled to act. In so doing, however, they limited the new Authoritys
remit to those who supply labour or use workers to provide services in agriculture, forestry,
horticulture, shellfish-gathering, and food processing and packaging. This means that other
key sectors, including construction, care, hospitality, catering and cleaning which are all
highly dependent upon migrant labour are beyond the GLAs direct reach.

3. Aims of the research

In June 2008, a research team from the Contemporary Slavery Research Unit, the
Wilberforce Institute, Hull University, was commissioned by Oxfam to conduct an
independent evaluation of the GLA and the Act. The specified remit was to:

Review the operation of the GLA and Act.

Assess the strengths and shortcomings of both in protecting the employment rights
and wider rights (eg. to safe housing) of migrant and other vulnerable workers.
Make recommendations on how the Act could be strengthened and extended and the
Authority improved to protect migrant and vulnerable workers more effectively.

4. Methodology

The research team set out to obtain as wide a range of evidence as possible within the
constraints of a limited budget. The methods for collecting evidence were as follows:

1. Conducting a literature review of the evidence, including looking at similar legislation

in other European countries; evaluations carried out by the GLA and others;
successful cases brought to law; press coverage of GLA work.
2. Undertaking interviews with key stakeholders within the GLA, TUC Commission on
Vulnerable Employment (CoVE); the Department for Business, Enterprise and
Regulatory Reform (DBERR) vulnerable workers pilot team; other enforcement
agencies with whom the GLA exchanges information; Citizens Advice; trade unions;
major retailers; migrant and vulnerable workers identified by Oxfam and others in a
number of sectors where gangmasters operate.
3. Gathering information to establish:
which employment and other rights are most frequently subject to abuse;
where enforcement action should be targeted;
how to make enforcement effective, given the nature of the industry.
4. Through discussions with migrant workers, identifying individuals who might provide
effective case studies for public campaigning and media work.

The fieldwork to this study took place between August 2008 and January 2009. Thirty
stakeholder interviews were obtained; the majority of them were taped and transcribed. Some
respondents requested anonymity some in order to protect their organisation and its
relationship with the GLA on the one hand and their constituencies on the other; some
through fear of reprisal by rogue gangmasters. These interviews were supplemented and
contextualised by attendance at a range of conferences and network meetings focusing on the
work and life experience of migrant workers in the UK.

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Semi-structured interviews were secured with five migrant workers in Lincolnshire and five
in Hull. The team also informally consulted other migrant workers in a range of different
settings at network meetings, conferences, social evenings, etc. Attempts to arrange semi-
structured interviews elsewhere (London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Norfolk, etc), were
unsuccessful. Several agencies offered to assist in providing subjects for interview, only to
later explain that meetings had been impossible to arrange. Atypical, was the response of one
advice agency worker: They dont want to speak to you because they work there and he
[their employer] decides who works. They are just afraid [because] they have got their
accommodation provided and they have got a job. And even when they have to work long
hours, [doing] quite hard jobs, they just prefer to do that than to have nothing. They dont
have the confidence that they could find another accommodation or another job.

5. The operation of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and Act

We conclude: that licensing has been an appropriate tool to regulate labour providers; that
agency workers are now better placed because of government regulation; and that the GLA is
an effective and efficient regulator.
GLA Annual Review 2008 18

5.1 Raising the standard

We have operated in as high profile a way as we can quite deliberately because we believe
thats the most effective way of bringing people in to line. Paul Whitehouse, GLA Chairman.

One key success of the GLA has been in raising awareness of the issues and of the Authority
itself as an enforcement agency, which of itself has raised standards in the supply chains. As
a senior officer at a major retailer explained: There were quite a lot of slapdash procedures,
and poor management. The introduction of the GLA has helped many to focus their minds on
what they can do to improve.

What it has done for our supply base is that its probably got them to thinking ethical
trading is a bit more serious because they can see risks to their own business in terms of fines
if they dont tackle the issue. And therefore I think that probably gives a bit more focus to
ethical trade.

An ethical trading officer at a major retailer agreed: Its got the issue of agency labour very,
very much up the agenda and very much in the forefront of peoples minds. This has led to
greater consideration of best practice which ought to have existed and have been made
available to suppliers before the GLA came along, but which wasnt because there wasnt
enough of a focus on it. It has also strengthened the hand of ethical trading officers within
the major retailers: because we can say, look, this is a government requirement now
which is always very helpful.

The GLA has also endeavoured to generate maximum publicity from revocations, both as a
warning to other suppliers, labour users and retailers (retailers receiving the goods of labour
users are often specifically named in the publicity surrounding GLA actions), and as a beacon
to potential whistleblowers.

The GLA Annual Review 2008 described the GLA as punching above its weight due to its
effective use of publicity and communications... the impact is exaggerated by labour users

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and labour providers anticipation of the main supermarket buyers and ethical
auditing/trading teams response to such negative publicity. 19 This study found the same
picture, with much coverage of the GLAs enforcement activities in the press, on television,
radio and the internet. The GLA has taken part in two high profile, multi-agency strategies:
Operations Ruby (involving nine agencies and 200 officers, targeting 21 premises in
response to intelligence on forced labour) 20 and Ajax (announcing a plan for up to 30 major
raids against exploiters over a period of 18 months). Both of these secured a significant
amount of coverage in the national media and in the food industry/retail media.

5.2 Raising standards

All key stakeholder respondents to this study asserted that the sectors within the GLAs
current remit have seen a definite impact on the form and scale of exploitation. Abuses were
reducing, and terms and conditions of employment were more transparent than had
previously been the case.

The available statistics portray a range of positive outcomes. Not only has the GLA brought
many labour providers into the formal economy, licensing some 1,230 gangmasters by June
2009; it is clear that by so doing, the GLA is substantially raising standards and working
practices. As GLA Chief Executive, Ian Livsey, pointed out to the House of Commons Home
Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking, 2008-9: 70 per cent of those who went through
that licensing process had to improve the way they dealt with their workforce as part of
getting their licence, so we made an immediate impact there. 21 Between March 2007 and
October 2008, there was a dramatic fall in the number of licensed gangmasters needing to
resolve conditions on their licenses, with Additional Licence Conditions falling from 400 to
68, (or, from 42 per cent to six per cent of all licensed gangmasters), and a corresponding
increase in full licences. 22
5.3 The positive impact on retailers and labour suppliers
One of the GLAs great strengths has been the forging of positive relationships with major
retailers. In response to this study, retailers were highly supportive of the GLAs success in
uncovering and terminating malpractice. Whereas, prior to the GLA there had been: a great
deal of frustration within the supply base that there were people who were doing the right
thing, only to see competitors using people who were operating with completely illegal
practices, but nobody seemed to be catching them out. Since the establishment of the GLA,
there was clearly felt to be more of a level playing field. Senior officer at a major retailer.
The licensing process has also provided a clear signpost to retailers in relation to identifying
which are the legitimate/illegitimate labour suppliers, and so to a great degree it relieves them
of the burden of investigating their suppliers.

The GLA meets with supplier exchange groups and its representatives speak at retail
conferences; they provide useful guidance tools which responsible retailers very much
welcome. These include a GLA standards book which: is really clear about what the
standards are and how it builds up to the revocation of a licence and it is providing tools
like that in a way that people can understand. The GLA has recently produced a responsible
labour user guide, in conjunction with Marks & Spencer, which outlines legal responsibilities
and provides guidance on good practice. Some labour providers are voluntarily moving the
process forward undertaking independent audits and sharing the results with those they
supply via SEDEX, the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange: Labour providers have started to

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join it [SEDEX]and are saying, we want to share with our customers that we have got good
labour standards, and want to push ahead so we dont just want to be compliant with the
GLA, we want to prove that we are working to this better practice. And because people want
to prove that they are doing more, it may well change the landscape going forward. 23 Senior
Officer, major retailer.
That this is no mere window dressing is reiterated by the Director of the Ethical Trading
Initiative: Its been a pretty startling success its business critical for the retailers that they
have a very clear view of their supply chain in this area, they go the extra mile in having a
look at labour providers and looking into labour providers when theyre doing their due
diligence and their ethical audits of their suppliers, they keep the pressure that way. I think
theyre growing in their awareness and their responsibilities to be whistleblowers and
informants... I know of cases where that happens... They show signs of very good corporate
citizenship.

The generally positive relationship which the GLA has generated has blossomed into the
launch of a consultation process, launched in May 2009, to forge a protocol between the GLA
and leading supermarkets. 24

Some retailers did hold the view that the GLA were a bit press-happy. They complained
that the somewhat precipitate media announcement of the GLA/retailer protocol had
compromised them a little with their suppliers - so that one minute they felt they were
working in partnership with the GLA and the next minute they were being strong armed
by the media into doing stuff that were not ready for yet. Again: Theyre a bit of a pit-
bull... theyre the government enforcement agency and theyre not afraid to use the media...
and some of the press handling around specific investigations when you know theres a bit of
a disaster. Senior officer at a major retailer.

Those concerns clearly should be balanced against the fact that the potential for GLA media
activities to cause embarrassment to suppliers and retailers is clearly having an impact in
relation to self-policing within the food sector. As another retailer explained: They have got
to keep that high media campaign up because... there are still businesses out there who fail to
realise that theyve got to tackle these issues. So I think you need it at that kind of level.

For their part, the majority of employment agencies clearly consider the GLA to be beneficial
to the sector and to be stamping out bad practice. The gangmaster survey, carried out by the
GLA Annual Review independent research team in 2008, found that in terms of impact over
the last 12 months, over 60 per cent of gangmasters surveyed felt that the GLA had had a
positive effect on reducing worker exploitation and business fraud; 25 that over 60 per cent of
gangmasters surveyed felt they had reduced the number of unlicensed labour providers; 26
that, overall, 79 per cent were in favour of licensing and 69 per cent felt that the GLA was
doing a good job. Only 18 per cent described their contact with the GLA as burdensome. 27 Of
equal importance, particularly for exploited migrant workers, is that the Commission on
Vulnerable Employment Report (CoVE), 2008, found that: one of the GLAs strengths is
that licensed labour providers now have an incentive to report informal or illegal
gangmaster activity. 28

And there were other positive impacts on labour providers: One of the other direct
consequences of the initiative has been for the labour providers to organise themselves and to
create best practice organisations... the Association of Labour Providers is definitely a force

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of good in all of this, and I think theyve responded with some very positive and progressive
kind of work, thats all part of... regulating the industry and trying to hold it to account.
Director, Ethical Trading Initiative

This positive response to the GLA from retailers and labour suppliers cannot be overstated
as one trade union official remarked: Its clear from the general sense amongst employers
and stakeholders that theyre doing a good job which isnt always the case for government
regulatory agencies! I think youd probably find if you looked at business views on other
pieces of government regulation, you might find a less nuanced picture.
5.4 Widespread support for the GLA

By and large, GLA activities have been welcomed as an improvement on the past by trade
unions, by voluntary organisations acting as advocates on behalf of migrant workers, and by
organisations committed to ethical practices. GLA Chairman Paul Whitehouse in particular,
and his staff more generally, are held to be approachable, dedicated to tackling exploiters,
and at times tenacious and formidable in their activities: The personal commitment of a
couple of people working in the GLA, and at the same time it is led by a pretty determined
character in Paul Whitehouse who is clear that it is a pilot for what really needs to be done.
Don Flynn, Director, Migrants Rights Network.

Again: Youre not fobbed off; you feel that youre being taken seriously Everyones got
good things to say about the GLA. In fact Ive never heard anyone say anything bad about
them other than they dont have enough resources, which isnt their fault. TUC
representative on the UKHTC Prevention Committee.

The focus on workers interests was particularly welcomed. For some, this was an enormous
cultural shift. Dan Rees, Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative explained: I received an
email a couple of weeks ago from the Northamptonshire police describing to me how an
operation had happened the night before, that there were nine bits of government involved.
The tenet of that press release, in every single paragraph, was about the workers interests...
to protect the workers from exploitation. It was not about illegal immigration, it was not
about tax avoidance it was about protecting the workers. It does appear to me that that is
the overriding... driving force behind cooperation across government on this issue, and I
think thats one of the great achievements. When we came into this discussion, the
government had no coherent policy from a worker point of view. The only legislation that
existed seemed to penalise workers as individuals, or put the onus on people as individuals.
Those local voluntary agencies who have had contact with the GLA, praised the commitment
of local compliance and enforcement staff: We have a good contact at the GLA... she comes
in to see clients. They [the GLA] have been quite effective. What they tend to do is collect
information about an agency and then they will go in and investigate when they have quite a
few cases, but they will also go in on one case only and take it up... Weve had them ring up
companies and explain to them that this is not the procedure that they should be following in
a number of cases. And the companies have changed their practice. Citizens Advice Bureau,
South Holland, Lincolnshire.

Again: I have an instant email exchange... with GLA, so if someone comes to the advice
sessions and tells me something, I can pass that on to the GLA. I have that access a named
contact based at their offices... They are very good they have an officer who can speak
Polish, so that is a huge help. They also gave us advice leaflets in Polish to distribute, with a

14
number they can ring and someone will speak to them in Polish. Floating support worker,
Voluntary Agency, Lincolnshire.
One much-welcomed area of the GLAs work has been their activity around abuses not
previously enforced by statutory agencies, and where the onus had therefore previously been
on the individual employee to seek redress through the tribunal system a difficult and time
consuming process at the best of times, which rarely provides positive outcomes for
complainants. Grassroots respondents told of GLA interventions whereby complainants
received virtually immediate redress to long-standing grievances: Its usually holiday pay or
things in their contract which are not quite right refusals to honour holiday and sickness
entitlements and statutory maternity pay. Illegal deductions from wages for housing and
transport. Committing to provide training and then not doing so. Unfair dismissal.
Discrimination. Treating them differently to local workers. Citizens Advice Bureau, South
Holland, Lincolnshire.

The GLA has a positive track record of interventions, short of licence revocation, in order to
obtain specific incidences of redress. In December 2007, staff at Pride Management Services
of Southall were granted a total of 26,000 in holiday arrears. GLA Chairman Paul
Whitehouse said: This is exactly the type of result that the GLA seeks... We recognise that
not all labour providers understand every aspect of employment law, and we dont penalise
those who get it wrong if they rectify matters immediately. 29 That light, but effective, touch
is clearly as much appreciated by labour providers as it is by their workforce.

There were other clear signs of progress in rural areas. Independent research into the working
and living conditions of migrant workers undertaken in South Lincolnshire in 2002-03 found
appalling conditions: White vans were a big issue moving people all around the country.
They [the workers] might have two days work and... [their employer] wouldnt bother taking
them home, so people were put into barns and outhouses, all sorts of things to stay overnight
no sanitation, absolutely nothing. The same researcher stated that, although isolated
instances still occurred, they were no longer as prevalent, because now the farmers and
growers are far less inclined to use gang labour that isnt registered, because of the penalties
that they are going to incur... that is a disincentive. So the GLA is having an impact.
Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire.

Several respondents related examples of high profile licence revocations. Some reported the
GLA as having curtailed the activities of particularly vicious, abusive and threatening
gangmasters.

5.5. Cooperation with other statutory enforcement agencies

The GLA has provided invaluable intelligence to other government departments, most
notably the HM Revenue & Customs and UKHTC, in order to exert pressure on exploiters.
An example being Timberland Homes Recruitment whose licence was revoked in May 2008,
after the GLA found that Polish migrant workers were faced with a sinister threat to involve
their families in their home country if they left the employment of the gangmaster or failed to
pay money to him. They passed details on to the UKHTC. 30 The GLA also works very
closely with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR),
which is responsible for the Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate (EAS), and passes
on all the relevant information about evidence of exploitation and abuse outside of their own
sector for them to investigate. 31 Relations between the GLA and EAS which have in the past
been strained, have thawed more recently, in no small part due to the GLAs proactive

15
approaches to its sister agencies. The Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative explained:
Everyone said they doubted very much that [the GLA] could operate at the speed that it
does, creating these gateways and checking what the options are across all the different bits
of government but it does seem to work, there does seem to be this coordination across
government... and I must say that Im pleasantly surprised at that... When I came into this
debate, one bit of government didnt know what the other bit was doing, and they would have
even told you that they couldnt talk to each other because of the Data Protection Act and
other various bits of nonsense.
This determination to have exploiters dealt with on every level, even where the offences do
not specifically fall within their remit, is widely recognised as a key strength of the GLA.

5.6 Compliance and revocation

Since the shift towards compliance and enforcement in 2008 and a concomitant increase in
unannounced inspections, the GLA has made rapid progress in relation to licence revocation.
As of May 2009, 93 licences had been revoked, eight of those with immediate effect. 32 This
has been noted and very much appreciated by most commentators: What I see is what
everyone else sees: I see bad gangmasters being taken out of trading and taken out fairly
swiftly. I see this mechanism being used, where there was none before, to say... Youre not
worthy of a licence, you havent got a licence, youre not trading. ...There is action taken,
there are workers protected because bad employers are being taken out. That is the proof of
the pudding, and thats what I see happening. Director, Ethical Trading Initiative.

The Chairman of the GLA believes this has had a wider effect than the figures alone reflect:
We know that weve managed to push some businesses out of our sector, because we thought
they were working in our sector and theyve told us, yes, we were, but weve given up
because we dont want to fall foul of your rules. The statistics tend to bear this out. The
GLA Annual Review 2008 found that: 22 per cent of all the businesses that the GLA has
come into contact with have now been refused a licence or have ceased trading. 33

For those who may accuse the GLA of heavy-handed tactics, the Chairmans response is
forthright: Weve been given Draconian powers and were proud of them! And when people
say you acted in a Draconian fashion, I say yes, that is what we are here for. Thank you,
good, job done.

He balances that with the assertion that the GLAs approach is firm but fair. None of the key
respondents to our study contested this assertion, and certainly, the statistics speak for
themselves of the 39 appeals against revocation between 2007 and 2008, only one was
decided in favour of the appellant, representing a success rate for the GLA of 97 per cent.
This would not suggest that the GLA is overstepping the mark. 34 Effectiveness is always a
difficult factor to quantify and certainly it cannot in the long term be measured by an ever-
increasing number of revocations, because when the GLA reaches peak effectiveness the
number of transgressors should reduce down to a trickle. Nonetheless, the figures over the
past year can only be seen as impressive.

There remain, however, several caveats to this positive perspective. For some, the number of
revocations through 2008 has been a cause for concern. Some retailers feel that it is a
reflection of insufficient diligence in the initial licensing phase. One explained: Thats quite
annoying for commercial actors who are trying to get on with supplying food because you
think that youre in the clear, because you have chosen diligently to work with a licence

16
provider, only to find that all your checks are for nothing. Because actually the GLA hadnt
done their job very closely or completely the first time, and then actually theyve ended up
licensing people that never ought to have been licensed in the first place.

While the respondent acknowledged that the GLA had to do a big rash of licensing at the
outset, otherwise they would have shut down the whole labour provision market overnight [so
that]... some people who should never have ended up being licensed were licensed, he
nonetheless stressed that: The point is that this problem of poor licensing isnt just isolated
to a start-up problem in the early days of the GLA. Its a problem which continues.

Some voluntary sector respondents wished to see more licence revocations, and viewed as
problematic the approach that allowed employers to keep their licence in return for providing
some redress for their workers and committing to clean up their act henceforth. Where
labour suppliers were making tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds, this was seen
as precious little disincentive to alter their practices until caught. The GLA Chairman
countered: Its not about revoking licenses, because in that case, if the labour provider is
good apart from that then, fine, hes got it wrong. If he now does it right, thats fine, weve
achieved our object. Several respondents could see the logic in this approach, particularly in
relation to protecting the employment and accommodation of migrant workers themselves.

Some migrant workers and their advocates complained about a lack of feedback from the
GLA after having brought the activities of exploitative gangmasters to their attention. This
was also a problem highlighted by retail respondents. According to one: The feeling from
suppliers (labour users) is that communication and clarity from the GLA about what the
process is, where were at in the process, what the impacts are, and so on, is poor. And that
significantly hampers everybodys support for the GLA, and therefore probably decreases the
access that the GLA gets to sites, and their effectiveness.

That was, according to the Chairman of the GLA, in part an inevitable consequence of the
need for circumspection while investigations continue. He also acknowledged, however, that
it was in part due to inadequate resourcing: With as small an outfit as ours its a difficult
one, but I recognise that it is a problem.

5.7 Enforcement: The need for greater penalties

...some Forum members have expressed views that the enforcement arrangements lack
visibility, and do not pose a sufficient threat to deter the worst employers. Perceived
weaknesses cited have included: ...Concerns that the worst employers operated on the
basis that there was no serious risk of inspection and that the penalties, where they were
imposed, were not high enough to change behaviour.

Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum Final report and Government Conclusion,

August 2008.35

Between October 2007 and September 2008, the GLA carried out 586 application and
compliance inspections. Although, compared to 2006-07, an increasing proportion of
inspections were for enforcement, the majority (over 60 per cent) were still related to
application inspections. 36 There were 145 enforcement cases between November 2007 and
September 2008. 37

17
Two types of enforcement action may be followed by the GLA, against: 1) gangmasters
operating without a licence (Section 12); and 2) labour users entering into an agreement with
an unlicensed gangmaster (Section 13). Most of the GLAs enforcement activity relates to the
former. 38

Some respondents to the study believed that the enforcement process had not worked as well
as had licence revocation. They felt the process was too lengthy investigations were
invariably very slow with no fast results, and at times investigations were hindered by the
failure to make an unannounced visit:

Weve had Hungarian workers who, when we persuaded the GLA to go and inspect them at
a meat plant, the employers had been tipped off about the GLAs visit, I dont know by whom.
And they behaved themselves, and yet for the previous six, eight months theyd been
hammering these workers... some of them were sleeping on towels and they were paying an
exorbitant amount of money for their airfare; there were henchmen taking their wages from
them, but at the point of inspection they were found to be squeaky clean, and so that is the
difficulty. Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite.

Others called for a proactive undercover facility: It is quite simple you need undercover
people who can pretend to be Latvian and just go to these firms and try to register with
them. Floating support worker, Voluntary Agency, Lincolnshire.

For its part, the GLA was not overly keen to acquire an undercover capacity: If we wanted to
do that we wouldnt do that ourselves, we would buy that in we would go to police forces if
we thought it was worthwhile. We dont. We have got the capacity, which we havent used
yet, to pretend to be a labour user. Going undercover requires training which isnt worth our
while doing much better to go to a police force and say weve got this for you. Actually,
weve got quite a lot of journalists who are willing to do that so let them do it. Paul
Whitehouse, GLA Chairman.

While some respondents welcomed the diligence of the GLA in acquiring a body of evidence
prior to approaching gangmasters, so that they could build a significant portfolio of evidence
of malpractice, others expressed concern about lengthy investigations that appeared to have
produced no meaningful outcome. This would seem to be borne out by available data on the
number of prosecutions as outlined in the GLA Annual Review 2008, which show there to
have been at that time only one conviction, with two cases currently in court, one arrest, 64
formal warnings, 55 formal cautions, and a total of 207 open (ongoing) investigations. 39
Given the number of unlicensed gangmasters estimated to be operating in the GLAs sector,
these figures do not inspire confidence in the Authoritys ability to bring exploiters to swift
and certain justice. As one voluntary agency respondent asserted:

We have concerns about the degree to which licensed gangmasters continue to exploit their
workers... and remain open-minded on the question of whether the relatively small number of
prosecutions and licence revocations to date constitutes value for money.
Richard Dunstan, Social Policy Officer, Employment, Immigration and Asylum, Citizens
Advice Bureau.

Some believed it was a matter of inadequate resourcing of the GLA, a theme that came
through again and again from respondents: To be able to make it effective, their enforcement
powers need to be a lot greater than they are, and they need more resources to be able to do

18
it. Its a bit like having double yellow lines all around the city and not employing any traffic
wardens. People will just park where they want because they know they can get away with it.
Its exactly the same issue with agencies; you can say this is illegal and youre breaking the
law by doing this or by doing that, but if theres nobody there to enforce it, theyll just do it
because they know they can get away with it. Dave Turnbull, Regional Industrial Organiser,
Unite.

Another oft-cited deficiency was that action taken by the GLA was all too often, and almost
inevitably, limited to redress for those immediate cases it was dealing with that it failed to
provide redress for those exploited prior to the gangmaster being brought to book, or for
those workers who were too afraid to come forward. One respondent explained: Those
workers have still had their wages nicked and how do they get redress for that? Thats a real
challenge for the enforcement agencies, which are not worker-focused at all. She continued:
Thats a real hole in it, and I think that goes back to the original way in which we
approached this, which was... lets drive this up the agenda with a very limited piece of
legislation. If we were to do it now, how do you get redress for workers? would be the first
question that we would ask ourselves as we went to draft it, rather than how do we flush
these bad guys out? The Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite.

Fiona Clark of Perth was the first person to be successfully prosecuted and found guilty of
contravening the Gangmasters Licensing Act 2004, at the Sheriff Court of Tayside in April
2008. She had been refused a licence but had continued to trade. She was sentenced to 140
hours of community service and 18 months probation. But this was no hardened criminal;
there was no evidence of intent to majorly exploit the workforce, and she was described in
court as clueless and confused about the legislation. The second successful prosecution
resulted in a similar outcome Soul Recruitment Ltd of Edinburgh was convicted of
operating without a licence and fined 200. 40

These penalties hardly send out the requisite message to the more exploitative of
gangmasters. And they beg the question as to why prosecutions have not been secured against
these more exploitative gangmasters. Respondents pointed to the perceived illogic of
prosecutions taking place against individuals for failing to obtain a licence who may not be
excessively exploiting workers, while at the same time seriously exploitative gangmasters
were merely having their licenses revoked and not facing other legal penalties. There are
numerous cases of such exploitative gangmasters on the GLAs own online news release
database. 41 Revocation, of itself, was considered insufficient sanction against a seriously
exploitative gangmaster.

Most respondents to the study believed that the penalties for exploitative gangmasters were
insufficiently severe: We require a system of punishment that employers will respect... The
penalty regime is loose enough on the fine system that it varies from court to court what
penalties are handed down, but then also whether or not they really dent a malicious
employers books in a way that will make them change their ways. Head of Campaigns and
Media, Unite.

Several commentators believed that revocation alongside the confiscation of assets under the
Proceeds of Crime legislation would be a more appropriate penalty. 42 Wayne King, Regional
Industrial Organiser at Unite, asserted: More inspectors. Greater power. Ability to seize
funds and monies. Money that they can prove has come from the exploitation should be
sequestered and seized the people that are running it should have automatic jail sentences.

19
Its slavery. Its a 21st century form of it. And there should be prison sentences for people that
are openly doing it. They are openly flouting the law and they know what they are doing.

At the time of this study, the Chairman of the GLA expressed his belief that the Authority
would shortly become one of the first medium-sized regulators to obtain the Macrory toolkit
of penalties that would significantly increase the level and scope of sanctions, including
financial sanctions, against exploiters. He signified that the GLA would welcome such an
extension of its powers.

Some respondents believed that legislation should be extended to include the prosecution of
hotels using agency labour where the workers were being illegally exploited. The Regional
Industrial Organiser, Unite: I find it absolutely impossible [to believe] that the hotels dont
know its going on. And I think if the government can prove complicity in whats been going
on, then the hotels should be done as well. And they should be held responsible for their
actions. Because theyve been employing illegal workers, undocumented workers, and people
whove been exploited... the hotels have got to be held accountable.

This, it was felt, would secure rapid changes to the levels of exploitation: I think if it became
clear to the hotels that there would be a penalty imposed on them, as well as the agency, for
anything that an agency did wrong on their premises, then you can guarantee they would
check everything rigorously before they gave any contract to any agency. If a few agencies
were closed down and high penalties were imposed on hotels, I think the chances of those
offences being repeated again become a lot slimmer. Regional Industrial Organiser, Unite.

5.8 Phoenix companies

One of the major issues raised in the 2007 Annual Review was phoenixing. This relates to
rogue gangmasters getting caught out, having their licence revoked or otherwise ostensibly
ceasing to operate, but remaining in the labour-provider business, either under a different
name or operating behind the scenes: Labour providers... felt that the GLA whether due to
its internal organisation or its legislative base lacked teeth when it came to tackling a hard-
core of dodgy and criminal gangmasters (some licensed, others not). There was particular
concern about: small-scale, unlicensed field-gangs; large-scale organised criminals; phoenix
companies; double-bookkeeping; and figureheads used to front legitimate licensed
businesses on behalf of well-known local crooks. 43

Some voluntary sector respondents to this study were aware of phoenix companies operating
in their own localities, hiding behind front men, but believed that they were too clever to
be caught out. Retailers were also fully aware of the problem. An ethical trading officer at
one retailer explained: The labour provider... Johnsons, gets its licence revoked and then
labour provider Johnsons Limited, very coincidently, has reapplied for a new licence the very
next day ... and thats very well known to the GLA. Nobody is idiotic enough not to notice that
the senior management staff are the same and the workers on the books are the same and the
clients book is the same. So clearly its the same organisation, just rebranding and
reapplying, but all the good work that the GLA has done with the revocation seems not to
have a bearing on the application from the new outfit. The respondent cited at least two
specific incidences where exactly that scenario has happened. Another retailer provided a
very similar account.

20
The GLA has taken note of these concerns, and from the summer of 2008 it began a
concerted strategy to identify and refuse (or revoke) licenses of phoenixes. In August 2008,
the Authority carried out successful operations against Primeval Limited of Sparkhill in
Birmingham, and PTE UK Limited/EMP Solutions, 44 and in October 2008, another against a
gangmaster in Spalding, Lincolnshire. 45 The GLA has provided a clear indication that such
operations will continue, and the extension of sanctions and standards taking effect from
April 2009 included:Expanding the test of who is a fit and proper person to be a gangmaster
to catch those who try to exercise control without being named on our licence. The online
news release explained: We have seen increasing numbers of rogues lurking in the shadows
trying to manipulate licensed businesses with an invisible hand. Often these rogues have been
previously caught out by the GLA and had their own licence revoked. 46

Other commentators believed it was, in any case, a relatively minor issue: I think its much
more likely that rogue gangmasters are not going to rise again as phoenix firms in the
agriculture and food industry. Why would they bother with that when they can just go work in
construction and hotel and catering, where they dont need a licence at all? I think its far
more likely that the bad apples have been driven into other sectors of the economy. Director,
Ethical Trading Initiative.

5.9 The need for formal support during revocation proceedings

The GLAs mission, as defined by the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, is to safeguard
the welfare and interests of workers whilst ensuring labour providers operate within the
law. 47 In the main, the GLA has been very successful in assisting workers who have been
displaced by its activities to make contact with other licensed suppliers. According to the
Chairman: We cant guarantee everything, but what we do say is that our mission is to
prevent workers being exploited, so the last thing that we want to do is put workers out on the
street. So we havent, as far as we know. Sometimes that has been achieved with the active
support of retailers, who dont wish to see their supply of goods disrupted. An example was
the licence revocation against Peterborough-based agency ELS Recruitment in February
2008, where Sainsburys and Produce World supported the inspection, and offered the
workers new jobs. Arrangements were also made to secure alternative accommodation. 48 The
GLAs efforts in this regard were praised by grassroots voluntary agencies and by trade union
representatives: They work very hard to find an alternative franchise or to get alternative
accommodation, if it is going to come to the point where jobs are lost. Head of Campaigns
and Media, Unite

However, there remain concerns around the lack of formal support mechanisms for migrant
workers where a gangmasters licence is revoked, particularly in the deteriorating economic
climate, when alternative jobs may be thinner on the ground. There were also considerations
in relation to monies owed by the gangmaster. The research team were given accounts of
migrant workers having lost significant sums of money in 2008, when a gangmaster in
Boston was closed down by HMRC: Sadly, without informing the GLA or us or anybody,
they simply went in and closed the place down. Citizens Advice Bureau, Boston,
Lincolnshire.

21
5.10 Limited action against labour users using unlicensed labour providers

It is clear that some labour users are either not aware of their own obligations under the
Gangmasters Licensing legislation, or are simply choosing to ignore them. The GLA is aware
of this and is conscious of the need to step up activities in this regard:

What we havent yet got is a sufficient number of prosecutions against labour users using
unlicensed labour providers. Weve got some in the pipeline, and that is particularly
significant because often that shows complicity which needs to be dealt with, but also
because it deals with farmers, for example. And I dont mean just one-man farmers, I mean
big companies who have get everyone directly on their books but are using labour providers
in Eastern Europe who are not licensed. GLA Chairman, Paul Whitehouse

5.11 Exploitative farmers directly employing workers

Farmers directly employing labour are currently not covered by gangmasters legislation. Our
study found there to be clear evidence of farmers, large and small, taking on migrant workers
directly and exploiting them in the same ways as the most pernicious gangmasters do. At the
moment, they are beyond the remit of the GLA. A floating support worker at a voluntary
agency in Lincolnshire provided the following example in the autumn of 2008: They
couldnt help the girl at X farms because she is an employee who works directly for the
farmer there is no middle manager. [It is] a very big employer... [Employees] have been
mistreated by the bosses [the bosses have been] chucking bulbs at the employees, hitting
them on the head. This is normal practice. [Employees] were washing bulbs and one Polish
girl missed a bulb. They were on the assembly line and the bulb was dirty, so the guy took
this girl who missed the bulb, and took a handful of mud and spread it over her face, and said
now you feel like this bulb That is very recent in the last six weeks.

6. Unlicensed, rogue gangmasters

It is clear from the number of licence revocations during 2008 that exploitation of workers
continues to occur at the hands of licensed labour providers. That continues to be a major
cause for concern for all respondents to our study. Of far greater concern, however, was the
unknown but certainly significant number of unlicensed gangmasters operating within the
GLAs remit. Between October 2007 and September 2008, the GLA received 1,485
intelligence reports relating directly to gangmasters in the regulated sector; of those, some
415 related to unlicensed gangmasters activity. That is a significant number. 49

The GLA Annual Review 2008 noted that: Our research conducted for the 2007 and 2008
GLA evaluations has demonstrated to us a perception amongst labour providers, labour
users, workers and GLA stakeholders that there is still a significant presence of unregistered
labour providers in GLA sectors. Registered labour providers, for example, have often told us
that they know of rogue operators who continue to get away with it. 50 The researchers
concluded: Using intelligence and enforcement data from the GLA, our gangmaster survey,
and expert guesses from GLA staff and stakeholders, we put the proportion of unlicensed
gangmasters operating in GLA sectors at 25 per cent. 51

They do qualify this by pointing out that this proportion: is an aggregate estimate only and
relates to the number of unlicensed operators, not to the proportion of industry turnover that
comes from unlicensed activity, and explain: This distinction is important because

22
unlicensed operators are likely to be smaller in size, to avoid detection, and so will make up a
larger proportion of the industry in terms of number of firms than they do in terms of
turnover or client/staff base. 52 At the same time, however, they estimate that the number of
unlicensed gangmasters could be as high as 40 per cent. 53 Clearly, whichever of these
estimates is most accurate, it equates to a large number of illegal operators. As the Annual
Review points out, Approximately 15 per cent of GLA-governed industry is potentially
operating illegally. 54

There remain differences of opinion in relation to the numbers of unlicensed labour providers
still operating within the GLAs remit. The Chairman of the GLA acknowledges that it is
difficult to estimate: This is all finger in the air stuff, but feels that the numbers are limited:
We are not getting an enormous number of calls about people who are illegal, which is what
you would expect if there were lots of illegal gangmasters. He estimated there to be, in our
sector... 150-250 illegal gangmasters that sort of figure.

However, advocates at the grassroots believe that significant numbers of illegal gangmasters
do continue to operate and that under-reporting of the problem is similar to the under-
reporting of hate crime: in part due to fear of reprisals by employers, in part to the lack of
understanding around reporting procedures, in part a pragmatic decision to put the experience
behind them and move on. As one respondent related: When they were setting up the GLA, I
went to numerous meetings, particularly in Spalding... They were saying, well we know
there are maybe up to 1,000 gangmasters in Britain and we said, no, in Lincs! And they
just wouldnt believe us but there were! There may not be that many now, but certainly
there were over 1,000 gangmasters in Lincolnshire. Independent researcher, South
Lincolnshire.

Those respondents to our study who were aware of the activities of unlicensed operators
asserted, not unsurprisingly, that the anecdotal information available to them made it clear
that these gangmasters were responsible for the worst forms of exploitation.

7. Exploitation within the GLAs field of operation

In a minority of cases, employment practices used by employers of migrant workers fall under
internationally agreed definitions of forced labour, defined by the ILO as all work or service which is
extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered
voluntarily... Examples of such work were identified across the UK labour market, with migrant workers
reporting physical intimidation to prevent them making complaints and debt bondage providing employers
with the means to keep them in exploitative working conditions.

Commission on Vulnerable Employment: Hard Work, Hidden Lives May 2008.55

The Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE), set up by the TUC, published its main
report, Hard Work, Hidden Lives, in May 2008. In it, they estimated that around two million
workers in the UK find themselves in vulnerable employment, which they defined as
precarious work that places people at risk of continuing poverty and injustice resulting from
an imbalance of power in the employer-worker relationship. 56 Further, the Commission
found that: Some of the most extreme employment rights abuses involve employment
agencies and temporary labour providers. 57 In their survey of agency workers for the
GLAs Annual Review 2008, the research team found that 61 per cent of agency workers had

23
been unfairly treated themselves, while 88 per cent knew of other agency workers who had
been unfairly treated (by a combination of labour providers and labour users); 54 per cent felt
that over the past year work has become harder and 36 per cent felt that treatment of
workers by employers and agencies... was getting worse. 58 Almost all of the agency workers
surveyed were employed in the food-processing sector; the rest in agriculture/farming or food
retail/hospitality.

The Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking 2008-09 found that Victims of forced
labour may be found in many legitimate employment sectors which depend on seasonal or
casual staff. 59 In the hearings, Anti-Slavery International asserted that the majority of people
trafficked for agricultural labour came from Central or Eastern Europe. 60

It is clear that severe exploitation remains in the sectors in which the GLA operates. In six of
the seven most serious cases with which it had dealt up to spring 2008, where the licence was
revoked with immediate effect, the GLA found evidence of activities matching the
International Labour Organisation's indicators of forced labour: the intimidation of workers
with threats of violence; attempted forced evictions from tied accommodation; debt bondage;
the withholding of wages; and threats to cut off water and electricity from tied
accommodation. 61

Much of the exploitation and abuse reported to our research team was illegal. Where it was
just over this side of legal it was certainly incompatible with respect for human dignity.

7.1 Deceit/facilitation fees/debt bondage

One recurring problem was deception in relation to contracts of employment. Time and
again, respondents told of non-English speaking workers having signed contracts in English
in their home countries without fully understanding them or having been deliberately misled
about their contents; of contracts being replaced by less favourable ones upon arrival in the
UK; of having been given misleading verbal assurances of permanent, well paid work that
never subsequently materialised. This from the Polish Workers Federation advocate in
Bradford: 2 January 2009: Four people arrived in Bradford from Poland. They paid 900
zloty to an agency in Poland for transport, accommodation and work. Upon arrival they
were charged 200 rent each for one month in advance, then not provided with work... So we
now have four people with no money, no job and no real prospects of even getting back to
Poland as the transport provided was one way only... Since this came to light I have met
many more who have had similar experiences: the accommodation is substandard, there are
no jobs. Although there was some room for doubt, these workers appeared to fall within the
GLAs operational sectors because the majority of the workers at the same agency were
working as food operatives, preparing foods, packing foods for supermarkets and stuff.

Disinformation was deliberately fomented by agencies to their own benefit. One respondent
told of meeting an Eastern European electrician by trade, who was legally entitled to work in
the UK, who had been working in a packhouse for two years under the false assumption that
he was tied to his employer.

Facilitation fees were still commonplace. An employment agency in Hull supplying labour to
the food-processing sector was charging an initial fee of 250 per person for finding
employment (Advice worker, Hull Polish Bureau). Others were having weekly fees of 30
deducted from their wages just because you work for me. (Floating support worker,

24
voluntary agency, Lincolnshire.) In Boston, Lincolnshire, the Citizens Advice Bureau had
come across 50 per week charges. While hard evidence was difficult to come by,
respondents provided anecdotal evidence of migrant workers trapped in debt bondage upon
arrival in the UK, having been bonded to pay back large fees for travel, and signing-on fees.
They were then provided with only sporadic employment while continuing to reside in
gangmaster or gangmaster-related accommodation, so that the debt was only gradually
reduced over lengthy periods of time.

7.2 Systematic theft by deliberate miscalculation of wages

Every locality touched by this study provided many examples of wages theft. Respondents
told of agencies failing to provide wage-slips: just a small, square brown money envelope
with nothing on it except the money total. One of the most common, deliberate and
systematic abuses was the miscalculation of wages, whereby the hours on the wage
slip/packet were lower than the hours worked, sometimes significantly so. For instance,
workers were being paid for one shift instead of two, or for a day less than they had worked.

The research team met one Polish woman in Lincolnshire who was working 70 hours per
week on a farm. Her wage slip credited only 14 hours and after deductions she was paid only
20. This, we were told by the advice agency whose assistance she sought, was not an
uncommon experience. Sums owed were often in excess of 500. Agency responses to
worker complaints were invariably that they would look into it, and invariably that was the
last the worker heard of it. The Polish Workers Federation recounted one case of multiple
exploitation in West Yorkshire: There were incidences of people owed 500 and 600 and
being told the cheque is in the post, but they were still being charged for the rent and they
were thrown out because they hadnt been able to pay the rent. The people went back to
Poland and went into the office and complained there and they said, We cant do anything
about it because it was done on English soil, it is nothing to do with us.

Citizens Advice Bureau in South Holland believed these were anything but accidental
omissions: You probably get problems again and maybe different problems with the same
agency usually things crop up again. They just hope that the people affected wont go
anywhere to get help. Some of them have been threatened: if you go to Citizens Advice
Bureau [or] if you go to the GLA, thats it, youve lost your job so threats happen... Some
people are frightened to come forward. While Citizens Advice Bureau intervention often
brought redress and an apology, the Citizens Advice Bureau Manager was dubious as to the
veracity of such expressions of regret: You wonder whether the impact is because we have
intervened, and if we didnt, if the client didnt come to us and they dont all come to us
whether that carries on.
The floating support worker at a voluntary agency in Lincolnshire was in no doubt about the
cynical and systematic nature of the exploitation: Thats how they make their money. They
cheat people of 15 or 30. If they cheat so many, it builds up. Some people will demand the
money that they are owed and some people will give up; they make so many phone calls and
go there so many times that they simply give up. She elaborated: You have loads and loads
of cases [where employers are] just cheating people on hours. So, say you worked five days a
week; they would pay you [for] four days a week. They were claiming that it was a mistake,
but if a mistake happens to so many people a mistake is when you realise you have made a
mistake you reverse it, and you add the extra money in the next wages, but they didnt do
[this]. I was making phone calls on behalf of these guys forever as well and we were always

25
being told yes, next week well add this money to the wages and they havent. This would
go on for months and months... and eventually we made a claim to the Industrial Tribunal
who immediately contacted the employer to say there was a claim against them. And
magically, within the month the money would be in the bank account. But it took me ten
phone calls with nothing being done.

She also related the complete disdain that some labour supplies displayed towards their
workers: There was one case where they didnt pay one woman for one day of work, and
they were claiming that they had paid her everything, but she showed them the bank
statements etc., and eventually they said oh yes, we paid it wrongly to somebody elses
current account you have to go and get her and get your money.

A migrant worker in Hull attempting to obtain holiday pay to which he was clearly entitled
from a recruitment agency manager, recounted his experience: I finally got through to him
on 24 December and he said now wasnt a good time, hed sort it out after Xmas. But, I
called him after New Year and he said its too late because the old year is finished and so
the holiday pay is finished also. I said this is not true, and I wrote a letter requesting holiday
payment... threatening to go to tribunal. They sent me a letter from the agency saying that I
was very aggressive because I was all the time calling the agency and if I went to the
tribunal they would go to the police. My wife said it is better that I stop it. I am new in
England and my English is not good. I had not been aggressive at all.

Other common abuses were the failure of gangmasters to pay statutory sickness or holiday
pay. All Citizens Advice Bureaux were dealing with these issues in their caseloads.
Sometimes they felt that the omission may not be deliberate: Its fairly common for agencies
not to know that theyre supposed to pay statutory sick pay... an awful lot of the time the
agencies are not always deliberately exploiting people... they [just] dont bother to find out
what their duties are. Sometimes, however, it clearly is deliberate exploitation. All too often
it is the workers word against the employers about when and how an accident at work
occurred. Respondents told of employers deliberately not recording accidents and lying to
migrant workers about their responsibilities to them: You didnt report the accident in the
first two hours so youre not covered. Others had been told that they were not covered for
industrial accidents until they had worked continuously for two years in the same factory.

Sometimes there was non-payment for the final week of work; sometimes non-payment of
notice pay. Migrant workers also recounted personal experiences of agencies that keep
changing their names and of whole cohorts of migrant workers being handed over from
one agency to another, with the latter refusing to accept responsibility for wages owed by the
former even where they are blatantly run by the same management. Those same agencies
then failed to explain that migrant workers have to re-register for the Worker Registration
Scheme when moving between agencies thus placing some in danger of losing benefit
entitlements.

7.3 Systematic theft by spurious/illegal charges

Administrative charges such as, for assistance, in filling in forms, were very common.
Some of these were clearly illegal. According to an advice worker in Liverpool: A lot of
employers charge people for filling in the application forms [for The Worker Registration
Scheme]. Generally [its] a charge of 20 and they take that out of [employees] wages.
Theyre taking it out of minimum wage and theyre not allowed to take any deductions from

26
minimum wage that brings it below the minimum wage. So thats illegal... They will often
keep all the forms and send them in every three months and of course people have to be
registered within a month, so that means that somebody has been working illegally for two
months, and... its going to be an extra two months before they become entitled to a residents
card. So [employers] are just careless and thoughtless; and every opportunity that there is to
screw a bit of money out of workers, they do it. Every location the research team contacted
told of deductions taking workers below the minimum wage. According to Boston Citizens
Advice Bureau, this was one of the biggest sources of complaint.

Deductions for transport to and from fields and packhouses were so regular as to be the
norm in some locations compulsory even when workers chose to use their own transport.
In rural Lincolnshire, some were being charged as much as 50 per week for transport. There
were unexplained and inexplicable deductions: No one knows what they are for. An
independent researcher, South Lincolnshire, recounted: I found on one occasion a woman
who started out with 149 as her net wage, and by the time all the illegal deductions had
been taken from that she was left with 19. That sort of thing is disgraceful but not unusual.
In the South of Lincolnshire its agriculture, horticulture and food processing.

There were also deductions for personal protective equipment: We see this so many times...
one agency, they maintain green parts around supermarkets, gas stations etc. For one
workers work clothes a pair of trousers and two T-shirts and a sweatshirt, they
charged him 250. He used to call this My Versace gear. Rainier, Lincolnshire.

In Bradford, a Polish Workers Federation migrant workers advocate outlined a range of

ongoing abuses of contracts of employment signed in Poland, with guarantees of
plentiful, well-paid work, only for this to be reneged upon. Many workers were called in
to work short-hour days and laid off for days at a time. They were placed in
accommodation that was completely unprepared no bedding, no nothing... There was
no hot water. The conditions were appalling. There were also concerns over fire risks and
of gas fires not having been checked for carbon monoxide poisoning. There were payment
irregularities and inappropriate deductions: There were several wage slips where 115
per week had been taken off for a shared bed. They also had to pay 30 per week for
transport to work, and they had to pay that whether they used their own transport or not.
These abuses were so regular as to be systematic: I had a meeting with 25 people and they
each had a horror story to tell and they had documentation to prove it it wasnt just
hearsay. I actually saw wage slips.

7.4 Enforced excessive working hours

Migrant workers and their advocates told of compulsory overtime at short or no notice, on
threat of dismissal, with no overtime premium being paid. They told of workers driven many
miles to work in fields and then having to work for excessive hours until the van returned,
with no alternative way of returning home; of 60 and 70 hour weeks being the norm: In
many cases, people work 60 hours per week, they have no life for their families. If they say,
no, they dont want to work; the employment agency says okay, you lose your job. So it is
their choice: they work or they lose their job, but that is no choice for them. Polish Advice
Bureau, Hull.

27
The research team were also given accounts of migrant workers being permanently on call
via mobile phone; of having to call in at their own expense at pre-designated times; of often
turning up at unsociable hours only to be told to go home again; of being taken out to
factories and fields, being given only few hours work before being taken home again, and
being replaced by other workers working equally short shifts.

7.5 Removal of identification papers

In their evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking
2008-9, Anti-Slavery International explained that one of the most commonly used methods of
coercion of migrant workers was the retention of documents, or their replacement with
fraudulent documents, or the prevention of workers from extending their visa: What we have
witnessed is that people threatened the victims saying, If you complain, if you run away, you
will be illegal and I will get you deported. 62

The process is in part facilitated by the need to forward passports to the Home Office for
registration, because as the Reverend David de Verny, former Chaplain for New Arrival
Communities in the South East, explained, in the three months or so that it takes to register,
the migrant workers are entirely in the hands of their gangmasters, because they can't prove
who they are, they cannot open a bank account or get a National Insurance number. So
nobody can pay them directly. So they have to work for the gangmaster who pays them cash.

Our study found the retention of documents in every location. The problem was not endemic,
but it was significant enough to be non-accidental. Sometimes passports were never returned:
Papers being taken away. Lost documents. They are playing with the Worker Registration
Scheme as well you know, you pay 90, they take money off you and never send the papers
so people are not registered There have been cases where they have taken the passports
as well and not given them back. There are so many problems people have to go to
Manchester, to pay for the train, pay for the passport replacement and they have to wait
about a month to get the passport, and without the passport they cant find a job. So they are
basically stuck. Floating support worker, Voluntary Agency, Lincolnshire.

The Reverend de Verny recounted: Those who insist that their papers are returned are
sometimes assaulted or dismissed and lose their accommodation or in some instances, all
three. For migrant workers, the situation brings with it the additional burden of proof, as
South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau explained: Weve got in touch with one or two
employers and they are denying that they have got the passports. So then weve sent the
migrant workers to the police. The police have all too often responded that there is nothing
they can do because it is the migrant workers word against the agencys.

Another common complaint was the failure of agencies to provide a P45 on termination of
work leaving some workers unable to claim back tax owed them by the Exchequer.

7.6 Violence/threat of violence

Advice agencies in several locations related widespread racism and verbal abuse of migrant
workers sometimes by their labour supplier, sometimes by their labour user, and sometimes
by their fellow workers. South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau took up the case of eight
workers in a meat-processing plant: The line supervisor was swearing particularly at

28
migrant workers, and ill-treating them sometimes, and also forbidding them to speak to one-
another in their own language.

Tales of bullying and threats of violence, while not common, continued to surface. The Polish
Workers Federation advice worker in Bradford related: I have heard of threatened violence
if people have questioned the practices; violence even when they have left work when they
are trying to get their P45s...there are loads of instances of that.

The research team spoke, through an interpreter, to a Polish migrant couple in rural
Lincolnshire (the man 41 years, the woman 37 years) who had worked for an employment
agency in Lincoln. They had complained to the management about the non-payment of wages
owed. They provided a distressing account: Urek was in the queue for money but the
manager pulled him roughly out of the queue and hit him. On that day, 28 September 2008,
the managers wife came to their room and told them to leave although she knew that the
woman was pregnant. They were sent out onto the street with no money. They had to spend
that night homeless in the park. The managers threatened the workers and told them that if
they went to the police or any other agency they would hire special people who will beat them
up.

Migrants are all too often left with feelings of helplessness and depression. One migrant in
Hull told the research team: Im not being treated with any respect or dignity I have no
belief in myself, I feel I have no worth. Where has my dignity gone?

Both Boston and South Holland Citizens Advice Bureaux provided accounts of violence and
threats of violence prior to the establishment of the GLA, ranging from beatings to this:
Weve told people they should have a contract of employment and when theyve gone back
theyve been shown a knife that is your contract of employment. The Reverend David de
Verny had also come across accounts of beatings this was a matter, he believed, that some
migrants were willing to relate to a clergyman, but not to statutory authorities. Interestingly,
neither Citizens Advice Bureau had come across violence over the past year, so they believed
that things were improving. That was put down in part to the activities of the GLA and in part
to the fact that: There are larger numbers of people whove been here for some time and they
know more now about what the law is or they know somebody who does... and the more
that they understand about what legislation says, then the stronger they are. They are in a
much stronger position because they know what their rights are. Manager, Boston Citizens
Advice Bureau.

7.7 Unfair dismissal/threat of dismissal

Unfair dismissals were held to be widespread; so common as to be an inherent part of the

employment process. Instant dismissal for protesting conditions of work was common; as
were threats of dismissal for workers wanting to take time off on the grounds of ill-health or
for requesting holiday entitlement. There were unfair dismissals of pregnant women: That is
a regular thing. Every girl knows that they have to hide their pregnancy because they are
going to get sacked the moment [the employer] notices. They carry on working because if
they dont, they lose their job. Floating Support Worker, Advice Agency, Lincolnshire.

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7.8 Accommodation

7.8.1 Tied accommodation

One example of a positive development has been the offset for minimum wage on the
provision of accommodation by employers. According to the Chairman of the GLA,
accommodation tied to employment had almost ceased by labour providers in our sector
because its not possible to provide accommodation for the offset. Workers at Anfield
Citizens Advice Bureau had seen some clear benefits: A breakdown of this bubble that
people were living in, where they werent getting to know what it cost on the open market to
rent somewhere, they werent really living in the real world. Everything was controlled by
gangmasters. I think that some of that is starting to break down and thats very important.
Some rural Citizens Advice Bureaux were also seeing a change: It has settled down a bit
there are fewer of the acute accommodation issues that people were bringing in and there
seem to be fewer gangmasters providing the accommodation. Boston Citizens Advice
Bureau.

However, problems remained. In the first instance, some gangmasters were clearly
maintaining a direct link to workers accommodation. The GLA Annual Review 2008 found
that just under one-quarter of the GLA licensed gangmasters they surveyed had maintained
the link. 63 Secondly, the report noted that: Anecdotal evidence talking to migrants,
community leaders and GLA stakeholders suggests that there is still a strong informal link
between recruitment agencies and housing. 64 So there remain concerns that instead of
directly managing the accommodation, employers are simply placing migrants into the hands
of Rachmanesque landlords. And in that respect the GLA is sometimes hamstrung as the
GLA Chairman explained: If the gangmaster is related in any way we can deal with the
gangmaster. But if there is no physical relationship the gangmaster says go and see so
and so, hell find you accommodation, it will be difficult to prove anything.

Certainly, every grassroots advice agency we spoke to had come across clear links between
employment agencies/gangmasters and accommodation providers. The practice was
considered normal. South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau: The problem is that they get
away with it by getting their brother to let the accommodation so in way its linked.
According to the Polish Workers Federation: The accommodation is the employers. Or, if
they dont own the accommodation, they place [the employees in the accommodation.

7.8.2 The failure of local authorities to enforce housing standards

Some respondents believed that the advent of the minimum wage offset had simply seen the
GLAs responsibilities transferred on to overstretched local authorities who had neither the
resources nor the will to tackle exploitative landlords hardly surprising, considering that we
were informed by several respondents that in some locations elected members could be
counted amongst the exploitative landlords! According to an independent researcher in South
Lincolnshire: When I was talking about people being housed in barns and sheds and things
well there is one elected member who is actually providing that accommodation! And lets
face it, there are no votes in migrant workers.

In 2007, a study of new council powers to enforce minimum standards in private rented
housing revealed widespread concern at the conditions migrant workers were being forced to
live in. It found that 57 per cent of councils had encountered private sector housing issues

30
linked specifically to migrant workers. This was of particular concern to over 90 per cent of
councils in Yorkshire and Humber, and for 75 per cent of councils in the North-West. 65
Meanwhile, an Audit Commission review in 2007 found there to be little evidence of an
increase in inspection or enforcement activity to match the increase in the number of houses
in multiple occupation. 66

Advice agencies in several locations felt there was a disincentive for local authorities to take
action: In local authorities, where theyve got a planning department or a department thats
responsible for regulating houses in multiple occupation, they know that people are living in
dangerous... unsuitable condition, but theyre reluctant to go and intervene. Because all that
they can do is shut down that place where those people are living, and there isnt an
alternative [place] for people to live It means that the regulatory element of it is
neutralised. Its not going to be effective, because people wont have the heart to do it,
because why would you? I mean why would you put somebody out of work, who is earning
50p an hour, as opposed to nothing? When your action will mean that they get nothing?
Legal Advice Services North-West.

Again: If you close down a gangmaster outfit and say they have got 50 or 100 people, most
of whom may be accommodated by them as well, how do the local authority provide
accommodation for those people? So it must be a dreadful decision, because not only are you
throwing people out of work, you are throwing them out of their accommodation... so who
would want to have to make that decision? Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire.

This reluctance was, however, providing Rachmanesque landlords with a licence to exploit.
And it was clear that exploitation in accommodation remained endemic.

7.8.3 Overcrowding and substandard accommodation

Overcrowding in substandard accommodation was reported in every location where

respondents were visited or consulted. In Goole, in the East Riding, two-up-and-two-down
terraced houses around the old docks area were housing upwards of eight to ten young male
migrant workers. Housing officers in the town had identified 400-500 HMOs [Houses in
Multiple Occupation] which are all overcrowded; all lack means of escape and decent fire
precautions; all of them have got one toilet when there should be two or three, [and]
inadequate kitchen facilities. There had also been an increase in the numbers of caravan sites
across the East Riding, some of which were fully licensed and were providing good quality
accommodation; others of which were not. Respondents told of students on the Seasonal
Agricultural Workers Scheme living in overcrowded caravans with no redress because no-
one can get on to the site where they are working... to help them out. They dont come off the
sites.

In the City of Hull, respondents told of migrant workers being really squashed in houses.
Flats with two bedrooms and with ten and 12 people living in the flat. For Housing and Fire
and Rescue Officers, fire risks were the primary concern, but overcrowding and poor
standards of maintenance bring a host of other problems: We are finding that a number of
the houses dont have any adequate heating systems and [face additional] problems that go
with that... damp and the mould and condensation... We have had a property come to our
attention where we believe two migrant worker families are living in the same house. So
youve got four adults and five children living in a four-bedroomed house and one of the
adults is pregnant all nine of them are using the same bath, all nine of them are using the

31
same cooker. So you have got four adults trying to feed themselves and their five children in a
normal-sized kitchen-cum-living room Its a recipe for people spilling hot fat or boiling
water on each other and getting under each others feet.

In Grimsby, there were held to be between 200-300 migrants: in 13-15 mid-terrace

properties. You are talking about eight people per property. And then in the HMOs you are
talking between 15 and 30 people There is a situation where there is a gangmaster in the
area and youll get probably eight people in a three-bedroomed terrace or 28 people in a B
and B. So there is considerable overcrowding. There were concerns around personal
hygiene, domestic hygiene, fire safety, no alarms, blocked fire exits, etc., and as one
respondent explained: If you have 28 people using one cooker there is a bit of a concern with
that. One company is alleged to be particularly exploitative, deliberately recruiting
vulnerable non-English speakers in Polish villages: They put them in a house [with]15, 20
people five, seven people in one room. There are bunk beds there and some of them are
sleeping on the floor, paying 70 or 80 per week for this bed. And even if they can no longer
cope with the conditions and they find other accommodation for themselves later on, they
still, under the terms of the contract, have to pay that money for the accommodation they
have left sometimes for six months, nine months, one year they are still paying that 70.00
they signed for, even where they already moved out of that house and are renting somewhere
else. Housing officers were finding mattresses and bedding in the loft spaces of houses.

Migrant workers in Lincoln recounted their experience of farm accommodation: It was a big
house but the rooms were very small and it was just bare bricks on the wall, no paint. There
were blocks of six cells and in one cell there were two people. Altogether on the farm there
were living 60-70 people, and there was just one kitchen... it was a very small kitchen, the
size of a very small room. The heating was there, but they were forbidden by the manager to
turn it on.

Citizens Advice Bureaux provided a wealth of examples of exploitation: Umpteen people in

a room, a girl sharing room with another girl and they are told someone else is moving in
here and if you dont like it you will have to pay their rent as well... sharing houses, appalling
accommodation, problems with Health and Safety, one loo between a dozen people. Also
related were landlords ignoring the minimum wage offset, with 50 and 60 being deducted
at source for a bed in a shared room. Other respondents also told of landlords avoiding the
offset: We frequently find that employers have a way round that they pay them in cash and
deduct straight from the cash. Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite.

Hot-bedding, the process by which workers on different shift patterns share beds consisting
just of mattresses, remained endemic. Apart from the question of human dignity, there were
clearly also both personal and public health concerns.

7.8.4 Failure to provide a tenancy agreement

Tenancy arrangements were often unclear and undocumented. Migrant workers frequently
had limited security of tenure and therefore little redress against landlords who exploited or
evicted them.

32
7.8.5 Cheating on utility costs

Some landlords were tricking workers by informing them that the rent included bills then
leaving workers responsible for them: One of the things that we have certainly had several
instances of, and some we are still fighting, is where one person finds themselves responsible
for the utilities and council tax because something has been put in front of them and theyve
signed it... and we are talking to the borough council and to Anglian Water and saying that
this person lived in one room in that house for three months and they are being stung for the
whole year, and of course they are just completely aghast. Again, if you dont speak the
language its very easy to just keep signing things. Thats been quite a big issue. Boston
Citizens Advice Bureau.
7.8.6 Cheating on bonds

Deposits for accommodation were taken direct from wages and often not returned on
spurious grounds. There were sometimes agency fees for finding the accommodation on top
of the bonds. Sometimes workers were placed in an impossible position: This woman had to
move. She got home from work one day and was told that tomorrow she would be going down
south because that is where the work was. But she didnt get her bond back for the
accommodation because she hadnt given them notice well how on earth would she be able
to give them notice when she is at the whim of this person who decides where she works and
who she works for? Polish Workers Federation, Bradford.

7.8.7 Lack of personal privacy

A Floating Support Worker at an Advice Agency, Lincolnshire, provided a recent example of

the daily indignities faced by some migrant workers: They lived in caravans and the
caravans were being searched on a regular basis. Every day they would walk in while you
were sleeping there and start going through your drawers because they were looking for the
small heaters that you plug in because even though it was cold every night they didnt allow
the heating on. So they would go through every drawer and the laundry bag. This was
whether you were present in the caravan or not.

7.8.8 Evictions and homelessness

Time and again the research team were told that migrant workers were reluctant to complain
about their appalling housing conditions for fear of losing their accommodation and their
employment. And illegal evictions were taking place. Boston Citizens Advice Bureau
explained: Its all very well to tell them that in law you dont have to leave and they [the
employer] will change the locks and put the bags out, and it is illegal but they [employees]
are not going to go to the police and start creating a fuss because theyre too frightened. A
rough sleeper count in Boston by the local homelessness charity in October 2008 found 18
migrant workers whom the local authority had no responsibility to rehouse. The problem is
particularly acute in winter: Some pitch tent-like structures along the bushes on the river
bank; they can be seen along the river Witham in winter.

33
7.9 The scale of the problem

While voluntary agencies and migrant support groups very much welcomed GLA
interventions, respondents to this study asserted that exploitation remained widespread and in
many forms. Hull Polish Advice Bureau, discussing food-processing factories: We are
getting these problems all the time. Problems with payments. Problems with holidays,
problems with paperwork everything. All the time something is wrong.

Boston Citizens Advice Bureau, South Lincolnshire (a deeply rural area) recounted: From
2004 onwards there was an absolute explosion of people coming in and seeking help; people
from the A8 countries basically primarily Poland but also Latvia and Lithuania to the
point where for our general sessions it was more than 20 per cent of the clients coming in
who were non-UK. There had been some reduction over the past year but the first two-
quarters of 2008 they saw 527 non-UK clients, the majority working in the food-processing
industry, while in the third quarter of 2008, non-UK residents accounted for 17 per cent of
all Citizens Advice Bureaux cases (of the 1,492 cases, 1,226 were British, 98 Polish, 65
Portuguese, 24 Lithuanian, and 22 Latvian). This was described as very significant... Those
are nearly all from migrant worker communities so you are talking a lot of people. South
Holland Citizens Advice Bureau, Lincolnshire, in that same third-quarter of 2008, saw 181
foreign nationals, or 12.1 per cent of all Citizens Advice Bureaux cases. Of the 1,495 cases,
1,314 were British, 43 Polish, 34 Portuguese, 14 Lithuanian and seven Latvian. They were
presenting with a range of problems, including employment, housing, immigration, benefits,
but: A considerable number of these related to exploitation of migrant workers in
agriculture so its still ongoing.

Research and anecdotal evidence suggests that most Citizens Advice Bureaux have seen an
increase in migrant worker clients in recent years; in some Citizens Advice Bureaux, as many
as 25 per cent of all clients are migrants. 67

It was clear to the research team that some migrant workers were achieving redress to
exploitation and abuse via the tribunal system (with the assistance of local support agencies)
or via the GLA. However, some agency workers told of an increase in abuses in recent
months: I would say that its getting worse. Because before it was mainly the case of big
employers fiddling people out of small amounts of money unpaid days etc. But now it is
more of the dodgy agencies coming out. There are quite a lot. Floating Support Worker,
Advice Agency, Lincolnshire.

Some clearly despaired of any redress for their clients: Since this came to light I have met
many more who have had similar experiences; the accommodation is substandard, there are
no jobs, and money is being paid in Poland and here in the UK but there is nothing done for
the people and about the practices I am fully aware that this may not be a matter for the
police and a civil matter BUT surely this kind of treatment of people (obtaining money by
deception?) cannot go on, something must be done to STOP once and for all these
unscrupulous practices which are crossing borders and surely must be illegal and immoral.
Email contribution from advice agency worker, Bradford.

34
7.10 Under-reporting/Barriers to coming forward/Undercounting

You start speaking out and you are going to lose your job, your accommodation. You dont
know whats going to happen to the people back home because some of these links are quite
strong with the home countries and we know that people are charged huge amounts of money
to come here, and if they dont pay their debts people back home get beaten up. Its a terrible
situation.
Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire.

A constant refrain from key stakeholders was the very real concern that they simply did not
know the extent of the exploitation taking place. There was no means of realistically
estimating the number of people involved, or the levels of abuse. There was, however, a
general belief that the exploitation which was being uncovered was the tip of the iceberg, and
that enforcement and protection activities are still skimming the surface of such practices.
The problem was compounded by the fact that abuses were simply not being reported to key
enforcement agencies. That was held to be for a number of reasons, discussed below.
7.10.1 The fear factor
The position of illegal or undocumented migrant workers will be addressed later in this
report. It should be clear to all, however, that it is highly unlikely that the hundreds of
thousands of migrant workers in the UK falling into this loose category would be willing to
interface with statutory authorities in order to give account of their exploitation by
gangmasters. As we shall see later, the fear of violence and/or deportation precludes such a
course of action.
This study found that for many legal and documented workers there is also a fear barrier. A
senior health professional explained why migrant workers were willing to relate abuses to her
in confidence, but not to enforcement authorities: Some are in the system, so they are quite
legally here, but even within those you have still got the issues of being too scared to say
anything because theyve seen some of their fellow citizens who have said they are not happy
about hot-bedding or whatever, and then immediately lose their job, lose their
accommodation and are on the street and then have to find their way back to Poland or
whichever country they have come from.
Those voluntary organisations acting on behalf of migrant workers sometimes faced a similar
problem. The manager of Boston Citizens Advice Bureau explained:There is an awful lot
that is under our radar... the people who are in desperate straits, who owe thousands to the
gangmaster and are having terrible deductions made and so on, they might talk to a priest
but they are probably too frightened to come to me. Which is why I say that some of the really
bad stuff doesnt actually hit our radar. And, of course, if it is not reaching the local Citizens
Advice Bureau, it is not likely to be reaching the GLA.
Fear of adverse consequences was a common refrain from a broad range of respondents:
They are working on those farms and they dont have any language skills so they dont have
a possibility to find something better. So they are really afraid to lose their job, whatever it is,
and they try to ignore that they are being threatened or mistreated because they just dont
want to lose their job... The worst thing is that, because of the lack of jobs, people have to put
up with it, because if the alternative is to close the agency, you lose your job. So very often

35
people dont do anything they just put up with it, learn English and try to move on to a
proper job. But they have no choice because this is the money that pays for the bread for the
whole family. Floating support worker, Voluntary Agency, Lincolnshire

Again: The car washers in Tescos are an example. Theyre from Lithuania, Latvia,
Bulgaria. It is the classic things of deductions for rent and transport and youre in this circle
that you cant get out of, because if you complain you lose your accommodation and you lose
your job and you cant get back home. Senior health professional, Lincolnshire.

There was, some felt, evidence of collusion between gangmasters: It is very difficult for
migrant workers to come forward because of course they are very, very nervous that if they
make a complaint they will not only lose the job with the gangmaster that they are with, but
actually then find that they are not employed by any other gangmaster either. Boston
Citizens Advice Bureau. Some pointed to the psychological dominance of gangmasters: It is
more a psychological threat than it is a matter of violence. The people who come here know
that they have got plenty to lose and the gangmasters know this. If they dont know any
English they must keep their job. The gangmasters know about this so they dont need to use
violence to keep them working.

However, the threat of physical violence to themselves and to loved ones was also a
consideration for some. One parish priest told of migrant workers being warned off talking
to the authorities or even to the church, of intimidation and of a local gangmaster having
violent friends. The priest told of having picked up four very frightened folk who kept
repeating mafia, mafia, and seemed afraid for their families at home and themselves.
Eventually the GLA revoked the gangmasters licence, with the assistance of the local
churches, but the gangmaster had posed such a threat that the church had kept their
involvement pretty secret for fear of personal reprisals. Even after the fact, the priest
remained cautious: I don't want my name mentioned if any research is published, as I am a
single woman living alone.

7.10.2 General isolation/cultural and language factors

Migrant workers suffer from the same barriers to engagement as other members of the
community nervousness, shyness, illness, mental health issues, etc. On top of those, many
have the added difficulty of having to converse in a foreign language of which they have only
a rudimentary grasp. A migrants advice worker in the North West imparted the following:
Can you imagine a person who comes to the UK without any English and sometimes they
are not confident and it is very difficult to find this kind of information to ask for help. There
were also cultural factors: Many Polish workers will not speak up about the exploitation
because it is not pleasant, it is a shameful situation for them. Several of the respondents to
the study told of migrant workers coping with their exploitation because they did not wish to
return home in embarrassment, having failed to achieve their goals. An independent
researcher in South Lincolnshire had found another key reason for a reluctance to come
forward: Eastern Europeans in particular will not approach anybody in authority because
they are terrified. I have trouble even getting invitations for the fire brigade to go and talk
about fire safety to some of the groups because they turn up in their uniforms.

36
7.10.3 Few agencies were proactively investigating the abuse of migrant workers

Key employment enforcement agencies all rely primarily on intelligence, which usually
means responding to whistle blowing by migrant workers or those acting on their behalf.
Other statutory bodies such as local Environmental Health teams are, again, primarily
reactive to complaints. To much of the state machinery, migrant workers are a blind spot.

Even advice agencies were reacting to complaints rather than actively seeking out abuses
within current operational limitations they felt they could do no more; yet they believed there
to be a hidden problem considerably larger than their client base: I think we are only seeing
a small proportion. Its how many would want to come, or who know where we are. We
darent be proactive in seeking out problems because we couldnt cope we are already
busy. That is a serious concern. South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau.

7.10.4 Migrant worker ignorance of their rights and of enforcement agencies

The Vulnerable Workers Enforcement Forum Final Report, 2008, found that: Fear of the
consequences of making a complaint is not the only barrier to reporting abuses. Forum
members reported confusion amongst vulnerable workers about the role and the powers of
the different government enforcement bodies, and about how complaints could be made.
Forum members believe that the multiplicity of workplace enforcement bodies, each with
their own helplines and complaint forms, presents a confusing picture to the vulnerable
worker and may discourage complaints. Even experienced intermediaries such as union
officials and Citizens Advice Bureau advisers can struggle. 68

The GLA Annual Review 2008 found that only six per cent of agency workers had even
heard of the GLA. 69 And for those who had come across the GLA, there were further
barriers. Many simply would not realise the extent of its remit: They dont know the
definition of what a gangmaster is they dont associate that with an employment agency. A
gangmaster is some little guy who says follow me and Ill take you to a job, whereas when
you look at a bona fide set up with plush offices, you dont. Its a legitimate agency. Polish
Workers Federation, Bradford.

Given these factors, the GLAs 70,000 publications budget, which is used to print
multilingual leaflets and other promotional materials, may seem a little on the short side. 70

7.10.5 Complaints not being passed to the GLA by non-enforcement agencies.

Every Citizens Advice Bureaux consulted, and several other advice agencies, related
examples of exploitation that had been dealt with satisfactorily by themselves (and therefore
these instances had not been passed on to enforcement agencies) and this was in some cases
a significant workload: We do a lot of work often people come to us and we can do
something straight away either pick up the phone and speak to a gangmaster or write a
letter on behalf of migrant workers. (South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau). Sometimes the
pressure of work precluded engagement with statutory authorities: I didnt have the time. I
was seeing so many people I was just fire-fighting all the time. (Citizens Advice Bureau
respondent).

In several different locations, for instance, in Hull, East Riding, Bradford, and Lincolnshire,
the research team came across both statutory and voluntary agencies who were unsure of the

37
GLAs remit or of which particular exploitation issues it was appropriate to contact the
Authority about. Some officials and advocates clearly felt that established high street
employment agencies did not meet the description of gangmaster (who they perceived as
gangsters) and so, regardless of what sector they supplied workers to, would not fall within
the GLAs remit. While the GLA clearly had sent out their details to local authorities, there
was no guarantee that they were reaching frontline staff as the Chairman of the GLA quite
rightly explained: You send the message out and its up to the local authority to then
disseminate it to the appropriate people. He acknowledged that some areas of the country
were closer to the GLA than others: There are some places where there is a very strong
local authority and community involvement. Some places where you might expect it and some
places where you might not. Nowhere in Yorkshire to my knowledge has done that.

7.10.6 Taking it on the chin...

It is not the responsibility of migrant workers to ensure that the employment enforcement
apparatus in the UK works efficiently and effectively. Neither is it their personal or collective
responsibility to bring exploitative gangmasters to book. Many will be too busy trying to
survive from day to day to engage in such activities or to attempt to obtain personal redress
for exploitation suffered. Many, we were told, have little faith in the authorities to deliver
redress; that is in part because they simply do not view civil authorities in that light. As one
respondent explained: Civil society in Poland is not so developed as it is in England (and it
may be the same in Lithuania and Bulgaria as well) and the Polish feel that there is no point
to complain because those organisations who fight for workers are very weak and you are
not able to win any case you can just lose a job. They come here and feel it is the same it
is pointless to fight for your rights, it is better to change your job as soon as possible you
leave this job and go to another. But they will stay with this one until they can find a new
one. It is in part because experience has shown that there is little is to be gained through
pressing the issue. The research team were given accounts of migrants who had tried to
obtain redress from their gangmaster, to no avail, and who had subsequently visited the
police, also to no avail. Having been told it was not a police matter, all too often they had
not been referred on to the GLA or any other appropriate agency. They had then simply given
up and put it down to experience.

7.11 The power of the supermarkets

No evaluation of exploitation in the food industry would be complete without some

consideration of the role of the major supermarkets in the food chain.

In July 2006, John Denham, MP, the then Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee,
reflected thus: Most illegal work services the legitimate economy, from offices to building
sites, hospitals to supermarkets. The companies that really benefit insulate themselves
through complex webs of contractors and subcontractors. 71

Prior to the establishment of the GLA, the supermarkets were implicated in a range of media
investigations of migrant worker exploitation. For instance, a one-year investigation in
Sussex by the Guardian revealed that Tesco, Sainsburys and McDonalds were all using
subcontracted labourers who were subjected to appalling abuse by their gangmasters. 72 Time
and again the users of forced or exploited labour claim that they themselves are forced into
this position by ruthless pressure from a very small number of powerful supermarkets driving

38
down the prices of suppliers. The GLAs online news database has several examples of
exploitative gangmasters supplying some of the UKs biggest companies, who in turn go on
to supply the supermarkets. 73 There have been a range of policy documents and media
articles calling for the dominance of major retailers in the food chain, and the resulting
downward pressure on food prices, to be addressed. 74

The GLA Evaluation Study Baseline Report of August 2007 asserted that: Licensing
represents a solution focusing on outcomes rather than causes and as such generates a focus
on compliance rather than the deeper underlying factors that contribute to worker
exploitation and business fraud. We link these deeper, underlying causes to more general
changes in socio-economic structures that underpin the re-emergence of the gangmaster
system. 75 In particular, it found that Supply-chains within the UK food system are
increasingly defined by a small number of consolidated retailers/suppliers, on the one hand,
and a large number of small and fragmented suppliers, labour users, and workers, on the
other hand... [further, that] ...The food retail sector in the UK has been driven over recent
years by an intensifying climate of price competition. Whilst there are some signs that this
may be diminishing in importance, a policy dilemma remains, in the sense that extreme price-
based competition inevitably impacts upon the workplace. They concluded that: Any
evaluation of the GLA would be incomplete without recognition of these economic
processes/policy dilemmas. 76

In the GLA Annual Review, November 2007, the same team revealed: There was a
perception amongst most we interviewed... that retailers were being two-faced: that, on the
one-hand, they wanted to be seen as ethical and expected their suppliers to conform to, and
invest in, strict codes of conduct; but on the other hand, they were placing immense pressure
on buyers/managers to squeeze the margins of suppliers, and that this pressure was often
anything but ethical and left little room for the creation of good working environments. They
recommended that: The GLA should work with supermarkets to address the paradox
between the objectives of ethical trading teams and the targets of buyers and their
managers. 77

This concern was also reflected by several respondents to our study: You have the relatively
honest farmer who is absolutely up against it because hes getting hassled by the
supermarkets because they demand all the extras, and in desperation he will go to
exploitative gangmasters. Because of the power of the supermarkets you are never going to
be able to stamp it out. It has got to go beyond the GLA. You have got to get the supermarkets
involved and youve got to get them shamed into cooperating. But they are such giants and
its almost as if theyre above the law. Get the supermarkets on board and youve partly
cracked it, in the food industry at least. Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire.

8. The need for greater resources

At the time of the research, following a recent increase in staffing levels, the GLA Operations
department had 33 staff (seven Intelligence, seven Compliance, 12 Enforcement, three
Projects, three Heads of Operations, and one Director. 78 Many respondents to this study
believed that staffing levels were insufficient and not fit for purpose, and some believed they
reflected a tokenism on the part of government in relation to tackling gangmaster
exploitation: If you are going to have an organisation like that you have got to fund it
effectively, and it isnt. To have the small number of field operatives that they have got to
even cover Lincolnshire, let alone the rest of the country, they are on a hiding to nothing

39
They would like to do more. They are aware of the abuses out there. But I just dont see how
they can because theyre not resourced well enough. Really, you need to be telling the
government if youre going to have it at all then make it fit for purpose. Independent
researcher, South Lincolnshire.

The Director, Migrants Rights Network: It is scandalously under-resourced, with the tiny
number of inspectors for doing the work. The Reverend David de Verny: We have a choice:
either the GLA needs much more power, resources and people to do a much more thorough
job on the gangmasters who abuse foreigners and British workers alike, or we do away
altogether with this horrendous system of institutionalised abuse and let job centres deal with
immigrant workers. 79

South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau: They cover such a wide area, they are very thinly-
spread. That is the problem... They do have such a huge area to cover and there are not
enough of them to enforce things properly. Boston Citizens Advice Bureau: There arent
enough GLA inspectors. We realised this from the beginning that it was so much bigger a
job than anybody realised, and the scale of it was so much greater than anybody realised.

For its part, the GLA was more cautious. The Authority itself was reluctant to categorically
assert the need for greater resources at this stage. The Chairman, Paul Whitehouse, believed
that an argument for greater resources would have to be developed alongside solid research to
evidence a need: If you are in the enforcement business you can always do with more people,
but you have got to be very careful not to cry wolf. More pressing for the GLA, he believed,
was the need to expand the Authoritys remit which would, among other benefits, bring
economies of scale into the equation.

9. Raising the game...

Key respondents to this study acknowledged that the GLA strike rate for enforcement would
and could never be 100 per cent. There would always be exploitation by labour providers in
the sector; there would always be rogue gangmasters who ignored the legislation and avoided
licensing. However, all key respondents to this study believed that the environment was
becoming increasingly difficult for rogue gangmasters operating in those sectors currently
within the GLAs operational remit. Further, the Authority had generated extremely positive
outcomes. It had brought gangmasters into the bounds of employment regulation; it had
created more of a level playing field for labour suppliers, users and ultimately retailers; it had
reduced the risk of retailers being embarrassed by adverse media publicity around their
connection to exploiters. First and foremost, the GLA had improved standards in the sector in
which it operates, and in so doing it had improved the living and working conditions of
countless numbers of vulnerable workers.

The Director of the Ethical Trading Association reflected the general mood: Youve always
got your worst case examples and youve always got your really bad apples and your
exploiters and worst forms of exploitation, and no doubt those will fall hardest and first on
unregistered workers. But the big problem, actually, wasnt unregistered workers; the big
problem was bad employers... The fact was that with no standards in the industry, it was all
too easy to cheat the taxman and cheat your workers, and I think that those things have been
significantly tightened up across the board. So I wouldnt look to the worst cases to judge the
success of the Authority; Id look to how standards have risen across the board.

40
10. To boldly go....

The GLA has demonstrated that it can effectively enforce standards and their approach
could be applied to other sectors where vulnerable workers are exploited... The Government
should be prepared to extend the GLA licensing regime a proposal which responsible
agencies back to cover sectors characterised by vulnerable employment. The aim would be
to ensure that an employer seriously exploiting workers and undercutting reputable
companies would lose their licence to trade.

The Commission on Vulnerable Employment, Hard Work, Hidden Lives. 2008.80

The TUC Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) was established in 2007. The 16
Commission members were drawn from employer, academic, trade union and civil society
backgrounds. Throughout 2007 and 2008 it drew on evidence from new research, a
widespread public consultation, a programme of regional visits and expert testimony from
academics, civil society groups, politicians and government agencies. 81 The Commission
findings, published in May 2008, recommended that the government should extend the GLA
licensing regime to cover those sectors characterised by vulnerable employment.

The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) Vulnerable
Workers Enforcement Forum was also established in 2007. It comprised representatives from
a range of trade unions, voluntary agencies, business interests, government departments and
enforcement agencies. As with CoVE, it also considered the plight of vulnerable workers and
how the employment regulatory enforcement mechanisms might be made more effective. 82 In
August 2008, the Forum reported that: Some representatives on the Forum supported an
extension of GLA-style licensing to all labour providers, particularly in the sectors where
they believed that there were a higher proportion of vulnerable workers. The sectors of most
concern were construction, hospitality and cleaning services, but that... Other members
were unconvinced of the need for an extension of licensing. The priority, they felt, was
effective enforcement of the existing law which could be achieved by increasing the powers,
resources and profile of the Inspectorate. 83

The governments conclusions to the Forum report opted in favour of the latter position.
Accordingly, it was decided to double the number of EAS inspectors by the end of July 2008
(from 12 to 24) and to promote awareness of the EAS and its powers amongst both agency
workers and agencies themselves. The GLA and the EAS were to work closely together to
share information about suspect businesses operating across their respective sectors, and both
would undergo Hampton Implementation Reviews over the following year to consider their
regulatory effectiveness, including whether the GLA and EAS needed access to
administrative sanctions such as comply or stop now orders, or spot fines which could be
applied with immediate effect. 84

41
10.1 The call for expansion into other sectors

The evidence of worker exploitation is piling high; government can no longer ignore the
calls to extend licensing and put in place a universal, transparent process for determining
who is fit to supply labour in this country.

Jack Dromey, Deputy General Secretary of Unite. 85

Virtually all respondents to our study considered the failure to expand the GLAs remit into
other sectors to be incomprehensible. Outside of the Employment Agency Standards
Inspectorate itself, not a single respondent believed that the doubling of their inspection
facility would make any but a very minor difference to worker exploitation in the areas it has
historically policed. Some expressed the belief that the decision had little to do with the
protection of vulnerable workers, and much to do with the current governments doctrinal
opposition to meaningful regulation of the employment sector. Virtually all contributors
asserted that the GLA should be expanded into other sectors of the economy. They held there
to be no logical reason for differentiation in enforcement bodies or regimes. The Director,
Migrants Rights Network: We share the standard criticisms of people working in the sector
that, first of all, its remit is far too narrow; its completely irrational to be regulating only
some aspects of the work of gangmasters and not others... agriculture and yet not
construction or sub-assembly work or the other areas.

Trade union respondents were by equal measure bemused and frustrated: Weve been calling
for this more or less since it was set up, and were not the only ones, we come across exactly
the same abuses in other sectors in the economy and we dont see why theres any reason
why it should be constrained to the ones its in currently... theres no logical reason why it
shouldnt. Why workers should be allowed to be exploited in one area rather than another is
beyond me. TUC representative on the UKHTC Prevention Committee.

Major retailers we consulted were of the some opinion: What I can tell you is that I am very
much aware of other sectors where exactly the same issues... exist [as exist in the food
industry]... if that therefore means that the GLAs scope should be widened to include
hospitality, catering, distribution, and non-food stuff... then I think they should widen sooner
rather than later. Ethical Trading Officer, major retailer.

A majority of gangmasters also consider that it is in their best interests. The GLA Annual
Review 2008 independent survey of gangmasters found that almost three-quarters of
respondents believed that the GLA scheme should be extended to other sectors the most
common answers in order of frequency being: All Sectors, Construction, and
Hospitality. 86

The Chairman of the GLA concurred: Of all the gangmasters operating in the casual and
temporary workers sector, we think that only 25 per cent of them operate in our sector. The
other75 per cent are not just in construction but care, hospitality, catering and cleaning.
What weve found is that there are a number of businesses that we know about, and a number
of others that we are getting intelligence about, which were in the sector and are no longer
some of which applied for licenses and were refused because they didnt come up to scratch
but they are carrying on in circumstances that show they are not doing the job properly, but

42
outside the sector so we cant touch them.... Effectively... we are saying we dont mind if you
do this not very pleasant activity as long as you dont do it in agriculture and food
processing. He continued: When I speak to meetings of the recruitment and employment
confederation that represents employment agencies and labour providers across the whole
of the UK they ask me Why is there this difference? 87

10.1.1 The GLA is displacing gangmasters into other sectors of the economy.

Respondents to this study believed that gangmasters were either diversifying into other
sectors or moving into them completely to avoid GLA activities. This, it was commonly held,
was inevitable while enforcement across other sectors remained weak. The Director,
Migrants Rights Network: We know from the stuff thats reported back to us anecdotally
that its just resulted in some gangmasters voluntarily withdrawing from some areas of work
and concentrating in others without changing their practices one iota. The Reverend de
Verny agreed: The advent of the woefully under-resourced GLA has only caused abusers
and exploiters to shift their business into the care, hospitality and building industries: there is
hardly a hospital, care home, restaurant or factory without gangmaster involvement. 88

Trade unionists were also conversant of the trend for diversification and the illogic this
created. The Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite explained: [Of] those that operate in
food, there will be a significant proportion that also operate in other sectors where they dont
need a licence. So they might be behaving themselves nicely in food and not behaving
themselves in other sectors. So there are definitely contradictions right the way through.

Grassroots advice centres sang from the same song-sheet: [Two gangmasters] with whom
weve had a lot of dealings, have simply moved out of anything over which the GLA has a
remit. So they have gone into contract cleaning and these sorts of things. (Boston Citizens
Advice Bureau). That also went for retailers the research team contacted: I absolutely think
that the remit should be extended. I think that part of the problem is that labour providers are
moving into areas which are not being covered. So I absolutely think that the GLA needs to
extend its remit. Senior Officer, major retailer

The GLA is in no doubt that this is occurring. Paul Whitehouse, GLA Chairman: The
chances of getting caught in our sector are mounting. The chances of getting caught
elsewhere are still zero. If you think about it, if you are an organised criminal what you are
doing is you are making a lot of money. There is a risk involved because you can get caught,
so like any other business, you measure your reward against risks and so if you can move
into another area where you can minimise your risk, well you do so you minimise your risk
by slipping over the line where we mount our operations. The Authority provided the Home
Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking 2009 with evidence of companies, whose licence
they had revoked, continuing to operate in the non-GLA regulated sectors, including
construction. 89

The GLA Annual Review 2008 independent survey of gangmasters also found that: A
significant number of gangmasters operate across a range of sectors; most notably non-food
manufacturing, distribution, cleaning and construction. A number of respondents also
mentioned, in the other comments' section of the survey, that businesses were moving to
non-GLA sectors. 90

43
The current position does not make it easy for migrant workers to understand by which
enforcement agency they are protected at any given moment in time. As several
commentators pointed out: We know from interviewing the workers that they can be in the
food industry one month and then light manufacturing another... furniture removals
another... construction [another]. Director, Ethical Trading Initiative. This is of no small
significance, given that many migrant workers have precious little spare time outside of the
workplace to seek out the most appropriate avenue for redress.

10.1.2. The ineffectiveness of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EAS).

Our model of enforcement is cost effective and is known to work in tackling abuse in the
food industry. I have no doubt our approach could be translated across all areas of the UK
economy. And if our remit were ever to be extended, the unit cost of licensing would drop
substantially.

Paul Whitehouse, Chairman, GLA.

Broadly speaking, if an agency or individual is supplying labour in a sector covered by the

GLA then they are acting as a gangmaster and they require a licence. Those who are
supplying labour outside the GLAs remit are subject to the employment agencies legislation
and regulations, enforced by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate.

The Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking 2008-09, concluded: It seems to us

that, outside the Gangmasters Licensing Authority's sectors, enforcement is at best patchy
and at worst non-existent. 91 Many of the respondents to our study would consider that to be
an accurate description of the situation. One described the sectors outside the GLAs remit as
a free for all, an absolute free for all. Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire

In response to our study, time and again advice and support agencies acting on behalf of
migrant workers admitted that they had no knowledge of the EAS or of its remit. These were
very often individuals who were immersed in migrant worker employment issues, including
Citizens Advice Bureaux and several Polish advice agencies. One respondent who was aware
of its existence had had no contact with it, and had seen no promotional publicity for it. He
referred to it as the invisible enforcement agency. The research team found not a single
migrant worker who, prior to our visit, was aware of the Inspectorates existence.

The CoVE enquiry found a similar picture across the UK. The Commissioners found few
workers, local trade unionists or voluntary organisations had heard of the EAS. Our study
also found little connection between grassroots union officials and the EAS. The Regional
Secretary, Yorkshire and Humber TUC volunteered the following: We havent had a lot of
information on it. Ive heard of them but Ive also heard that its easier to get a Health and
Safety Inspector out than it is the EAS. So there are very few on the ground at all.

Those trade unionists we spoke to who had had dealings with the EAS were far from
impressed. Barckley Sumner, National Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians
(UCATT) Press and Research Officer (for the construction industry) asserted: We think EAS
is a joke, it cant do its job; its totally ineffective. Weve got case history about that. The
notion that doubling its inspectors would make a significant difference, he described as

44
ludicrous. He continued: They dont have the powers or the effectiveness of the GLA,
which itself is not a big body, but it already has a track record of prosecuting people and
finding the exploitative gangmasters. For example, after the Mansfield job (a case of severe
exploitation on the King's Mill Hospital regeneration project that received considerable
national media coverage, June 2008) appeared in the papers, my colleague reported the
company concerned, Produm, directly to the EAS and they took over four weeks to reply and
[then] only because we put Ministerial pressure on. The government, after the Vulnerable
Workers Forum, said that EAS was the way forward. Well its not; it offers no protection
whatsoever.
In another key sector for migrant worker employment, Dave Turnbull, Regional Industrial
Organiser, Unite (covering the food sector in London, including food distribution, retail,
hotels, restaurants, pubs, etc.) related that Unite and GMB (Britains General Union) regional
organisers had kept the EAS au fait with the situation pertaining to exploitation in the hotel
sector, but to little avail: We fed in all this sort of information. It seems to have gone into a
vacuum. We have nothing really concrete back The complaints we are making are not
being listened to properly. Or weve been given lip service. But in actual fact, nothing
changes.. So, for example, well have a discussion about exploitation of agency workers
with the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry]. And theyll be very sympathetic and say
how terrible that is and how theyll look at it and do something, but when it comes to the
actual crunch of doing anything concrete to change the situation, they seem to shy away from
it.

That position was also reflected by the comments of other organisations working on behalf of
migrant workers. The Director, Migrants Rights Network: You have to start looking at the
work of the EAS, which as far as I can see simply plays a sort of advisory role at the moment
with no teeth at all. They are buried away in Enterprise and Regulation. I dont think they
actually have any enforcement function at all; it is simply offering guidance and direction
and encouragement. Ive not been able to identify any enforcement powers do they have
any? Do people get prosecuted? ...My sense is that, where the GLA is able to establish its
authority, and it actually does have a power to step in and impose fines and potentially close
down operations, anybody who is not clever enough to switch to another line of business...
will have their company closed down; whereas Ive not heard of that happening with an
employment agency yet.

In the CoVE Report, 2008, the Commissioners noted that: Throughout our research,
concern was expressed at poorly resourced enforcement agencies, and the limits that
resources placed upon their abilities to undertake proactive investigations. 92 In their short
report they singled out the EAS thus: The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate
(EASI) has 30 field inspectors covering the whole of Great Britain a grossly inadequate
level for the task. We recognise the need for inspections to be risk based. However, current
resources mean that even where there is high risk, chances of inspection are unacceptably
low. Almost everyone we met complained of lack of enforcement. With some exceptions,
enforcement agencies do little other than respond to individual complaints, in a situation in
which many vulnerable workers will not complain because they fear the consequences. They
continued: There are differences in the levels of resources available to the different
agencies. While the GLA has around one inspector for every 92 businesses it covers, the EAS
has one for around every 700 agencies (and many agencies have multiple offices). 93

45
The Head of the EAS, John Thorpe, considered those figures to be somewhat misleading:
The figure strikes me as painting a rather extreme picture, because if you look at the number
of inspections that we do carry out versus the number of agencies in Britain in a typical year,
even with a smaller inspectorate we visited possibly getting on to eight or nine or possibly
even ten per cent of the agencies and that was prior to the increase [in field inspectors].
He continued: We do this in two ways: Firstly by following up any complaints that suggest
there has been a breach in the legislation and historically we tend to get around 1,000 or
1,200 or so such complaints per year and secondly by conducting proactive inspections on
a risk-based analysis, which seeks to identify those agencies in either localities or sectors
where there is seen to be a high risk of non-compliance. Historically our rate has been
perhaps 70 per cent complaint following-up and 30 per cent proactive work.

The Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum Final Report and Government Conclusions
reported that: In the past year... the EAS has prohibited five individuals from running
agencies and brought two successful prosecutions. 94 EAS clearly preferred the light touch
of issuing compliance notices which, provided they are acted upon, result in no further
action being taken. For example, last year, EAS Inspectorate sent 512 corrective letters to
employment agencies. 95 The Director of the EAS acknowledges that the Inspectorate rarely
goes down the magistrate court route (maximum fine 5,000), preferring instead the Tribunal
route whereby serious exploiters are prohibited from running an agency. However, as we
shall see later, given the scale of migrant-worker exploitation within the EASs operational
sectors, the Inspectorate would appear to be securing an extremely small number of
prohibitions.

The EAS Director acknowledged past weaknesses particularly in relation to the lack of
proactive engagement with migrant workers: An awful lot of vulnerable workers may be
nervous themselves about making a complaint particularly if English isnt their first
language, and acknowledged that EAS had insufficient translators on their books: Thats an
issue where we should be doing more. He also held his hands up to the relatively limited
profile of the Inspectorate: We are aware that we need to do a lot of work in terms of raising
awareness of what rights people have and how they should exercise their rights... We have a
certain amount to learn from The GLA in terms of publicising our work we know that we
need to raise the profile and we need to be more systematic about this.

He also, however, indicated a new emphasis on cooperation with other enforcement agencies
and in particular with the GLA: Operationally I think that its absolutely right that we
should work more closely with the GLA ... and that is something that we are actively doing
now. For example, on Monday I will go and see our GLA colleagues in Nottingham and we
will be discussing these things and seeking to learn from them in terms of raising awareness
and raising the profile. He indicated to a new willingness to actively promote EAS activities
and welcomed the increase in July 2008 of inspectors from 12 to 24. He asserted that new
powers to be bestowed on EAS in 2009 would allow for a more proactive approach to
enforcement. 96

Respondents to this study remained to be convinced. The Head of Campaigns and Media,
Unite, reflected: Weve got real concerns with the way that theyre strengthening it. They
might have put one tooth in the head of a toothless entity. So you know youre going from like
ten to twenty were still waiting for the doubling of wage enforcement inspectors and that
hasnt happened. Its literally in a dusty cabinet somewhere and I think theyre very aware
that they dont have the powers to tackle the size of this 20,000 strong agency sector, with an

46
inspectorate agency thats never in a million years going to get around to inspect them and
has had one prosecution in its forty years of existence and that was... around the fitness to
operate as an agency rather than the misuse of workers. Theres a real scepticism about
whether or not thats an appropriate mechanism.

She continued: Our approach would be that the little known-body should be bundled into the
GLA, GLA should be expanded across the economy and work with the Fair Employment
Commission. At this stage I think the first thing we would be looking to do is to bring the EAS
into the GLA, expanding the GLA. Most respondents we consulted would agree.

For his part, the GLA Chairman was equally unconvinced that the additional inspectors and
new powers bestowed upon EAS would herald a new dawn of enforcement. On the doubling
of EAS inspectors in July 2008, his response was: It wont make any difference. They are
civil servants operating in the civil service mentality with civil servants rules. The EAS, he
believed, was hamstrung by civil service inertia and a reluctance to take punitive measures.
While acknowledging that the previously difficult relations between the two agencies had
eased since the arrival of the current Director of EAS, and that there was a new emphasis on
cooperation and collaboration, he nonetheless still considered the EAS to be too publicity
shy and risk averse to be a proactive and energetic enforcer of standards.

10.1.3. Weak trade union organisation

There is clearly a low level of trade union penetration in those sectors making most use of
part time, agency labour, and migrant labour. Given the failure of EAS to have widespread
impact, this in effect means that in many instances there is no organised protection
whatsoever for vulnerable workers. For instance, while some trade union recruitment of
migrant workers is occurring in the construction industry, it proves difficult; in part because
some migrant workers are only in specific locations for relatively short periods; in part
because, as the national UCATT Press and Research Officer explained: ... as active as our
officials are, constructions not the most unionised industry in the country; it is very difficult
to organise it, and weve only got activity on a certain number of sites; and in part because
if theyre working for some of the more dubious agencies then theyre threatened and told
very strictly not to join the union. In that respect, it is simply unrealistic to expect trade
union organisation to tackle exploitation without the support of the proactive work of an
enforcement agency: Historically were talking about a very casualised industry in
construction, huge turnover of staff, in our best organised sites youve only got a year or 18
months before you have to start again. You have to be realistic... the state has to take
responsibility to make sure that people arent exploited.

Unite faces similar problems in the hotel and catering industry. The Regional Industrial
Organiser, Unite, London, explained: There are a whole raft of reasons why its been
difficult to organise in the hotel sector. Number one hostility from the employers. They just
dont want to engage in any way with regulating employment, they want to be free to do
whatever they want to do. To pay whatever they want. So wherever we try to organise they
put up very, very strong resistance. In the few hotels where we are recognised, I would say
we are tolerated rather than embraced. So a lot of things we might have negotiations with in
a normal set of circumstances, in a hotel were just kept at arms length. Trade union density
is very low and they can assert no control over the use of agency labour. So whereas in a
well-organised industry, as with some of the road transport ones, the use of agency workers
in what circumstances they were used, what they would be paid, when they could be laid off,

47
etc would be controlled by a Union agreement, none of those factors apply to the hotel
sector because those agreements simply do not exist.

In addition, many of the most exploited workers are undocumented, and naturally they are
frightened of being victimised or dismissed if they complain or try to join a union.

10.1.4 Resource implications

The CoVE reports numerical analysis of agency inspectors against the number of
agencies/workplaces within their remit 97 is useful in the sense that the statistics in themselves
highlight the barebones nature of the enforcement apparatus. However, it is limited in that it
doesnt take into account factors such as risk of exploitation, level of public awareness,
proclivity for whistle-blowing etc. Hence the CoVE called upon government to review
current resource allocations, and consult on appropriate inspector-to-employer ratios for
enforcement agencies. 98

Clearly there are resource implications to expanding GLA activities. Most respondents would
expect an extended remit to necessitate an increase in resource base. As one trade union
official explained: It is true that the GLA is relatively well-resourced compared to some
other enforcement agencies, given the size of the sector that its currently responsible for. But
I think that if it was to extend its remit it would need more resources to do that thats clear.
It would be meaningless to extend its remit without accompanying that with more resource,
particularly for frontline inspection. They continued: There doesnt seem to be any...
rational basis upon which to calculate what the ratio of inspectors to at-risk businesses is;
some sort of realistic analysis of what that ratio should be [is necessary] to know how many
resources are needed and wheres the tipping point.

10.1.5 Economies of scale and cost efficiency

Resource implications need not be a major barrier to extending the GLAs remit. The
Chairman of the GLA believed that expansion provided a win-win situation for Ministers:
The justification is two-fold. If I were a Minister in this government it would be a vote
winner in my view. For the trade unionists you are saying we are determined to do all that
we can do for migrant workers, so we are using this model which has now been shown to
work and we are extending it. For the Daily Mail readers, can I tell you how much extra
tax this agency has brought in? More than it has cost. This latter point would seem to be a
highly cogent argument, for as of January 2008, the GLA was estimated to have assisted in
raising over 2 million in additional VAT payments to the Exchequer. When the estimates
were revealed, Andy Armitt, Deputy Director, HMRC Labour Provider Unit said: The work
of the GLA in partnership with HMRC is now producing real benefits. The identification by
the GLA of businesses trading in the licensed sector has greatly assisted HMRC in ensuring
compliance with taxation obligations and in protecting the rights of workers. 99

Were the GLA to begin operating in other sectors, in all probability those benefits to the
Exchequer would escalate to the point that the Authority was more than paying for itself. For
instance, the CoVE Report, considering exploitation in the construction industry noted that:
There is also evidence that bogus self-employment is a significant cost to government.
UCATT estimate that the tax revenues lost from the construction industry alone are around
5 billion: 2.5 billion in NI contributions and 2.5 billion in tax revenue from workers. 100

48
At the same time, the GLA would benefit from the economies of scale. Chairman, Paul
Whitehouse explained: The costs ought to go down as they are spread against wider buyers;
and in general terms of enforcement, because of the economies of scale we would be working
on, it seems to me to be unarguable. He elaborated: If we had the power to handle problems
elsewhere than in our sector, the economies of scale are dramatic... Our licensing base is
already here you dont need a substantial increase to licence more people and you neednt
increase it proportionately. If you doubled our present enforcement capacity, for example,
you would get more than twice as much value because for instance you reduce your
travelling time. And that continues for some time you could probably quadruple and get
very nearly five or six times more than weve got now. He continued: And it also saves some
of the frustration that is experienced by my people and by people in the industry, who say
well, why do you stop there? What is the logic in that?

There is clearly much frustration on all sides at the governments failure to extend the GLAs
remit.

It seems fitting to close this section with a few words from Dan Rees, Director of the Ethical
Trading Initiative, who was one of the pioneers of the licensing approach: It doesnt make
sense at any level really to keep this limited to one sector of the economy. It only makes sense
from the point of view that your agenda is to limit regulation at all costs, and you didnt
really want it in the first place, and you wouldnt want it to grow. I can see a political motive
for it not extending but I cant see an economic motive; I cant see an ethical motive. If your
conclusion is that it is a pretty cost effective, fairly lean way of licensing and regulation that
hasnt been a big imposition on the industry, that it hasnt been overly disruptive and has
been seen to drive up standards while keeping stakeholders together, then I certainly think it
needs looking at hard about an extension to hotel and catering, where we believe there to be
an equally big problem.

The case for extension of the GLAs remit appears unanswerable. It follows that the next
point for consideration is whether the GLA should be extended to cover all sectors in which
temporary labour is supplied, or whether there should be an incremental expansion. The next
section endeavours to shed some light on the murky world of exploitation in sectors currently
outside the GLAs enforcement remit.

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 11. Exploitation in sectors outside the GLAs current remit

Licensing only targets agriculture, horticulture, shellfish gathering, and associated

packing/processing industries. However, we found no evidence to suggest that
the issues faced by the GLA and addressed by licensing are only restricted to
these sectors.

GLA Evaluation Study, Baseline Report, August 2007.101

Does it matter really, in terms of the area it covers. Is it not just a process of employment
that needs covering?
Bill Adams, Regional Secretary, Yorkshire and Humber TUC.

The formal TUC position is that all employment agencies should be regulated by the GLA. In
addition, the TUC General Council has adopted the recommendations of the Commission on
Vulnerable Employment, which concluded in particular that regulation should be extended to
all sectors where there is a high risk of vulnerable employment, particularly care, catering,
cleaning and construction.

Apart from the Head of the EAS itself, who declined to take a position on the matter: These
are policy questions and Im a simple civil servant. It is not for me to express views on that
kind of thing, and one other notable exception, National Citizens Advice Bureau, the TUCs
position would tend to be that of virtually every respondent to our study. (Citizens Advice
Bureau position will be outlined in chapter 12). The reasons people gave were many and
varied, but they generally fell within four key areas:

i) There was evidence of widespread and in some cases appalling exploitation right
across the labour market.

ii) The GLA had proved an efficient mechanism for tackling exploitation.

iii) Outside of the GLAs sector, protection from the key enforcement agency and from
trade unions was limited and often ineffective.

iv) Workers were, for a variety of reasons, either incapable of, or too afraid to stand up
for themselves.

The Head of the EAS acknowledged the last point: One of the features about agency
workers who wish to complain is that they are often rather reluctant to do so, because one of
the features of vulnerable workers is not only do they not know how to complain, but that they
are somewhat fearful of doing so. ...There are issues of reluctance to complain for fear that
the agency will take reprisals by not giving them any future work.

The research team was provided with account after account of exploitation and abuse, much
of it mirroring the abuses found in the GLA sector; some of it a good deal more harrowing,
and some of it systematic and casual. What we found as exceptions in the GLAs field of

50
operation, we found as the norm in other sectors. That of itself speaks volumes of the
impact of the regulatory regime with and without the GLAs remit.

What follows is a very brief listing of the abuses we found. Some of these will be presented
in more detail later in the chapter:

Violence and threats of violence. We were not provided with many accounts of actual
violence, but threats, bullying, insults and racial slurs were commonplace, as was
general disdain and ill-treatment. One migrant worker recounted: There was an
English site foreman who hated Poles and was abusive to them. They called him
Cobra. They were very badly treated. Sometimes [the employer] told people to stop
working for no reason and they then had to wait outside the factory gate for their lift
home, sometimes [for] several hours. This happened to an old man who was stood
outside crying because he didnt know where to go.
The threat of deportation. This was a constant preoccupation with some migrant
workers. It was sometimes deliberately brandished by managers and other members of
staff in order to intimidate workers who were either undocumented or unsure of their
status. The introduction of the Civil Penalty Regime had increased the power of some
employers over their workers.
Underpayment and payment below the minimum wage. These were common
practices. As we shall outline later, in the hotel trade these abuses are held to be
systematic. As an advice worker in Liverpool explained, this could significantly
disadvantage clients in the longer term, in that, having been cheated in relation to
hours worked both in terms of their pay and on their paperwork, clients thence lost
their legal entitlement to Working Tax Credit: They would end up having to pay back
Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit and that was very important, because that
was the only thing that allowed most of my clients to work, because they were all paid
such low wages.
Unlawful charges and deductions. Accounts of this were widespread facilitation fees
and the standard administration and travel charges were supplemented by bogus tax
and NI charges and by a range of others. Some abuses surfaced repeatedly across
different agencies: One which seems to be quite common is charging people for their
own payslips. A lot of companies outsource payroll etc., so its a cost for them, but
then they pass on part of the cost of the payroll to the employees. Some were bizarre.
The TUC representative on the UKHTC Prevention Committee, recounted: We had
one that was almost funny, a group of migrants who were charged for something.
They didnt realise what it was for, but it turned out to be for cleaning the carpets in
the accommodation that the employer provided them with. The only thing was that
there were no carpets in the accommodation. So when it comes to unlawful deductions
youre constantly coming across all sorts of wheezes like that.
Withholding documentation: Hanging on to their passports, so in many respects they
are very dependent; they cant open things like bank accounts or actually move to
another employer, and indeed, if theyre not registered within 30 days they cant
enforce their employment rights. So for really unscrupulous employers theres a good
reason why they hang on to documentation and ensure its not processed. We
certainly come across quite a lot of that.
Lack of work contracts and other evidence of having been employed. This made it
impossible for some to access benefits between periods of employment: Weve got
temporary workers who have a real trouble getting a decent wage slip, who dont

51
 know if they have paid the correct national insurance, who are given false national
insurance numbers by their agency. Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite.
Substandard and tied accommodation plus excessive rents: A lot of the issues are
around housing; breaching the minimum wage regulations when it comes to
accommodation offset, and that takes all sorts of forms. TUC representative on the
UKHTC Prevention Committee.
The list of scams was endless. A voluntary agency worker in the East Riding explained:
There are disputes on contracts, disputes on time worked, disputes on pay rates, disputes on
deductions, disputes on all sorts of things. All too often people are simply not paid what they
are owed and feel they have no redress and we are sometimes talking hundreds of pounds
here.

When confronted with evidence of abuses by advice agency workers and other advocates, the
employment agencies invariably were difficult to pin down and/or claimed the incidence was
an accidental oversight. Respondents to our study pointed out that it was the same
companies, again and again, and that an error would be rectified for one worker, only for
the same error to be visited on other workers a short time later: They just dont bother to
find out what their responsibilities are and if they do accidentally find out about them, they
get away with not fulfilling them for as long as possible. You go on a telephone chase,
trying to speak to somebody about a problem and they just send you round in circles and
nobody wants to speak to you. And if you do speak to somebody, they tell you they cant help
you or they just bullshit you. Ive never had any kind of positive response from anybody.
Advice worker, Liverpool.

While exploitation is clearly widespread and, in all probability, reaches in one way or another
into every facet of the labour and employment market, as our work as a research team
progressed, it became increasingly clear that outside the GLAs current remit there were three
key sectors in which exploitation was rife, and in some cases, severe. Those sectors are
construction; hospitality, catering and cleaning; and the care sector. They were also the
sectors which most respondents to our study cited when they were asked which sector(s) the
GLA should move into as a priority. These will now be considered in some detail.

11.1 Construction

We believe construction should be first. Youve got exploitation in a number of sectors and I
appreciate that, but youve got huge health and safety issues with construction; its stuff
which the Health and Safety Executive are now slowly becoming aware of, about the fact that
migrant workers are particularly vulnerable. When you work for agencies or gangmasters you
just dont get the training or the safety protection that kind of safety ethos isnt there. Its an
industry where 72 people died last year, 79 the year before; and last year there were 12
migrant workers who were killed, which is a big percentage.

National UCATT Press and Research Officer.

Clearly, safety is a major issue in the construction trade. Respondents to our study expressed
grave concern at the fact that fatal accidents and serious injuries are increasing on building
sites. Some believed that the problem in relation to inadequately trained migrant workers may

52
well be more significant than available statistics reveal. That is because the nationality of a
worker is recorded only when he is the victim of a fatal accident; there is no current
recording, nationally, of the involvement of migrant workers in the accidental deaths of
others, or indeed, in other serious injuries. The impact of gangs of untrained and semi-trained
migrant workers can therefore not adequately be measured. But it may be significant.

In 2007, Jim Sheridan MP, outlined the broad range of concerns on BBC Radio 4: The trade
unions and others have anecdotal evidence that migrant workers have been brought into the
country by illegal gangmasters. Taken on to building sites, they have very little
understanding of English, very little understanding of the Health and Safety legislation that
covers not just them but those who work around them; and they have also been living in
atrocious accommodation sometimes sleeping on the building site. They are being paid well
below the traditional wages paid to construction workers, and they are a danger not only to
themselves but everyone working round about them. 102 On the same programme, GLA
Chairman Paul Whitehouse shared the concerns: Here we have a problem that we can see,
and we dont want to wait until there is a building collapse or a scaffolding collapse, and
people killed, and the government then says oh we better licence that area too. It would be
much better to prevent the problem before it happens. 103

What is clear is that there has been a huge increase in agency labour in the construction
industry in recent years commentators described it as widespread. Some felt certain that
many gangmasters had moved over from agriculture, which was of itself a concern because
they were not aware of the particular dangers of the industry, and because they rode
roughshod over traditional working and health and safety practices that had taken decades of
negotiation between unions and construction companies to establish. The character of some
of the gangmasters involved was another concern. The Regional Secretary, Yorkshire and
Humber TUC, explained: What we are finding is that there are more and more areas
affected by gangmasters, and its particularly around part-time, temporary [work, using]
people on short-term contracts they tend to be run by some individuals that I wouldnt like
to work for.

Bogus self-employment, actively encouraged and exploited by gangmasters, has become a

major problem in the industry. The CoVE Report found that: An increasing concern is that
growing numbers of workers are being classified as self-employed but in reality are
dependent workers who do not have the independence and autonomy over their work that
characterise genuine self-employment. This group are described as the bogus self-
employed. Many construction workers are classified in this way... It continued: These
workers can work for the same employer for years without entitlement to the most basic of
employment rights, for example paid holiday, maternity leave or statutory sick pay. They can
also be sacked or asked to leave at a moments notice, and cannot claim unfair dismissal or
redundancy pay... In the construction industry the scale of the problem they described as
vast. The report continued: Research has revealed that sites using bogus self-employment
have a higher rate of injuries and fatalities. Sites operating bogus self-employment are
almost certainly not going to have union organisation. Therefore they will not have
independent safety representatives. Excessive hours, which have health and safety
implications, are not uncommon. Workers are not in a position to turn down work, as they
fear that they can be sacked and easily replaced. 104

Our research team was provided with a large amount of anecdotal evidence of the negative
impact of bogus self-employed labourers on construction sites. Regional Secretary, Yorkshire

53
and Humber TUC: Gangs of Polish lads, [lads from] Slovakia, places like that, just turning
up on site and being paid 3 an hour because theyre self-employed bogusly of course that
is not only creating friction with the guys on site but its actually dangerous. They have no
idea about health and safety, they have no certification code which used to be one of the
biggest leverages we have on site but that has fallen by the wayside on the grounds that
these people are just self-employed gangs. They were not paying National Insurance, so they
were not covered for accidents. Respondents told us that such gangs were all over
Yorkshire. They were not yet prevalent on the large commercial sites, which remained, by
and large, well organised sites, but they were much-evidenced on smaller, house-building
sites, and they were clearly operated by gangmasters: Guys running, like, 30 odd blokes.
Lads will turn up in the pub and pay their money out. One guy controls them all in separate
places.

A key concern in construction was that agency workers were being used to undercut the
wages of permanent workers, and we were told that there had been cases where workers had
been dismissed in favour of cheaper construction workers. Alongside that came the standard
forms of exploitation: Agencies not paying holiday pay, not paying sick pay; excessive and
unfair charges which are mandatory for travel, accommodation, tools, insurance, are very
common. Excessive hours very, very long hours for agencies is a concern. Were talking up
to 70 hours a week... and a few times we have found workers who are paid below minimum
wage. National UCATT Press and Research Officer.
The research team was referred to the exploitation uncovered at the Kings Mill Hospital
regeneration project in Mansfield, in June 2008, where 12 Lithuanian workers were reported
as having received as little as 8.80 after working a 40-hour week, and were described as
being virtually destitute. The UCATT Regional Secretary was reported as asserting: This is
a terrible indictment for the construction industry. This is a well-organised site where we are
generally able to protect construction workers from exploitation. We will be able to
eventually get a fair resolution for these workers. He continued: What is truly frightening is
to think what happens on the many unorganised sites in our industry. 105
There were increasing concerns around the Olympics project, which was highly agency-
dominated. This was held to be an accident waiting to happen as a partially inexperienced
workforce attempted to meet increasingly tight targets: That has implications for quality,
productivity, and health and safety. National UCATT Press and Research Officer.
An advice worker in Manchester gave an insight into the fate of some of the less fortunate
Polish construction workers, who clearly had been deceived by their employment agencies.
They were recruited by agencies, some of those agencies that were actually based at
airports in Poland. They had been promised work at good rates on specific skilled jobs, but
on arrival had instead been permanently consigned to labouring jobs, on less pay than British
workers while doing the same work. Some were originally offered secure work for long
periods but then laid off after a few weeks when work dried up: What we face then is the
problem of people who are destitute coming to us. I cant give exact figures, but... over the
last few years, it must be getting on for 100 [construction workers] that have had agency jobs
that have come to an end after a short period of time, when they actually believed they had
settled employment here.

A Polish advice worker, himself an ex-migrant worker in the construction industry in

Manchester, provided the research team with the following account: It was very expensive,
about 500 per month... for very low standard and overcrowded accommodation. The work is

54
connected to the accommodation. The agencies make their money on the accommodation and
the transport and on your work. A Polish construction worker in Hull bemoaned the fact that
he had failed to sign up to the Worker Registration Scheme. He stated that he had not realised
that he had to so do, and asserted that at least 50 per cent of his fellow Polish workers on the
site were not registered. Neither were they self-employed. He stated that the firm had
instructed the Polish interpreter on site to desist from encouraging workers to register for the
scheme. Consequently, he and many of his colleagues had no right to employment-related
benefits.

UCATT is coming across workers who have been threatened with loss of jobs, deportation,
and worse, if they speak out against exploitation. Although not common, the threat of
violence for those who complain is all too real. What follows is an account of the experience
of a Polish migrant worker in Lincolnshire, as related to the research team:

A 27-year-old Polish male in Lincoln, who had been a qualified plumber in Poland, had been
working in the UK for two and a half years. His gangmaster landlord provided him with work
on construction sites from February 2008: Every day I worked ten to 12 hours and I worked
for seven days a week, sometimes at night. For that I received 120 per week. When I asked
why the money was so low he said it was because I am an apprentice so he couldnt pay me
more than 18 per day but because I was 27 years of age he would give me a couple of
pounds more. I was working for 70-75 hours per week. On my payslip it says only 23
hours. So for this week (the payslip was provided as evidence) I worked 75 hours and I
received 130 gross pay. Then there is 50 deducted for my rent which leaves 78.80.

He related the lack of safety: We are a lot of time working on the scaffold and with gas, and
it was clear that the agency didnt care about our safety. They wouldnt spend money on
safety. They told us to do the work as quickly as possible and they didnt care how we did it.
Sometimes they told us to do it in ways that they knew were not safe. This was for everyone
on the building site, not just me. We were working with bricks and glass, there were no
harnesses for the scaffold and we were lifting heavy loads on the scaffold. There was no
loading bay there and it wasnt safe. I used to complain about this regularly and he said
this is how the work is. And I said, How come other employers can do this and you
cannot? and he said, If you dont like it, you can fuck off.

In November 2008, upon finally demanding a written agreement on his terms and conditions
of employment, he was assaulted by his landlord/gangmaster: He kicked me and bit me in my
face and I spent the night in hospital, and after that he has sent me a letter saying that he has
fired me from work and said I can no longer live in his accommodation. I could stay one
more week then I must find somewhere else.

At the time of interview, the police were taking action against the gangmaster for assault. But
the worker had little prospect of redress for the monies he had not been paid. He believed this
to amount to several thousand pounds: It is difficult to prove how many hours I have worked
there is no paperwork from the firm.

When asked how he felt about the experience, he responded: This is the 21st century, not the
14th century; these things should no longer be allowed to happen.

55
11.2 Hospitality, catering and cleaning

The culture in a lot of hotels for the room cleaners, housemaids, housekeepers, porters,
kitchen porters, those people, if you like, at the bottom of the hotel hierarchy, is one of daily
harassment. Disrespect. Youre not valued as an individual. You may be shouted at, you may
be told to get a move on, youre not addressed by your first name, no one talks to you, no
management value just get on with your job, keep your mouth shut and get on with it...
These people are harassed. Theyre undervalued. There really is an upstairs-downstairs
situation in London today. It is Victorian. And that... insidious kind of daily injustice mounts,
and mounts, and mounts, and it leads to stress and low-esteem; it reduces peoples ability to
respond.

Kevin Curran, Unite The Union, Hotel Workers Branch and London Citizens.

Much of this section is focused around abuses in the hotel trade in London. That is because it
proved easier to access key respondents in this sector in London. However, the abuses
described here, we have good reason to believe, are replicated in every major city and many
towns in the UK. Abuses in the hotel trade, even in the most luxurious and expensive five-
star hotels, have been well documented in the national media. 106 When it happens, the hotels
are individually shamed in the media, and the dust settles until the next expos. What these
isolated incidences fail to reflect is the structural, systematic exploitation endemic in the hotel
industry.

Over the past decade there has been a fractionalisation of responsibility in the hotel industry,
in that many hotels no longer directly employ most of the workers who deal with
maintenance and cleaning, preferring instead to buy in the services of agency workers. It is
rare to find a hotel that does not use agency labour in the housekeeping department, and
many hotels have contracted out that entire function to an agency. We were told that quite
often they supply illegal workers. Respondents to the study made a distinction between good
and bad employment agencies: Theres a difference between agencies that are supplying
skilled [as opposed to unskilled] labour. So there are a lot of agencies in London who supply
chefs, but they will be supplying people who are highly skilled and qualified and, even if
theyre coming from Eastern Europe, they will have some form of qualification. And its very
rare to find any of those agencies supplying illegal workers. What were talking about is
agencies who are supplying unskilled labour into basically cleaning jobs. Which is in effect
what a chambermaid does or a kitchen porter does. Regional Industrial Organiser, Unite.

Those latter agencies, generally speaking, compete primarily on the cost of labour, and as
Kevin Curran explained: That means that they drive the wage down to the actual minimum
which legally should mean the minimum wage. But what agencies do is they devise ways and
means of actually getting more from their workers. He elaborated: Directly-employed
cleaners are on the minimum wage, as are the agency workers. But the agency workers are
given a number of rooms more than directly-employed workers to clean. So although
officially they finish at two oclock theyre told, If you havent finished your rooms at two
oclock, you have to continue working. So in effect, theyre working for nothing after two
oclock. And they are working after two oclock because theyve been given too many rooms

56
to clean.... We come across, not uncommonly, room cleaners who take painkillers as routine,
because theyre doing so many rooms a day. Effectively, the agencies are driving a coach
and horses through the minimum wage regulation.

We were given accounts of permanent, documented, and in-house staff being deliberately
driven out of hotels in order to make way for way undocumented labour, which was now
resolutely widespread across all the hotels. For many of those undocumented workers, their
circumstances come close to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition of forced
labour. 107 Some clearly are bonded labour: Theres a four-star hotel in London with Indian
owners. Theyve got a lot of agency workers... from their hometowns, villages around that
part of India where they come from. The workers from India are on visas which they have to
pay for. The employer says, Okay. Well get you over to London to work. You come over,
well sort your visa out. You pay us two and a half thousand pounds for your visa. Which of
course is illegal, and obviously those workers in that hotel are completely beholden...
Theyve got to pay it back. The thing is that, because that visas specific to that job, thats all
theyve got. So [the employer can say]: We no longer want you here. Thank you. Goodbye...
Youre back home to India. Youre obviously in London to earn money for your family. So
clearly, were concerned. Kevin Curran, Unite & London Citizens.

Some undocumented workers live in constant fear: There is just a continual vein of bullying
and intimidation. And they are genuinely scared to stand up for themselves because they
know if they do, theyre finished. The agency will get rid of them, theyll have no work and
theyll be homeless. So its a form of slavery really. You are boxed in. These people bring you
into the country and you either work for them or you have nothing. Regional Industrial
Organiser, Unite.

Kevin Curran reflected on the affront to personal dignity: Monkeys could do this work,
basically theyre told that by a manager. So youve got all this kind of daily insidious
oppression, which is the only way you can look at it, which is much worse than [in] any other
industry. Much worse. Because it goes on in enclosed environment, which arent visible,
theres no voice for these people... We had a rally in London recently and one of the workers
got up and said, This is what its like to work in hotels in 2008. I leave my dignity and self-
esteem at the door when I walk into the hotel. And that sums it up. He continued: Ive got
experience in a number of different industries and its only the last couple of years that Ive
been organising in hotels, and Ive never seen as much fear amongst employees. Ive never
seen such harassment. Ive never seen such outdated management methods in my entire life.

In such circumstances, there is little protection against violence and abuse: We had an
incident where a housekeeper was reprimanding a chambermaid. The chambermaid spoke
back and the housekeeper slapped her around the face. Basically said, Look. You dont talk
to me like that. Im here to tell you what to do. Youre here to listen.. There is no recourse
to complaint or redress: That person was illegal so...[he or she thinks] I better just shut up
and carry on with it. Alongside violence, and much more prevalent, are incidences of
verbal abuse: People being shouted at. People being belittled. People being harassed.
Regional Industrial Organiser, Unite.

The Migrants Rights Network had also come across permanent staff being hounded out in
favour of the undocumented. According to the Director, Don Flynn: [We have]a case at the
moment of a woman who is a contract cleaner who got transferred under the TUPE [The
Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations] arrangements, and found

57
herself being persecuted by the new employers for her immigration status and querying her
passport when it was produced. Then finally dismissing her after shed been working for a
period of several weeks, and refusing to pay her the wages that were due to her.

Respondents believed that the exploitation was impacting adversely on the hotel industry and
on the reputation of the City of London as a world tourist centre: The employers, the
government, visitors to London, the British Hospitality Association and many, many senior
executives in the hospitality industry know that the reputation for service delivery in London
is absolutely abysmal. [We have] some of the highest prices in the world, but some of the
lowest levels of quality in service-provision. We know why that is: it is because they
[employers] dont value their workers, they dont train them adequately enough, they dont
provide any language skills, they dont develop them, and they dont pay them respect. You
cant have a quality service industry if you dont have those things in place. Kevin Curran,
Unite & London Citizens.

Not unsurprisingly, every respondent interviewed wished to see the GLAs operational remit
extended into the hotel industry. Apart from the scale and type of discrimination, there was
an almost universal resignation to the fact that, without the interjection of a dynamic
enforcement agency, exploitation in the sector would continue indefinitely. That was in part
because London was a locus for vulnerable workers there would always be another wave of
exploitable people arriving in the City. It was in part due to the weakness of the current
enforcement regime: At the moment the chances of anybody being caught are very slim, and
if they do get caught, the penalties against them are negligible so its worth them taking the
risk. So youve got to make it not worth taking the risk, to be able to change anything. It was
also in part because the industry had become caught in a downward spiral, in which agencies
seemingly had little choice but to cut corners to compete: Theyre cutting each others
throats. Theyre driving each other down to the lowest common denominator. So even where
youve got informed senior executives and managers who maybe want to meet us, theyre not
going to break ranks because then they feel if they do that and, for instance, meet our
demands and pay the minimum wage, theyre going to be uncompetitive with the hotels out
there.

A positive and determined intervention by the GLA was seen by some as a means by which
the current rush to the basement could be halted and reversed, if they began to close
exploitative agencies down There wouldnt just be a skills shortage, there would be a
shortage of unskilled labour as well. And what they would have to do is invest in training and
offer decent pay and conditions. That would actually transform the industry. Regional
Industrial Organiser, Unite

Respondents argued that the sooner the GLA moved in to the sector the better. Feelings are
clearly running high in the sector and if exploitative conditions continue, one alternative put
forward was a process of trench warfare whereby union activists and civil society
organisations such as London Citizens target hotels for non-violent direct action taking
advantage of events such as the London Olympics in 2012 to drive their message home.

As we asserted at the beginning of this section, the exploitation described is not confined to
the capital. All the major unions, and a plethora of voluntary agencies working in this sector,
assert that these working conditions are pervasive across the UK. Limitations of time and
resources prevented a thorough study of the wider hospitality sector (restaurants, take-aways,

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etc.) but these are also, we were told, awash with exploitation. The following are some of the
comments we received:

A Chinese community advocate in Manchester (covering the hospitality sector): They need
to pay money to the gangmaster for registering their names... and then once they get a job
they need to pay another sum of money. An advice worker, Manchester: A lot of workers,
British and migrant, are exploited in the hospitality sector. Its one of the least organised
sectors and its notorious for exploitation.

Again, we were unable to undertake a thorough study of the contract cleaning sector but,
employing as it does an estimated 800,000 workers in the UK, which is predominantly
female, with a large presence of ethnic minorities approximately two-thirds of the
workforce it is clearly another sector rife with abuse. Previous academic research has
provided much evidence of abuse in the sector, 108 as have Citizens Advice Bureaux. 109

Our field studies suggest that the exploitation continues. Boston Citizens Advice Bureau
related: We know that the rogue gangmasters in South Lincolnshire are moving out of
agriculture and into contract cleaning and care, and according to an advice worker in
Liverpool: Hours are scraped away and put into another account, thats common. I came
across that with two of my clients quite recently, where they kept saying were working 20
hours more than were being paid for and she [the supervisor] keeps saying shell sort it
out. ...Im absolutely certain that thats what was going on; that somebody else was being
paid for their hours.

11.3 The care sector

Care workers were made to work 95-97 hours a week without being entitled to days off.
These workers were contracted by an agency to provide care in the home of clients, but the
travel time between clients (often an hour) was not included in their work hours or their pay,
even though the clients were paying the agency for the travel time. 110

As with the wider hospitality sector and contract cleaning, the research teams window into
the care sector was limited. However, it is clear that this sector has within its bounds many
vulnerable migrant workers, and that gangmasters and employment agencies have not been
shy in taking advantage of their often precarious position. Clearly, care is not immune from
the worst forms of exploitation. Anti-Slavery International has identified people being
trafficked into the UK care sector, 111 and the GLA has also come across evidence of women
being brought to the UK to work in care and then being moved into prostitution. Several
respondents believed that high numbers of vulnerable female employees in the care industry
inevitably exposed many to sexual harassment and abuse. The Home Affairs Committee on
Human Trafficking, 2008-9, reported on debt bondage in the sector: Care workers from
Bulgaria paid 2,000 for jobs to be arranged in the UK, which was then deducted from their
wages and included very high interest rate charges. 112 Exploitative conditions in the sector
were signalled to the research team by the GLA, the EAS, trade union representatives,
voluntary agencies and health workers.

In 2004, research by Citizens Advice Bureaux found that: Due to a chronic shortage of
suitably qualified workers willing to work for the low wages on offer by care homes, the

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sector has been a major user of migrant workers for many years now, during which Citizens
Advice Bureaux have reported many cases of exploitation.

From their extensive advice work, a number of common themes emerged:

The recruitment of qualified nurses and other care workers in their own country, and
their legal entry to the UK on a valid work permit arranged by the employer or an
employment agency, usually with the promise of an opportunity to acquire UK
nursing or other professional qualifications.

A reality in which both pay and the grade of work turn out to be lower than promised at
the time of recruitment.

The retention (by the employer) of the workers passport in order to deter dissent and
facilitate intimidation.

They found the majority of the workers concerned to be female, usually qualified as nurses
in their own country and seeking to obtain highly-prized UK nursing qualifications through
six-months work as an Adaption Nurse. However, upon arrival in the UK, the majority of
those who seek help from Citizens Advice Bureaux find themselves put to work as care
assistants, largely undertaking relatively menial tasks such as cleaning, and on a salary
significantly below that promised at the time of recruitment (and cited on their work
permit). 113
Our study found that those forms of exploitation continue in the sector; indeed, key
stakeholders believed them to be widespread across the UK. Those affected by the incidences
of exploitation and abuse brought to the attention of our study by key respondents, fell into
two categories:
1. Overseas nurses invited across to work in care homes and residential homes.
2. Those engaged in community care.

The Polish Workers Federation provided accounts of a number of care homes in Bradford
employing South-East Asian staff who were told that they must speak English at all times,
and who routinely suffered the abusive comments of employers, fellow workers and care
clients: There have been loads of incidences. Some nursing staff had been led to believe that
they would be able to study for their NVQs, only to find that shift patterns did not allow them
the time to do so. The workers advocate related the plight of one worker: She cant leave
because shes frightened that her abusive employer wont give her a reference. She cant
complain to Social Services because shes frightened that she wont get another job.

South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau told of the difficulties faced by Filipino care workers:
I remember... their accommodation and the hours that they were having to work. Some were
[working] 12 hour shifts and they werent receiving overtime [pay] they have no right to
that. And sometimes they had signed a contract in English that they didnt fully understand.
These problems are continuing; we still have these problems on a regular basis. An advice
worker in Manchester was concerned about pay rates: Just recently I was contacted by
somebody on behalf of a nursing home, where they knew that there were lots of migrant
workers who were not paying National Insurance, and they asked me whether they thought
this was usual. So I explained that the threshold for paying National Insurance is 105 a
week, and therefore those workers must be earning less than that to be outside of the

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National Insurance threshold. Yet these workers were working full time. Other respondents
told of fraudulent contracts and of work placements without end.

An advice worker in Liverpool contacted the team with several concerns: They were making
people do training in their own time, and that of course is illegal. They were making them
pay for uniforms, which they shouldnt have been doing ... then they decided that they
wouldnt pay the travel time anymore. If youve got somebody who is working continuously
and travelling from person to person, its illegal not to pay them for the travel time; and I did
point out to all the care employers that it was illegal, and as far as I know, theyre still doing
it. They were also charging people for CRB [Criminal Records Bureau] checks... so there
was a lot of very naughty stuff going on in the care sector.

The refusal to pay for travel time to and between clients is a particular problem for care
workers in rural areas, where having to travel long distances goes with the territory.
According to a senior health professional in Lincolnshire: One of the things you get... is
people coming over with qualifications and being used to work at a lower grade, and asked
to work far longer hours than is the norm. One of the worst things I heard about was people
doing community care they are going around peoples houses in care in the community and
to get their eight hours [pay] they were having to work about 14 because their travel time
wasnt being counted.

These are, inevitably, sporadic examples of exploitation and abuse; they may reflect the
general picture for overseas workers in the care sector, or they may be the unfortunate
examples. Certainly, respondents to our survey believed they were sufficiently widespread to
be a major cause for concern. To cite the advice worker from Liverpool, on the topic of the
GLAs remit: I think absolutely it should be extended to agencies who are supplying people
to clean hospitals, to work in the care sector and to work in factories There needs to be
really quite heavy regulation of the agencies that use migrant workers and abuse migrant
workers. Because at the moment, they dont give a damn. They are the most irresponsible
employers that I can imagine.

Upon revisiting the four key themes at the beginning of this chapter, in the context of the
abuses found in abundance in each of the three key sectors studied, the research team concurs
with the formal TUC position that all employment agencies, and all sectors where there is a
high risk of vulnerable employment, should be regulated by the GLA.

12. The enforcement framework

In the UK there is one main organisation responsible for ensuring that businesses operate
within the formal economy: HMRC. However, there are numerous organisations seeking to
protect workers from exploitation (Health and Safety Executive, Employment Tribunals,
DBERR (EAS), the GLA, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, National Minimum
Wage Inspectorate, UKHTC) or seeking to prevent illegal working (Home Office,
Department for Work and Pensions). Alongside this, there are sets of employment laws (eg.
the National Minimum Wage and Working Time Regulations) and criminal laws (eg. anti-
trafficking legislation, widened by the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 to include non-
sexual exploitation, or trafficking for forced labour) protecting workers from exploitation.114

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The enforcement culture in this country simply is not fit for purpose its desk-bound, it has
not kept pace with the many and varied abuses that we now see. Theres a recognition from
government about that being the case.

Pauline Doyle, Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite.

12.1 Recent government proposals for change

In 2008, both the CoVE report 115 and the DBERR Vulnerable Workers Enforcement
Forum 116 considered the effectiveness of current enforcement arrangements in some detail.
Each put forward a range of recommendations for improvement. As both final reports are
freely available in the public domain it is not our intention to reproduce them here in great
detail. In its conclusions to the Vulnerable Workers Enforcement Forum report, the
government announced a package of new measures around enforcement and compliance. On
licensing, it concluded:

There has been extensive discussion in the Forum, though no agreement, on whether the
Gangmaster Licensing Authoritys licensing regime should be extended to employment
agencies operating in sectors other than agriculture and food processing. Agencies operating
in these wider sectors are already subject to regulations enforced by the Employment Agency
Standards Inspectorate (EAS). The government does not currently intend to extend licensing
but to prioritise effective enforcement of the existing law. It will do this by taking steps to
strengthen the EAS and ensure that it develops a significantly higher profile amongst agency
workers and agencies themselves, building on the stronger investigative and penalty powers
being legislated for through the current Employment Bill.

The number of employment agency inspectors will be doubled by the end of July 2008.
There will be a campaign integrated as part of the wider campaign on basic rights
to promote awareness of the EAS and its powers amongst both agency workers and
agencies themselves.

The GLA and the EAS will work closely together to share information about non-
compliant or suspect businesses operating across their respective sectors, and in
circumstances where there is evidence that a labour provider may be moving out of a
licensed sector into a sector regulated by the EAS.

Both the GLA and the EAS will undergo Hampton Implementation Reviews within the
next year which will provide a fuller opportunity to look at their regulatory
effectiveness, including whether the GLA and EAS need access to administrative
sanctions such as comply or stop now orders, or spot fines which can be applied
with immediate effect. 117

The government also indicated its intention to establish a single telephone gateway to the
enforcement bodies through which vulnerable workers will be able to report abuses and
access information and advice about the rights enforced by government. Operators will also
be trained to identify abuses needing investigation by more than one enforcement agency.

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Our objective is to transfer the burden of navigating the system of enforcement from the
vulnerable worker to the system itself.

And, to establish: a Fair Employment Enforcement Board chaired by the Employment

Relations Minister which will bring together the enforcement bodies and a small number of
independent members to drive effective co-ordination and collaboration. The CBI, TUC,
Citizens Advice and others will be invited to nominate suitably qualified individuals for
consideration as independent members of the Board. The work of the Board will include
oversight of the development of the new telephone gateway, and ensuring that arrangements
are in place for effective collaboration on multi-issue investigations.

It further committed to: Take action as soon as legislative time permits to tackle the legal
information-sharing barriers that, for some of the enforcement bodies involved, prevent
inspectors passing on relevant information to each other. 118

Before we outline the position of our study respondents to the governments response to
licensing and its proposals for improving the effectiveness of enforcement arrangements, it is
worth revisiting the key concerns around enforcement.

12.2 Key concerns around the machinery of enforcement

If we take first the most invidious form of labour exploitation, that of trafficked persons who
are likely to be in a position of bonded labour (and we will come to this in much more detail
in chapter 14), there is evidence to suggest that the people finding themselves in this position
in the UK may well number many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. 119 In 2006, Anti-
Slavery International published the results of a six-month research project into how migrants
were trafficked into forced labour, and what UK sectors were affected. The study identified
people as having been trafficked for forced labour in the UK in each of the following sectors:
agriculture, construction, food processing and packaging, care/nursing, and the restaurant
trade. 120 However, between 2004 and December 2008, there were only four convictions for
people trafficking for labour. 121

In chapter seven, we outlined the failure of local authorities to enforce housing standards in
accommodation occupied by migrant workers. In chapter ten we considered the efficacy of
the EAS. We now consider the other key instruments of labour protection.

The CoVE report described the Health and Safety Executives (HSE) operation thus: During
recent years HSE has faced a significant reduction in staffing. In 2003 the Executive
employed 4,162 staff, which by 2007 had been cut to 3,548.85 This included a reduction of
217 staff from frontline inspection roles, from 1,508 in 2003 to 1,219 by 2007. Furthermore,
annual 5 per cent real term reductions have been proposed in the HSE budget until 2011.
These cuts are in contravention to the view of the House of Commons Work and Pensions
Committee, which in 2004 recommended that resources should be doubled over the
forthcoming three years... Recent TUC research shows that the average employer receives a
visit from a health and safety inspector once every 1220 years, and that many small
employers will never receive a visit. 122 Key respondents to our study painted a similar
picture of inefficacy. Kevin Curran of Unite & London Citizens: How many inspectors have
we got for Health and Safety at Work? Its like any kind of inspection service. The powers are
there; the next question is, are they applied? If people cant do that then the laws worthless.
Weve got supposedly eight inspectors for hotels on minimum wage in London. Supposedly

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eight. Well, I did the maths many years ago with others about how many Health and Safety
inspectors there were; and at that time, if you were in an organised work place, you could
expect a visit from a Health and Safety inspector every 52 years. So thats the problem.

Some trade unionists in the construction industry tended to be of the same mind. Although
some did find the HSE approachable, others felt they had been slow to wake up to the
problems caused by and for migrant worker gangs: Slow, disappointing. Until earlier this
year they claimed that migrant workers werent at any increased risk. They have now
changed their views on that... Id like to think its through our actions. One of the things that
we did, which I havent done before, is record the nationality of people killed until roughly
this time last year [so] theyve been forced to look at the issue again.

The CoVE report described the capacity of the wages inspectorate thus: ...resources
available to the HMRC Minimum Wage Compliance Unit in relation to the scale of its task
capacity remains limited. HMRC has around five per cent of the number of inspectors that
are available to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Benefit Fraud Unit, and
overall numbers remain at 89.5 inspectors nationally (excluding 16 team leaders who
manage teams and become involved in more complex cases). In the Agricultural Wages
Sector, there are currently 24 trained inspectors in total. Metcalf has calculated that in fact it
is amazing that so many employers do comply with the minimum wage, given that the
probability of being caught is so low. His research found that a typical employer could expect
a visit from HMRC once every 320 years. He also notes that inspection rates are significantly
lower than those of the Wages Councils in the 1980s. 123

Respondents to our study also found the Minimum Wage Inspectorate response to be
generally positive and helpful but sometimes slow, and so, in the case of migrant workers, not
particularly fit for purpose: The Minimum Wage Unit we do work with, and they have been
helpful and they do try to go in, but its all very cumbersome and it is very slow; and migrant
workers, by their nature move around, so you lose addresses... so it is very difficult. Boston
Citizens Advice Bureau

Trade unionists in the hotel trade were not particularly impressed. One explained that the
inspectorate tend to go to hotels and inspect employees of the hotel, not the employment
agency operating there, which is pointless because in-house staff arent the ones being paid
below the legal limit: We said, youre pretty much wasting your resources because we can
tell you now, all the hotels in London are paying the minimum wage. If theyre not its by
accident rather than by design. The people you really need to look at are the agencies
because thats where the abuses are going on. I think the message got through, but we
havent seen any evidence that theyve turned to agencies. Regional Industrial Organiser,
Unite, London.

Nonetheless, there remains broad support among both trades unions and employer bodies for
the work of the Compliance Unit, which by March 2007, had uncovered non-compliance with
the National Minimum Wage by more than 14,000 employers, and secured more than 25
million of wages in arrears for some 80,000 workers. 124 That was in no small part due to the
fact that it had approximately 100 enforcement staff at its disposal.

Time and again, respondents to our study asserted that the key problem in relation to
inspection agencies was the limited number of inspectors they had and the limited number of
inspections they carried out so that all too many exploiters were only too willing to risk not

64
being caught. There were problems around inter-agency cooperation, and a one-stop phone
line would be welcome, but the key factor in relation to enforcement was the limited number
of enforcement staff and of enforcement inspections.

More general concerns about employment law and the system of enforcement were raised by
several respondents. Some complained about workers and their advocates being sent from
pillar to post. Several considered the system too complex for even advice agency staff to
understand, let alone for migrant workers who faced all the difficulties around language,
disinformation deliberately fomented by labour suppliers and employers, and the institutional
racism inherent in all public bodies. Things were not made easier by the fact that migrant
workers came to the UK with a range of different statuses in law, and thereby different rights.

Advice workers in Manchester and Liverpool complained bitterly about the interface between
temporary labour, benefits legislation and employment law. One related: The issue for the
care workers is often the hours, because unless people are working 16 hours, they cant get
Working Tax Credits. So theyre living on, you know, 6 an hour and getting ten hours work.
That makes it completely impossible and... people are either going round and working
themselves to death in a number of agencies and then not putting the hours together and
realising that theyre entitled [to benefits], or theyre working illegally. So to make people
vulnerable in that way is unforgivable. The employers say that they cannot organise their
working hours so that they can guarantee 16 hours a week. They can. They can do it for
local, British working class people, so they should be able to do it for their European workers
as well. Its a complete nonsense to say that they cant organise it they certainly can.

The other advice worker: The whole area thats missing is about the enforcement of
workers rights from day one. Any employer will know that, bar a couple of exceptions, you
can treat people pretty badly within the first 12 months of employment before they start to get
any employment rights that have got much clout If an employer says to somebody if you
join a trade union you are out, well, how do you prove that? Where do you take it to?
Youve got to go to an Employment Tribunal; you know its just almost impossible, because
its the individual up against the company in all of those situations and so the
enforcement... of rights of workers is one of the biggest gaps.

Indeed, a key concern for many respondents to our study was the fact that for all too many
workers, the only avenue for redress was the Tribunal system, which was not good at
providing positive outcomes at the best of times, and which was certainly not fit for purpose
for migrant workers. This issue was raised by National Citizens Advice Bureau at the
Vulnerable Workers Enforcement Forum, 2008: Citizens Advice told the Forum that the
Tribunal system had limitations as a route to redress for vulnerable workers, and that few
low-paid, low-skill workers were prepared to consider a Tribunal case. The reasons were
varied. Firstly, the process required a worker to confront the employer to raise a grievance,
which many were reluctant to do. Secondly, the legalistic nature of the process was
intimidating, particularly for poor English speakers. The character of Employment Tribunals
had become increasingly legalistic and formal over the years. Thirdly, Citizens Advice said
that the time and effort involved was often seen as disproportionate to the end result, which
might be a relatively small amount, for example, in relation to unpaid holiday pay or
unauthorised deductions. It was often seen as easier simply to change employer and move
on.

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Further: Citizens Advice said that that there was limited support available to the vulnerable
worker. Legal aid was not available for representation at Tribunal, Citizens Advice Bureaux
had limited resources, and a union would not generally intervene unless a worker had been a
member for three months. Unions have different policies on the representation of
members. 125 These concerns were also raised by respondents to our study. Boston Citizens
Advice Bureau manager raised the concern that both barristers (who sometimes offered to
represent migrant workers on a pro-bono basis) and Citizens Advice Bureaux also had to
consider the possibility that Tribunal costs may be awarded against them in the event of
losing a case. She also reiterated that the Tribunal process was difficult for migrant workers
to understand, and drew our attention to the lack of available legal advice on exploited
worker and migrant worker related issues in the county. The manager of South Holland
Citizens Advice Bureau, also in Lincolnshire, was also finding this problematic: Our biggest
problem in this rural area is [finding] solicitors who provide employment advice. They will
all do family/relationship advice but very few are doing employment. We havent got one
solicitor who provides legal aid on employment in this area. So people would have to go as
far as Kings Lynn or to Sleaford or a further distance and that is a problem. There is, in
fact, a shortage of such advisers at both Citizens Advice Bureaux and Law Centres across the
UK. 126

Both Citizens Advice Bureau managers also confirmed that the process was in some
instances far too slow: Its five months later and they still havent got their money so if
theres ever an illustration of why it doesnt work, thats it half of them will have given up
and gone home before they get their money. As such, South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau
hasnt taken a single case to Tribunal: We havent had clients who have taken it that far
even though we have offered to support them sometimes, they just dont want to take that
action. Even when you get a decision the company then goes bust and you dont get your
money. So its not great. South Holland Citizens Advice Bureau.

Some voluntary agencies had assisted migrant workers to successful conclusions in the
Tribunal process, and sometimes merely a phone call threatening the Tribunal process had
secured redress. Unite in London had also seen some benefits, for instance on wage
deductions for travel: Thats tailed off now because effectively every case that has come to
our notice, and that the Unions have taken to Tribunal, obviously weve won. I think weve
effectively reduced that to an absolute minimum, so we dont get many cases like that at all.
So the defence mechanism there works. Kevin Curran, Unite & London Citizens. However,
more generally, trade union representatives affirmed the lack of interest from migrant
workers: I think its unrealistic to think that youre going to get huge redresses for workers;
most of them are not going to go through the Tribunal system. Youve got the language
difficulties, youve got the legal process. People dont feel very sure of themselves or
confident... Again, there is the feeling that if you take a case then youre going to get
blacklisted, whereas you know if you dont get paid then you just have to bite the bullet.

A further issue raised by Citizens Advice Bureau at the Vulnerable Workers Enforcement
Forum was the deliberate non-payment of tribunal awards by some rogue employers. The
absence of Tribunal powers to enforce awards meant that the worst employers sometimes
ignored rulings and could get away with it. The costs and complexity of the court
enforcement system could deter claimants from taking further action. Hard statistical data
was not available, but based on the experiences of Citizens Advice Bureau advisers
Citizens Advice suggested that up to ten per cent of awards remained unpaid. There was also

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some evidence that it was smaller awards that were the most problematic. 127 Citizens
Advice Bureau has since released its own report on the issue. 128

And of course, the other key gap in the Tribunal safety net of protection is the fact that
hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrant workers in the UK have no recourse to
them, or to any other form of legal redress, in relation to employment issues.

12.3 The governments proposals considered

At the time of our study, the governments proposed Fair Employment Enforcement Board
had not yet met, and few of the key stakeholders interviewed for this study had any solid
perception of how it would operate. All, however, welcomed the governments drive for
greater cooperation between agencies and the one-stop telephone gateway. The key thing was
to make sure that it was effective. Some had concerns regarding operators having sufficient
knowledge of all employment sectors and enforcement agencies to signpost callers
appropriately. The success of the system would also depend on their being solid commitment
from all sides. As one trade union official put it: Really looking at the specifics of how any
changes might operate... it would be easy just to set up a phone number that doesnt really
change much. So itll be about marketing that phone number; it will be making sure that
behind the scenes stuff is right, so that people are able to properly share information between
different agencies.

The Chairman of the GLA welcomed the one-stop phone portal but was dismissive in relation
to the Board: The Fair Enforcement Board I think is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
We are already working closely with everyone else we dont need a Board to supervise
that. For their part, however, trade union representatives were much more enthusiastic. The
The Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite: Were definitely behind that. Thats where we
should be seeing the step change in enforcement culture coming from, and its got to make
sure that theres a strong union voice on there, because in terms of having that honest broker
and that trust relationship with workers in the community, it is the trade unions and other
community organisations that provide that.

And again, as a trade union official put it: I do see it as a definite step forward. I think the
government are keen to introduce new legislation to improve information-sharing between
agencies... This Board has been set up which gives a clear commitment to agencies working
more closely together, which I think is very positive. At the moment it has a small budget and
a commitment to increase awareness; its a small budget but it is a budget and thats
positive... I think also theres a commitment to working towards the development of a single
point of contact well have to see how that pans out... but I think that has potential to be a
very positive improvement... The steps that the government has taken are steps towards a
much more integrated model, which may not be all the way that wed want them to go but its
definitely progress.

This was intended to be much more than a one-stop phone portal, rather that it was
increasing resources, increasing powers, improving the initial face of employment rights
enforcement so that theres a single point of contact, and making sure that as workers contact
that single point... [that] theres a comprehensive case-management system that takes them
through the enforcement infrastructure, taking as much of the burden as possible off them
and onto the state enforcement mechanisms. At its best, that would generate a pro-active
enforcement strategy that would move us away from the position where, for many

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employment rights, a lot of the responsibility is on the individual to sort of whistle blow and
to report their employer, and to take on their own head all the risks that that implies... [and
move towards] a model like the GLA, where increasingly it can be more proactive in
identifying these abuses.

National Citizens Advice Bureau, however, wanted to see a far more comprehensive system
of protection for all workers. They were thoroughly disenchanted with the current
enforcement framework because it simply left too many vulnerable workers out in the cold.
Forging greater cooperation between agencies was all well and good, but it would not alter
the fact that far too many workers were not protected by those agencies. The extension of
licensing would, they believed, also fail to fill those gaps. As such, they considered the
licensing regime in and of itself (and any subsequent extension of it) to be an inadequate
response to employment abuse.

The Social Policy Officer, Employment, Immigration and Asylum, at Citizens Advice Bureau
explained: We do not view licensing regimes as the most effective way to deal with the
exploitation of workers by rogue employers, and favour a more targeted approach. We note
that, even if the GLA scheme was extended to cover all sectors in the economy (and I'm not
sure anyone is proposing that), it would still cover only a small minority of all exploited
workers. For, in our experience, the vast majority of exploited workers (both migrant workers
and indigenous workers) are not agency workers, but are employed on a conventional,
permanent basis.... we view migrant workers as one sub-set of a much larger group:
vulnerable workers. And we have, for some years now, argued that there needs to be more
proactive protection of vulnerable workers.

Citizens Advice Bureau call for all the existing state enforcement bodies, including the GLA,
to be merged into one, broad-based enforcement agency, a Fair Employment Agency, and
have produced an informative and persuasive briefing to that effect. In this, they also state: If
these gaps in the enforcement framework are to be filled, as we believe they should be, then
the government must legislate to extend the combined remit of the four enforcement agencies
to cover all other basic (or core) statutory employment rights, such as that to paid holiday.
Furthermore, it must equip the four, newly integrated agencies or a new, single agency
perhaps with the legal powers both to secure individual workers their statutory rights
(including, where necessary, the bringing of an Employment Tribunal claim on their behalf,
and the enforcement of any award), and to impose effective sanctions on persistently
exploitative employers. 129

All the local Citizens Advice Bureaux we consulted agreed with the proposal it reflected
their personal experience and frustration, and that of many of their clients as the manager of
Boston Citizens Advice Bureau explained: The biggest single problem that we see at
Citizens Advice Bureau is that there is no overarching statutory body to enforce employment
legislation, and that in this country it is down to the individual to go to Tribunal which is
hard for a local person and absolutely, desperately hard for somebody who doesnt
understand the system; and then [no overarching body] to enforce the Tribunal award, which
a lot of [employers] simply dont pay. So the poor clients have had four months of hell; they
have gone to a Tribunal and theyve got an order which says you will pay this much and it
isnt paid. And it is the same with the non-payment of statutory sick pay if it isnt paid,
ultimately nobody enforces it. And so an awful lot of the work that we have been doing, and
the evidence that we collect and send out to central office has centred around this that until
such time as there is a statutory agency who can enforce this, it is never going to be

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satisfactory. It is not satisfactory for individuals to enforce their employment rights
themselves.

When Citizens Advice Bureaus proposal was put to the Chairman of the GLA, he had no
difficulty in agreeing with the concept, seeing it as an extension of the GLAs own work: If
there was to be a Fair Employment Commission there would be a labour inspectorate; there
would be no need for licenses but otherwise it would operate on the same lines as the GLA, in
that it would be intelligence-led... If we were wound up and subsumed into a Fair
Employment Commission then in one sense we would have got what we want. The only
reservation I have got about that, is that I would want to make sure that that Fair
Employment Commission was run in a way that would continue the ethos that weve got here
(ie. proactive enforcement).

He elaborated: If you want to go to a Fair Employment Commission, yes, because that

actually does away with the concept of licensing which I have no problem with. Because
licensing isnt the only way to do it... if you are getting things wrong well tell you how to get
it right and well come back and check you again end of story. But if you get it wrong
well prohibit you from employing people if you then employ people its a criminal offence.
Now thats the same as us but without a licence.

And it would be comprehensive: It doesnt matter whether you are an employment agent or
a direct employer, or what sector you are in or anything else; it would be across the board.
Would that be expensive? Yes, it would be expensive to make it operate effectively. Would it
be difficult for business? All its doing is enforcing... Holiday pay is a good example the
labour inspectorate can come along and say pay the holiday pay, or else, and well come
back next year to make sure you dont [withhold it] again. If we come back next year and
youre doing it again, well make you pay and well hurt you. So its actually having the
power and [currently] the other agencies dont have the power.

The Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative concurred: I think its desirable. What we dont
have in this country is a labour department or labour inspectorate. We have a Health and
Safety Executive which is responsible for some things, we have a Low Pay Commission
responsible for other things; and so... to my mind, a more focused, more robust regulator that
looked at labour issues across the piece would be more effective, and a bigger challenge to
the rogues... That makes absolute perfect sense to me, because the different bits of
government are so fragmented on it.

As did the Director of the Migrants Rights Network: For us, it is sensible that there should
be a single inspectorate which looks at the employment law issues and ensures that they are
enforced... it will have the power to be able to, where it has accumulated evidence of one sort
or another, that in particular sectors the regulations are being violated. On its own initiative
it can undertake enquiries and require people to produce evidence that would be the best
approach in my mind. He also argued, as part of that machinery, for there to be an
Employment Compensation Board which pays awards directly out of its own funds and
that Board then recovers the cost from the employer, thus circumventing the traditional
delay in payments and non-payment of Tribunal awards. As he put it, all that is required is a
bit of creative thinking to address those types of issues.

However, the Head of the EAS considered one broad-based enforcement agency to be a step
too far: What the Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum have said basically is that we need

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to work together more; and I think that my answer would be that that is exactly right we do
need to work together more, and let us get on with doing that and see what happens see
what results we can get, and how we can improve matters for vulnerable workers through
that route before considering anything structural.

That viewpoint was shared by several trade union respondents to the study. Indeed, it is clear
that the Citizens Advice Bureau approach was given a considered appraisal at the CoVE
hearings and was rejected, for very practical reasons, in favour of the Fair Employment
Enforcement Board. The Commission favoured a model that would improve coordination
between agencies without the organisational upheaval that that an entirely new structure
could involve. The Commission had also taken a pragmatic view that in the current political
context the introduction of a well resourced national labour inspectorate model was
unlikely, and that any full integration of the agencies could be used as an excuse to reduce
staffing levels.

Unite was also concerned that any merger would be used as an excuse by government to
rationalise frontline inspectors. The Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite: We have real
doubts about rolling all the important agencies into one super-agency. Where weve seen this
before, as youve seen with Consumerwatch which came out of Energywatch and the
National Consumer Council you tend to lose resources, you dont gain them. And given the
inclination of all government towards deregulation, we just dont think this is the moment.

It was also held to be a matter of priorities. Countering the argument that the trade unions had
become overly-fixated on temporary agency labour at the expense of those who are directly
and permanently employed but also exploited, she asserted: Yes, there are plenty of
indigenous workers who are permanent and migrant workers who are permanent and badly-
treated at work, but being permanent they have access to the rights of permanency and things
that go with that their full employment rights. Our concern is [that] temporary workers
have been lifted out of those rights; theyve been excluded from them, and thats where the
abuses have come in and where it has incentivised employers to move away from
permanency and towards temporary and agency labour.

It should be reiterated at this point, that while these respondents did not see the value in
merging all the enforcement agencies, they did see the value of merging the EAS into the
GLA, with the latter then being expanded across the economy. These debates will no doubt
continue as the Fair Employment Enforcement Board beds in and any impacts on
enforcement and compliance are felt.

We will bring this chapter to a close with the comments of two key stakeholders to our
research. The first from the TUC Representative on the UK Human Trafficking Prevention
Committee, who, while welcoming the proposal for greater cooperation between the various
enforcement agencies, gave the following qualification: The only caveat we have on people
working together is that we want a firewall between the UK Borders Agency and some of the
other reporting authorities; or more likely the other way round. Because its like a health and
safety situation, isnt it? People are not going to come forward and, as it were, whistle-
blow on bad and dangerous practice if it means that they might be getting deported. So we
think that it is important that there is that one distinction made when it comes to reporting
information.

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This from Kevin Curran of Unite & London Citizens: If your sole concern is protecting and
maintaining labour standards then you dont deal with Immigration at all. Theres no agenda
there. If its just about improving terms and conditions of workers, then dont have anything
to do with Immigration. Thats my view. I think it just dilutes your activity and also weakens
your purpose. Your purpose is not to find illegal workers; your purpose is to improve
working conditions. And looking for undocumented workers dilutes that.

We carry those thoughts over to our final chapter.

13. Undocumented migrant workers

They dont see the formal state as a support mechanism; they see their survival in relation to
the situation they find themselves in... For the groups in the big workplaces and in
agriculture, working through agencies, I think we do have an interface with them and thats
what we can do but there are groups out there who are outside of the outside.

Regional Union Development Coordinator, Midlands TUC

A constant backdrop to our fieldwork was the plight of undocumented migrant workers,
whose position in the temporary labour market renders them vulnerable to the most invidious
forms of exploitation and abuse. We were provided with account after account of
undocumented workers having the most appalling forms of abuse visited upon them by
unscrupulous gangmasters and employment agencies. For most of them, it is clear that there
is no light at the end of the tunnel their undocumented status traps them in a world of
constant transit from exploiter to exploiter, from abuser to abuser.

13.1 The form and scale of the exploitation

There are no exact figures on the numbers of undocumented migrant workers in the UK; by
the very nature of their status they are underground and do not interface with those official
agencies that provide the information base for official statistics. There are, however,
estimates. The Home Office provides a median estimate of 430,000. 130 However, this figure
may be on the low side, given recent estimates on the number of undocumented Chinese
migrants alone at between 170,000 to 200,000. 131 Estimates range between 310,000 and
800,000. 132 Many of these migrants are trafficked into and across the UK, but again, we can
only estimate the numbers involved, as the Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking
noted: Trafficking is a hidden crime: its victims cannot or dare not make themselves known
to the authorities [for fear of retaliation or because they are or think themselves to be illegal
immigrants]... some do not even realise that they are victims. They are concealed by physical
isolation or language or cultural barriers, and may be operating under false identities. It is
therefore not surprising though it is frustrating that no one was able to give us even a
rough estimate of the scale of trafficking in the UK. 133 But certainly, trafficked workers
number in the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.

Many and some of our respondents believed the majority have become illegal through
the malpractice of Gangmasters and Employment Agencies, who have either not explained

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 the necessity of registering with the Home Office, or who have taken away their papers
promising to send them on for registration then failing to do so. Others have been trafficked
into the country illegally; others may be asylum seekers, refused the right to remain. As a
recent Migrants Right Network paper explains: The lapse into illegality arises for a wide
range of reasons not normally associated with criminal activity. Disputes with employers,
battles to pay off debts arising from entry into migration, the need to support dependents in
countries of origin, and the pursuit if survival strategies within a limited range of options,
all give rise to what the authorities term illegality. 134
During the course of our study we found several defining characteristics pertaining to this
vast pool of undocumented workers. They will usually suffer from several of the following
circumstances:

They are illegally residing in the UK and in constant fear of deportation often the
gangmaster plays on that fear to maintain his/her control over the victim.
They are dependent on the gangmasters for work and accommodation.
They have little or no access to information.
They do not know of their rights (what few they may have).
They cannot secure legitimate work and the minimum wage.
They are isolated; freedom of association being prevented or discouraged.
They experience language difficulties, and the resulting isolation provides another
form of control for gangmasters.
They cannot access medical services or mental health support.
There are threats of violence to themselves and to their families back home.
There is actual violence, both physical and verbal abuse and intimidation.
Women live with the constant threat of sexual assault.
Their labour is exploited. They work long, unsociable hours, in sometimes hazardous
conditions, for little and sometimes no remuneration.
They cannot complain or turn to the authorities for fear of deportation.
They are in no position to avail themselves of the services of any of the employment-
related enforcement agencies.
They shy away from other forms of support, such as trade unions and voluntary
agencies.

We were given accounts of some extremely distressing circumstances. One respondent to our
study explained: If people are here illegally, they are going to make damned sure that
theyre not found, and theyre hardly going to go knocking on anybodys door and say Im
being exploited... They wont tell you their name. You are introduced to them in a shadowy
way and the things Im hearing about, particularly from women, is sexual exploitation...
Their mental condition is absolutely dreadful. They cant get access to mental health services
because theyre illegal so theyre in limbo... A lot of them have spent a lot of time getting
here. And its an underground journey to get here, and they have been sexually exploited
[there is] a lot of rape, a lot of sexual abuse. Independent researcher, South Lincolnshire.

The Regional Union Development Coordinator at Midlands TUC recounted his work at a
trade union advice centre: People were coming to us that were either external to the
workplace or else linked to it indirectly. When the Portuguese workers came to Grantham,
Brazilian gangmasters appeared, who were brutal. Then in Boston, when the Eastern
Europeans started going there the Russian gangmasters started to arrive and they are
brutal. This is beyond all comprehension of brutality in terms of what they will do. The

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people in these situations actually fear for their lives its not about a pound an hour, its
about those situations. We had one person who stood up within the Portuguese community
who had their child kidnapped. We were dealing with those kinds of situations. He
continued: This was four years ago and hopefully things have moved on a little bit from
there hopefully, but reflected: I have some doubts. Because you only know what you
know. The same trade union official spoke of undocumented migrant workers being almost
in a condition of slavery, with no form of redress.

A senior officer for Unite, Northern Region concurred: What we are offering will attract
those who are just pleasantly exploited as opposed to those who are very unpleasantly
exploited and I think that that is a significant issue. So we are talking about a sub-group
who are working under gangsters, who will not raise their head above the parapet.

Union officials in London hotels were finding the same difficulties around engagement with
undocumented workers. Kevin Curran of Unite and London Citizens: Trying to organise
migrant workers who are scared, powerless, [who] by all definitions are vulnerable, its very
difficult. So there are a lot of people like me in the trade union movement who are trying to
assist these workers but essentially were out on the periphery. Because its breaking down
that fear barrier. I mean, even in terms of people identifying themselves to me, theyll give me
a false name. Theyll talk to me, get advice, but I know theyre giving me a false name and all
the rest of it. And obviously, on top of that of course, theres the language barrier.

Again, the TUC representative on the UKHTC Prevention Committee: By the very nature of
things they keep their heads down... the figures bandied around are something like half a
million people, and no-one is really arguing with that. There is the suggestion that it has
increased. They are always the most vulnerable... Obviously if you have no right to actually
be in the country, if youre from outside the EU, not only are you going to find yourself
kicked out of your job but find yourself kicked out the country as well, which obviously,
depending on where you come from and why youve left it, might be a real, real problem.
Also, since youve been here you might have put down some roots or have a partner or kid or
two or whatever. Youre not going to come forward.

The plight of undocumented Chinese workers and sex workers has been well documented by
journalist and researcher Hsiao-Hung Pai via a series of newspaper articles 135 and through her
seminal work, Chinese Whispers: the true story behind Britains hidden army of labour. 136 In
London, union representatives told us of undocumented Chinese workers receiving informal
payments of less than the minimum wage: They collect their wages from a bank in
Chinatown. Brown envelopes. I think they are basically all illegal migrant workers,
undocumented migrant workers. There are people that are earning 3.75 an hour, again with
no wage slips. There is an agency in Southall along the Lady Margaret Road, they employ
people; again, no wage slips. 3.75, 4 an hour. The general thing is that theyll pay the
minimum wage and then theyll tax everything backwards. So basically, your hourly rate is
way below what it should be. Its widespread.

There was, according to a Unite Regional Industrial Organiser, no prospect of moving up in

to the formal economy and, indeed, no escape of any kind: Because of the restrictions on
Chinese people leaving China and getting papers to work in this country, many are trafficked
in and then are effectively trapped. Chinese culture is very insular in London; they stay in
their own communities a lot. They dont socialise overtly in the wider population... the
safeguards that the gangmasters get from the Chinese workers is that they know that they

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cant go anywhere. A lot of Europeans will have a basic level of English. Chinese wont. The
Chinese will come over and be completely isolated. And you can get to Eastern Europe for a
pretty small amount of money. But [if youre from] China, youre isolated. Once youre here,
youre captured. You really are stuck.

There were similar circumstances in the Chinese community in Manchester. A Chinese

advocacy group informed us that the incidence of illegal working by Chinese nationals was
very, very big. They had been contacted by many workers in appalling circumstances, and
they were also aware that there was far more exploitation bubbling below their radar: I know
that what we have dealt with is just a really, really small tip of a very, very big iceberg. We
were provided with the example of one male illegal immigrant, who was vending food by day
and also working as a domestic help in his employers household. He was working seven
days a week, 14 hours per day, for approximately 20 per day.

The advocacy group held that Chinese gangmasters simply ignore UK enforcement agencies,
as they do other areas of UK public administration: The majority of them dont know English
and they dont care what the legislation is about. Theirs, we were told, is a closed world
with its own laws and codes. The advocacy group could not arrange for us to meet with
exploited workers because the workers were so scared, and they explained that
undocumented migrants could not go to the authorities because for Chinese illegal migrants,
I would say... 99.9 per cent of them dont understand English, dont speak English.

We were told that Chinese gangmasters in and around Manchester were all too often involved
in a range of serious criminal activities, and that they were much feared in the community.
One account we received from the same advocacy group was of a Chinese couple, without
legal right to remain in UK, who were provided with no work and so ran out of money: They
were very, very desperate for money and then they heard from some gangmaster that what
they can do for some quick money was if the woman can produce a baby and get it sold to
some desperate family... So they got married and the woman got pregnant and gave birth to a
baby girl, and the baby girl was sold to the gangmaster for, I still remember how much it
was, it was 200. Shocking. The gangmaster has given her 200 in a wrapped envelope...
Then the moment the lady has given the baby to the gangmaster, she immediately regretted it,
the man as well; they were really worried about the baby so much. Social services managed
to find the baby... and luckily they found that the baby was sold to a Chinese couple [who]
were really desperate for babies. So fortunately the baby was safe in this case... This is
terrible, terrible. I was shocked... I didnt know these kinds of activities happened. This was
clearly an exceptional circumstance (though we have heard of other cases since), but it does
reflect both the dire straits that undocumented migrant workers find themselves in, and the
corrupt nature of some of the gangmasters who control their lives.

Respondents to our study were agreed that undocumented migrant workers fell outside the
protection of employment regulation. The vast majority were too frightened to approach
statutory authorities, and should they do so, they were not entitled to redress. Trade unionists
told of being inhibited from taking abuses to the authorities because were they to do so, the
undocumented workers were liable for deportation. One termed it a real vicious Catch-22
situation... If you report them to the National Minimum Wage Agency, then thats going to
come back on them. Then the agency goes, and theyre gone. Then they really disappear off
everybodys radar.

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Most respondents believed that the government had a responsibility to protect undocumented
migrant workers; in part because of their massive contribution to the UK economy; in part
because their presence, as an effective underclass, undermined the terms and conditions of
documented workers; but primarily because by not doing so, the government were effectively
sanctioning exploitation on a vast scale. As one key respondent put it: I just cant accept the
fact that this group of people are being exploited by other people... and the UK is supposed to
be a very fair and very highly reputable country. How can we let people staying in this
country be exploited so badly by other people?

The government, it was felt, was not doing enough to protect these most vulnerable of
workers, and indeed, some respondents believed that in recent years the government had
made matters worse. The introduction of the Civil Penalty Regime in February 2008, had,
according to key stakeholders, exacerbated an already very difficult situation.

13.2 The operation and impact of the civil penalty regime

The most recent revision to the immigration and employment framework brought into effect
sections 15-25 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 on 29 February 2008.
The new provisions in the 2006 Act, referred to as the civil penalty regime, aimed to make
it more difficult for unauthorised workers to remain in employment; make it easier for
employers to ensure that they only employ people who are authorised to work; and make it
easier for the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to take action against employers using
undocumented labour.

The 2006 Act increased the responsibilities, and potential penalties, associated with the
employment of migrants in the UK. Section 15 of the Act raised the penalty imposed on
employers who fail to check their workers entitlement to work in the UK, from 5,000 to a
maximum of 10,000 per unauthorised worker, issuable as an on-the-spot civil penalty fine.
Section 21 made it a criminal offence to take on and/or to continue to employ a person known
to lack permission to work in the UK, leading to prosecution and a maximum two-year prison
sentence. Employers must now ensure that their workers are not in breach of their
immigration conditions at any point during their contract of employment. 137

Informed voices, such as the Migrants Rights Network and Unite told us that, on the ground,
this is making migrant workers yet more vulnerable to abuse by exploitative employers,
leading to immediate dismissals of those engaged in trade disputes, and the withholding of
back pay. Noticeably, none of the key players researching the exploitation of migrant workers
were consulted on the new regime. It is also noticeable that the new regime has not been
accompanied by a broader strategy to address the causes and effects of migrant exploitation
in the workplace. By May 2009, the UKBA had issued over 1,000 fines to employers who
hired illegal workers, worth over 10 million. 138 In so doing, while penalising employers,
they are clearly also causing distress to a considerable number of undocumented migrant
workers.

The Migrants Rights Network argues that: Less than one year after the introduction of the
new regime, widespread and damaging impacts in workplaces across the UK have
emerged. 139 As the Director explained: An employer... perhaps takes on 10, 20 people on
the scheme and then, in relation to one worker finds themselves in trouble with the Home
Office because they have neglected to check one aspect of their status and discovers that [the
worker] didnt have the qualifications that they claimed to have... is then regarded as being

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in maladministration or incompetent. And therefore they lose their licence. The effect... is that
all of their workers lose their status.

An advice worker in Manchester made the same point: Ive seen migrant workers who were
legally working, where the place that they were working in dismissed them as a result of the
Home Office finding out that they were employing illegal workers. The legally employed
workers have been dismissed simply because they are migrant workers.

Indeed, it was difficult to find anyone who had a good word to say about the Civil Penalty
Regime. Most felt that it simply increased the power of bad employers over migrant workers,
leaving them even more open to harassment, intimidation and victimization. The TUC
representative on the UKHTC Prevention Committee, gave this account of the negative
impact of a similar scheme in the USA: The American unions called for tightening up on
penalties for people employing undocumented workers. After a long time they actually got
what they wanted, and ever since then theyve been campaigning to undo it. Because in a
perverse way it empowers the employer; it turns them into the front line of migration law. So
what they found was, when they were in meetings trying to organise workers, the employers
would be walking in demanding to see everyones papers. So it actually then came to be a
tool by which to break up union organisation.

The Director of the Migrants Rights Network argued that the conflation of immigration law
and employment law can only instil confusion and generate more insecurity in the workplace:
Employment law in its current state of development and immigration law separately are very
unstable areas which generate all sorts of insecurities for people both in the workplace and
separately as far as immigration is concerned. And the effect of bringing both of those areas
together reinforces that and probably creates a multiplier effect that people who previously
felt insecure... the fact that there is an immigration dimension to it makes that worse.

The Head of Campaigns and Media, Unite, outlined two key adverse impacts, both of which
were clearly counterproductive in relation to tackling illegal working: Weve come across a
number of experiences where an employer, knowing that the status of the workers is
irregular, had chosen not to pay them after a month... theyre left high and dry and theyve
also maybe got themselves into massive debt to come here... The message this is sending out
is that vulnerable workers are criminals. And thats dangerous, that puts people further and
further into the black economy. Its very difficult to reach them then.

The TUC Representative on the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre Prevention
Committee believed the Civil Penalty Regime per se to be pointless and potentially very
damaging: Whatever assumption you make, lets just say theres half a million
[undocumented migrants] you do the mathematics were talking billions at current rates,
the cost of deportation. Based on our figures, which was a bit below half a million, it would
take 25 years and thats on the assumption that no other people would be coming in as
undocumented workers in the interim. So you put all that together[and] its a nonsense, its
just not do-able, and if it was do-able well by the very nature of it, with a very few exceptions
these people dont have access to the benefits etc., so they have to be in work and theyre
doing work for an employer and if you took half a million people out of the economy like that,
even now, there would be a clammer for employees to be found from elsewhere... The
government likes to talk tough but I just pray that theyre not able to achieve what they say
they want to do because the economic consequences it would be horrendous.

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There are of course alternatives, and it is to those that we now turn.

13.3 Proposals for change

i) Extending the remit of the GLA.

If the government really is serious about tackling illegal working, one method that clearly
would have an immediate impact would be to extend the GLA remit into other sectors. The
licensing regime, by its very nature would remove undocumented labour from much of the
mainstream. For, as the GLA Chairman explained: There are very few [undocumented
workers] in our sector because we require employers to provide evidence that their
workforce is bona fide.

ii) Punitive measures for labour providers who retain identity papers and who fail
promptly to register workers for the Worker Registration Scheme.

There is much evidence to suggest that gangmasters and employment agencies are sometimes
retaining the documents of migrant workers and failing to register them with the Home
Office, at times out of sheer incompetence, but often as a deliberate means to maintain
control over the individual. During our study, we came across many instances of this, and we
found it in every location we visited. Not once did we hear of a labour provider being
prosecuted as a consequence.

iii) A programme of regularisation for undocumented migrant workers.

Several of our respondents suggested that a regularisation programme for undocumented

migrant workers should be a policy priority. This, they believed, would break much of the
power of the very worst exploiters. It would bring unregistered workers into the fold, in that
they would shoulder the responsibilities of paying tax and National Insurance to the
Exchequer, and they would also enjoy the same rights and protections as other workers. This
would clearly make sound economic sense, but it is also surely a moral responsibility for a
government that has actively created the economic and regulatory conditions in which an
illegal labour market flourishes. A recent opinion poll by the Strangers into Citizens 140
campaign found two-thirds of the public to be behind a one-off regularisation programme.
There is all-party support for it in the Commons. In May 2009, the Migrants Rights Network
produced a policy document that makes an authoritative, persuasive, and extremely detailed
argument for regularisation. 141 nts
Working for the rights of all migrants
14. Conclusions and recommendations
The UK labour market has been blighted by several decades of light-touch regulation in the
temporary labour market. This has allowed widespread and, for the most part, unchecked
exploitation and abuses by unscrupulous and sometimes vicious gangmasters and criminal
gangs. The global financial crisis and concomitant economic downturn has placed the UK on
a recession footing. Rising unemployment and falling employment rates will inevitably have
an impact on temporary and agency working. There is some evidence to suggest that for
labour suppliers, the market is becoming more competitive. 142 While it is yet too early to
measure the impacts of this, there is every reason to believe that the most unscrupulous
labour providers and labour users will seek to cushion themselves from this ill wind by

77
further exploiting vulnerable workers. At such times, the need for constant vigilance and
rapid action on the part of enforcement agencies is a given.

It is our contention that, by and large, the UK employment enforcement framework has failed
temporary workers in general and migrant workers in particular. There have, however, in
recent years been two exceptions to that rule the National Minimum Wage Inspectorate and
the GLA, both of which have widespread, if at times qualified, support both of the trade
unions and of business organisations. What they have in common is the proactive nature of
their investigations; their key strengths are a determination to take punitive action where they
come across deliberate exploitation and willful illegality, and a determination to provide
redress for exploited workers. There remain, however, huge gaps in the safety net and these
gaps encourage the exploiters as they fail they exploited. Too much is left to the individual
agency of migrant workers to seek redress, through a system of Employment Tribunals that
offers too few incentives and provides too many barriers for them to proceed down that route.
Too many workers are left, as a consequence of their undocumented status, completely
unprotected.

Our analysis and comparison of labour practices and enforcement regimes across Europe
provided much material guidance in our search for the elements required in a comprehensive
policy framework to protect vulnerable workers from exploitation. These findings provided a
solid base on which to formulate these recommendations; they also make clear that if
government is to tackle exploitation in the labour market head-on and in a meaningful way, it
needs to reconsider a broad range of factors. These include formulating new national
employment regulations; extending trade union representation in the workplace and within
the machinery of enforcement; improved systems of labour regulation and inspection; greater
cooperation between enforcement agencies; and an extension of the knowledge base around
exploitation and abuse.

We began this study with a view to evaluating the operation of the GLA, its efficacy as a
machinery of licensing, and its wider impact on exploitation in the workplace. In so doing,
we have taken on board the accounts, views and recommendations of a broad range of
stakeholders and of migrant workers themselves. During the course of the study we have
come to some firm conclusions about the temporary labour market, about fair play, about
social justice, and about the dignity of labour in the 21st century UK.

Our study found current provisions for protecting vulnerable workers to be wanting on many
counts. If that is to change for the better, then we recommend that the following actions be
taken.

14.1 Recommendations to government

The GLA has proved effective in tackling exploiters and protecting the exploited. It
has proved as popular with labour suppliers, labour users and retailers as it has with
migrant workers and their advocates. It has also proved cost effective, as increased
VAT revenues evidence. The government should now build upon this success by
extending the remit of the GLA. Ideally the Authority should be extended over all
gangmaster activity and all areas of temporary labour provision. Failing that, as a bare
minimum, there should be an extension of its remit into the following sectors:
(i) Care;
(ii) Construction;

78
 (iii) Hotels, catering and contract cleaning.

The government should provide the GLA with an additional resource base so that it
may:
i) Employ more field inspectors.
ii) Undertake research into the labour market in relation to a) the number of legal
and illegal gangmasters currently operating; and b) the form and extent of
temporary labour exploitation.

The exploitation of migrant workers provides rogue gangmasters and criminal gangs
with enormous revenues, with which many, we must assume, bankroll other criminal
activities. Certainly, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) assumes this to
the case. Current penalties are insufficient to deter the most determined of criminals.
As such, the government should bestow additional powers on the GLA, including the
confiscation of criminal assets. At the same time, it should provide guidance to the
courts on minimum sentencing for the worst forms of exploitation.

As we believe has been made clear in this report, the efficacy of the GLA, and indeed, of the
enforcement framework as a whole in protecting migrant labour, cannot be considered in
isolation from the wider social and economic context in which it operates. We therefore urge
government to consider the following additional measures:

The government should institute, as soon as is practically possible, a regularisation

programme for undocumented migrant workers. Undocumented workers are here in
their hundreds of thousands; many, perhaps the majority, have become undocumented
through no fault of their own. They contribute massively to the economy. They are
forced to live an underground existence and are vulnerable to exploitation in its
most heinous forms. They are not protected by any of the labour-related enforcement
agencies. It is no longer acceptable for government to turn a blind eye to their plight.
It makes no economic sense for the Exchequer to be deprived of their tax/National
Insurance contributions. But, above all, there is a moral responsibility to act.

Trade unions should be invited to engage in the inspection process. It makes little
sense to have an enforcement framework operating on the basis of barebones
inspection teams when there are thousands of local trade union officials, who engage
with workers in every locality and in every employment sector, who would be willing
and able to assist, and who have a working knowledge of the many and varied forms
that exploitation takes. The government should harness their knowledge and expertise,
and their sense of civic responsibility.

The government should also encourage the strengthening of trade union organisation
and representation across all sectors of the economy in which vulnerable workers are
employed.

The government should instruct local authorities to fulfill their responsibilities in

relation to unsafe and overcrowded accommodation. They should provide additional,
ring-fenced funding to that end.

The government should take steps to tackle bogus self-employment in the

construction industry.

79
 There is little to suggest that the Civil Penalty Regime protects migrant workers. On
the contrary, the available evidence suggests that it is further driving undocumented
migrants into the hands of exploitative employers and gangmasters. There have been
accusations that the regime has been used to overwhelmingly target minority ethnic
concerns. The government should undertake an immediate independent impact
assessment of the Civil Penalty Regime.

The Worker Registration Scheme has not worked well for a significant number of
migrant workers. It has exposed many to the overbearing control of gangmasters, and
the requirement for documentation to be sent to the Home Office (instead, for
instance, for it to be taken into a local employment agency) has led to documentation
being lost or stolen, to migrant workers losing benefit entitlements, and in the worst
instances it has led to them being trapped in undocumented status. The operation of
the scheme should be reviewed as a matter of urgency.

It is clear that the Employment Tribunal process is not fit for purpose for most
migrant workers. It is too cumbersome and slow a process, and it places the onus on
migrants to take the initiative; where in reality many, through lack of confidence or
fear of victimization, do not feel in a position to so do. A number of options were put
forward by our key stakeholders, ranging from government-funded support to assist
workers through the Tribunal process, to the empowerment of an enforcement agency
to take cases to the Tribunal on a claimants behalf. Certainly, something should be
done to assist migrant workers whose only recourse to redress is no recourse at all.

Given the difficulties faced by workers in taking the Tribunal route, the fact that, as
Citizens Advice Bureau have illustrated, awards are not always paid and Tribunals
have no power to enforce them, is little short of scandalous. The government should
investigate the various mechanisms to rectify this situation as, for instance, outlined
by Citizens Advice Bureau, for the state-led enforcement of unpaid awards. 143

The Joint Declaration by government, the CBI and the TUC in May 2008 around the
Agency Workers Directive, on fairer treatment of agency workers, offered genuine
hope of improved rights for the estimated 1.3 million agency workers in the UK. 144
However, the recent plight of 850 agency workers who lost their jobs at BMWs
Cowley plant near Oxford, with one weeks paid notice, has raised concerns about the
governments commitment to the Directive as the recession bites. We recommend that
the government alleviates those concerns by fast-tracking the new protections and
extending them to cover notice periods and compensation for the loss of employment.

The government should address the power of supermarket buyers in the food chain. It
was difficult to find a single respondent (including those from major retailers) who
did not believe that the overwhelming power of the supermarkets in the food chain
was encouraging cut-throat competition amongst labour suppliers and labour users. In
such conditions, it was felt that there would always be a niche for exploitative
gangmasters and employers. We therefore recommend as a matter of urgency that the
government establishes and supports a fully independent review of the activities of
supermarket buyers in the food and horticultural sectors, and of the power of the
supermarkets in the UK food chain.

80
14.2 Recommendations to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority

The GLA should continue and build upon its proactive approach to tackling
exploiters.

The GLA should re-evaluate its position on securing prosecutions. Given the levels of
exploitation in the sector, the two prosecutions to date, each securing only minor
penalties, is a wholly inadequate strike rate.

The number of revocations over the past year suggests that some licensed
gangmasters are still not getting the message; that upon acquiring their licence, they
are allowing standards to slip. The GLA should undertake significant levels of
unannounced visits and random inspections of gangmaster operations.

Too much of the GLAs enforcement activity remains dependent on intelligence

provided by migrant workers themselves or by other concerned individuals/agencies.
The Authority should establish an in-house undercover facility and develop it in
cooperation with other statutory agencies.

The GLA should continue to forge greater links with other enforcement agencies and
endeavour to improve inter-agency cooperation.

It should also forge greater links with the trade unions and with community
organisations not only with Citizens Advice Bureaux, but also with other agencies
operating specifically in the interests of migrant workers, eg. the Migrants Rights
Network, Polish Workers Federation, etc.

The GLA should proactively seek engagement with local authorities, encouraging
them to a) seek to police better migrant worker accommodation, and b) inform the
GLA of any suspicious gangmaster activity in their locality.

It should facilitate a programme of improved awareness-raising and advice to migrant

communities both in the UK and in key source countries about the dangers of
exploitation in the UK, about rights and responsibilities, and in particular, about
procedures with regard to the necessity to register (and remain registered) for legal
employment.

The GLA should endeavour to build upon relationships with enforcement authorities
in source countries, in order to further regulate the activities of foreign-based
gangmasters.

There is currently precious little incentive for migrant workers to whistle-blow to

the GLA. The Authority should publicise widely, and within migrant communities in
particular, its intention to work with a range of agencies to ensure that where a
gangmaster operation is terminated, the workforce will be found alternative
employment, and where necessary, accommodation.

The GLA should continue its very positive work with suppliers and retailers to raise
standards across the sector(s).

81
14.3 The future operational seat of the GLA

Should the GLAs remit be extended, it would have to move out of Defra (because Defra
covers food and rural affairs), and the logical home would appear to be the Department for
Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR). That might cause some concern
amongst those, particularly in the trade union movement, who do not see within DBERR a
natural inclination to tackle employer exploitation. A happy solution would be for the GLA
to remain a non-departmental public body, retaining operational independence. One
trade union spokesperson felt that there were possibilities for encouraging a proactive and
supportive approach at DBERR: They all like raising revenue... and if we can point out to
them that licensing raises revenue... they can begin to sit up and take interest.
The government accepted the Hampton Recommendations of April 2005 that advocated a
GLA/Health and Safety Executive merger in 2009. The GLA Annual Review 2007 put
forward six different potential options. 145 Our study did not shed any particular light on this
debate. The most important consideration to most commentators was that:
The GLA retains its freedom to act and take down exploiters rapidly.
The GLA expands its remit to other sectors of the economy.
Wherever possible, the GLA endeavours to proselytize its tenacious, proactive
approach to other enforcement agencies.

82
References

1
Gangmasters Licensing Authority 2nd Year Annual Review Main Report, 2008:
Introduction, p8. GLA, Nottingham, February 2009. The review was led by Dr Sam Scott at
the University of Liverpool and Professor Andrew Geddes at the University of Sheffield
2
Mr Ian Livsey, to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee The Trade in Human
Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK, Sixth Report of Session 2008-09, 6 May 2009.
Volume 2: Oral and written evidence, Response to Q 127
3
Mr Ian Livsey, ibid, Response to Q120

4
Ibid.

5
Mr David Nix, Head of Policy and Communications, GLA, House of Commons Home
Affairs Committee The Trade in Human Beings, op cit, Response to Q128
6
See Home Office and Dept. for Work and Pensions, (2007) The Economic and Fiscal
Impact of Immigration: A Cross-Departmental Submission to The House of Lords Select
Committee on Economic Affairs, 2007. Home Office, Cm 7237
7
Craig, G., (2007) They come over here and boost our economy. The impact of migrant
workers on Yorkshire and Humber region, The Yorkshire and Humber Regional Review, Vol
17, No1, Spring 2007
8
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4474997.stm

9
The 2001 census showed a UK birth rate that had fallen below the replacement level of 2.1
births per woman. As a result, 600,000 fewer young people will enter the workforce between
2010 and 2020. At the same time, the Chancellor's targets for economic growth require 1.3
million people to join the workforce. When the declining number of school-leavers is taken
into consideration, an additional 1.9 million recruits are needed to secure economic growth
and provide industry with the resources to remain competitive. Where will they come from?
Chris Humphries, Director General of City & Guilds (2007) the Guardian, Tuesday April 17,
2007
10
Flynn, D. 2005, New borders, new management: The dilemmas of modern migration
policies, in Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(3) pp 463-490; See also: May, Jon, Willis, Jane, et
al, (2006), The British State and Londons Migrant Division of Labour, Queen Mary
University of London
11
See www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1973/cukpga_19730035_en_1
12
See http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1994/ukpga_19940040_en_1
13
Gangmasters Licensing Authority Evaluation Study: Baseline Report, August 2007
Professor Andrew Geddes, Dr Sam Scott, Miss Katrine Bang Nielsen, University of
Sheffield, Executive Summary, p5. GLA, Nottingham, August 2007

83

14
GLA. 2nd Year Annual Review Main Report, op cit p58

15
The Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE) Hard Work, Hidden Lives, Full
Report. CoVE May 2008, Key Recommendations, p5

16
Tony Woodley, Gen Sec of TGWU, the Guardian,10.01,2005

17
GLA Evaluation Study: August 2007, op cit, p22-25

18
GLA 2nd Year Annual Review 2008, op cit, Executive Summary, p7

19
Ibid, Publicity and Communications, p30

20
Ellen Branagh, Three arrested in human trafficking crackdown, The Independent, 18
November 2008
21
Mr Ian Livsey, to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking
in 2008, op cit, Response to Q 126
22
GLA 2nd Year Annual Review 2008, op cit, Executive Summary, p14

23
Sedex is a not-for-profit organisation based in London, UK, open for membership to any
company anywhere in the world, it describes itself as a membership organisation for
businesses committed to continuous improvement of the ethical performance of their supply
chains. www.sedex.org.uk
24
GLA News release, GLA Supermarket Protocol, 8 May 2009

25
The survey was completed by approximately ten per cent of the companies on the GLAs
LAWS database of all licence applicants. GLA 2nd Year Annual Review 2008, p16
26
Ibid, Impact of licensing, p49

27
Ibid, Executive Summary, p16

28
CoVE, Full Report, op cit, p128

29
GLA News release: Festive cheer for workers who are quids in thanks to GLA, 19.12.07
30
GLA News release: Forced labour at 4p a bunch, 8.5.2008

31
Mr David Nix, Head of Policy and Communications, GLA, to House of Commons Home
Affairs Committee, op cit. Response to Q134
32
GLA News, County Durham gangmaster loses licence after ignoring GLA requests, 18
May 2009
33 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review 2008: Executive Summary, p14
34
Ibid, p22

84

BERR (2008) Vulnerable Worker Enforcement Forum Final Report and Government
35.

Recommendations, BERR, August, 2008, p25

36 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review, Main Report, op cit, p76
37
Ibid p84
38
Ibid p84

39
Ibid p85

40
GLA News release, 21 May 2009

41
http://www.gla.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1012780

42
The CPS in Norfolk did confiscate the assets of Ukrainian gangmaster Victor Solomka in
2005, under the proceeds of Crime Act 2002, after he was jailed for breaches of immigration
law and money laundering. http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/112_05/
43
GLA Annual Review, Main Report, 2007, p23. GLA, Nottingham, November 2007

44 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review, op cit, Main Report, p86
45
GLA News release: Spalding gangmaster fails to deceive, 2 October 2008

46
GLA News release: Morecambe Bay Tragedy Five Years On and GLA Toughens its Stance,
3rd February 2009
47
The GLAs mission statement can be found at:
http://www.gla.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1012760
48
GLA News release, Intimidation in food supply chain GLA and Sainsburys crack down,
17.2.2008. That commitment was affirmed by Mr David Nix, GLA Head of Policy and
Communications, to the House of Commons Select Committee on Human Trafficking, 2008-
9: Before we take action we always conduct what we call a community impact assessment
and that is where we try and estimate the likely impact of the action we take the size of the
workforce, the nationalities and whether they would need to be provided with emergency
housing, for example. And that is where we have worked with the local authorities and other
organisations charities, migrant worker groups, church groupsto try and make sure there
is a support safety net in place, because we do not want as an unintended consequence of our
actions to make the immediate situation worse for the workers. April 2008. Response to
Q136
49 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review, op cit, Main Report, op cit, p73
50
Ibid, Main Report, p89

51
Ibid, Executive Summary, p24

85

52
Ibid, p24

53
Ibid, Main Report, pp89-95

54
Ibid, Executive Summary, p23

55 CoVE Full Report, op cit, p194

56
Ibid, Executive Summary, p3

57
Ibid, Full Report, p117

58
GLA, 2nd Year Annual Review, Main Report, op cit, pp63-65

59
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, op cit, Volume 1, Prevention, 46

60
Ibid, Volume 1: Describing the problem, 24

61
Ibid, Volume 1, Prevention, 47

62
Ibid, Volume 2: Oral and written evidence: Response to Questions 19 and 20

63
GLA 2nd Year Annual Review, Main Report, op cit, p45

64
Ibid, p45

65
LACORS (2007) The HMO (Houses in Multiple Occupation) Licensing survey,
March/April 2007, conducted by LACORS (the Local Authorities Coordinators of
Regulatory Services)
66
Audit Commission (2007) Crossing borders; Responding to the local challenges of migrant
workers. London: Audit Commission. See also, Shelter, June (2008) Policy briefing: Eastern
European migrant workers and housing www.shelter.org.uk/policybriefings; Also, The
Building and Social Housing Foundation (2008) Home From Home: Addressing The Issues
of Migrant Workers Housing. Leicestershire, BSHF
67
Richard Dunstan (2008) Protecting the employment rights of migrant workers: The work of
Citizens Advice Bureaux and Citizens Advice: Presentation to MRN/Oxfam Workshop, 30
April 2008
68
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report and Government Recommendations, op cit, p16

69
GLA, 2nd Year Annual Review, Main Report, op cit, p65

70
Mr Ian Livsey, to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, op cit, Response to
Q144
71
John Denham, Immigrations real frontline, the Guardian, 26 July, 2006

86

72
the Guardian, (2005) The precarious existence of the thousands in Britain's underclass,
10.01.2005 and the Guardian, Leader, 11.01.2005
73
http://www.gla.gov.uk/embedded_object.asp?id=1013344

74
Lawrence, Felicity, (2007) Misery at the bottom of supermarket supply chain, the Guardian,
15.08.07; Julia Finch, (2008) Farmers accuse supermarkets of harsh tactics in price war, the
Guardian, 14.11.08; See also: Supermarkets Increase Profits by Beating Up Farmers,
Corporate Watch, November 30 2008, http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=3176 and
Tulip, K and Michales, L (2004), Rough Guide to the UK Farming Crisis
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=2624
75
GLA, (2007) Evaluation Study Baseline Report, op cit, Key Findings, p112

76
Ibid, Executive Summary, pp6-7

77
GLA, Annual Review (2007) op cit, Recommendations, p148

78 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review, op cit, p76-77
79
Reverend David de Verny, Letters, the Guardian 31.3. 2008

80
The CoVE Report, (2008) Long Report, op cit, p4, p129
81
Ibid, Our Commissions work programme, p232

82
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report and Government Recommendations, op cit, August,
2008, p45
83
Ibid, p43

84
Ibid, pp 7,8

85
Commenting on the Home Affairs Select Committee report, The Trade in Human Beings:
Human Trafficking in the UK. Unite Press release, 14 May 2009
86
GLA Annual Review, 2008, 2nd Year Review Main Report, March 2009, pp49-50

87
Paul Whitehouse, BBC Radio 4, You and Yours, 15 August 2007

88
Reverend David de Verny, Letters, the Guardian 31.3. 2008

89
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee op cit, Volume 1: Prevention , 48

90 nd
GLA 2 Annual Review, op cit, Executive Summary, p15

91
The Home Affairs Committee on Human Trafficking , May 2009, Volume 1, Prevention,
55

87

92
CoVE Full Report, p137

93
CoVE, Short Report, p39

94
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report and Government Recommendations, op cit,
Enforcement Activity, p24
95
Ibid pp23-24

96
Through the Employment Act 2008, new employment agency provisions came into force
on 6 April 2009. Those provisions increase the penalties for agencies who refuse to comply,
enable inspectors to seek the financial records of agencies from banks in certain
circumstances and, more significantly for victims of trafficking, allow the Inspectorate to
bring charges of 'attempting to commit' offences, doing away with the need for witnesses who
might be unwilling to give evidence through fear. House of Commons Home Affairs
Committee: The Trade in Human Beings, op cit (Prevention 49-51)
97
Ratio of enforcement officers to at-risk sectors that enforcement agencies are charged with
regulating, CoVE, Full Report, p140
98
Ibid, Recommendations p155

99
GLA News release, Gangmasters to pay more than 2m to UK Government thanks to the
GLA, 29.01.2008
100
CoVE, op cit, Full Report, p182

101
GLA Evaluation Study, Baseline Report, op cit, Executive Summary, p6

102
Jim Sheridan, MP, BBC Radio 4, You and Yours, 15 August 2007

103
Paul Whitehouse, BBC Radio 4, You and Yours, 15 August 2007

104
CoVE op cit, Full Report, pp181-2

105
Matthew Taylor and Esther Addley (2008) Migrant builder took home 8.80 for a week.
the Guardian, 30 June 2008
106
Hsiao-Hung Pai (2006) Our eyes have been opened by the abuse, the Guardian, 29.4.06

107
ILO (2004) Human Trafficking and Forced Labour Exploitation: Guidelines for
Legislators and Law Enforcement, Geneva
108
Bridget Anderson and Ben Rogaly, (2005) Forced labour and Migration to the UK,
Oxford: Centre for Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS)
109
Citizens Advice Bureau (2004) Nowhere to turn: CAB evidence on the exploitation of
migrant workers London, March 2004

88

110
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, op cit, Volume 1. Prevention: 48

111
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, ibid, Describing the problem: 37

112
Ibid, Volume 1: Describing the problem: 19

113
Citizens Advice Bureau (2004) Nowhere to turn: op cit

114
GLA 2nd Year Annual Review, op cit, p85
115
CoVE, op cit, Full Report, pp136-141

116
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report, op cit

117
Ibid, Executive Summary, pp7-8

118
Ibid, Executive Summary, p6

119
For instance, see Hsiao-Hung Pai (2008) Chinese Whispers: The true story behind
Britains hidden army of labour, London: Penguin. Also see: Contemporary Slavery in the
United Kingdom: Overview and key issues (Gary Craig, Aiden McQuade et al) Joseph
Rowntree Foundation, York, 2007
120
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee op cit, Describing the problem: 37

121
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee op cit, Key Facts

122
CoVE, op cit, Full Report, pp136-7

123
Ibid, p136

124
Citizens Advice Bureau (2007) Rooting out the rogues: Why vulnerable workers and good
employers need a fair employment commission. CAB Evidence Briefing, CAB, London, p7
125
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report, op cit, p38

126
Pollert, A. et al. (2008) Survey of Employment Rights Advisers From Citizens Advice
Bureaux and Law Centres, Centre for Employment Studies Research: Bristol
127
BERR (2008) VWEF Final Report, op cit, p39

128
Richard Dunstan and Nina MacFellow, (2008) Justice Denied. CAB Evidence Briefing.
Citizens Advice Bureau: London
129
Citizens Advice Bureau (2007) Rooting out the rogues, op cit, p9

130
See Migration and Equalities Team, IPPR (2006) Irregular Migration in the UK: IPPR
factfile, London, IPPR
131
Hsiao-Hung Pai (2008) Chinese Whispers, op cit. p258

89


132
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5076546.stm; BBC News online, 14, June 2006;
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article382035.ece; The Times, 17 April 2005
133
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee op cit, Describing the problem: 40

134
Flynn, D. (2008) Papers Please: The Impact of the Civil Penalty Regime on the
Employment Rights of Migrants in the UK. Migrants Rights Network, London
135
See: Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy (2008) It is down your street and in your lane.
the Guardian, 11 October 2008
136
Hsiao-Hung Pai (2008) Chinese Whispers, op cit

137
Flynn, D. (2008) Papers Please: op cit, p8

138
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk, accessed 10 June 2009

139
Flynn, D. (2008) Papers Please: op cit, p2

140
http://www.strangersintocitizens.org.uk/

141
Migrants Rights Network (2009) Irregular Migrants: the urgent need for a new
approach, MRN, London, May 2009
142 nd
GLA 2 Year Annual Review, op cit p48
143
Richard Dunstan and Nina MacFellow, (2008) Justice Denied. op cit, pp12-14

144
http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file47067.pdf

145
GLA Annual Review, 2007, Appendix p173

90


Appendices
List of stakeholders
1. Bill Adams, Regional Secretary, Yorkshire & Humber TUC
2. Sean Bamford, TUC representative to the UK Human Trafficking
Centre Prevention Committee
3. Jo Carby-Hall, UK Honorary Consul, Republic of Poland. Author of
The Treatment of Polish and other A8 Economic Migrants in the European
Union Member States (2007), Report for the Commissioner for Civil
Rights Protection of the Republic of Poland
4. Jim Cessford, Manchester Advice
5. Lesley Chester, Integration Officer, Lincolnshire Community
Foundation/Independent Researcher of migrant worker issues,
South Lincolnshire
6. Diane Clay, Manager, Spalding Citizens Advice Bureau
7. Dee Combes, Former advice worker, Anfield Citizens Advice
Bureau
8. Kevin Curran, Unite, T&G Section, Hotels and Catering and
London Citizens
9. Helena Danielczuk, Migrant Worker Advocate, Polish Workers
Federation, Bradford
10. The Reverend David de Verny, (David de Verny, former Chaplain
for New Arrival Communities in the South East, St. Botolphs
Church, Boston, South Lincolnshire. Currently Anglican Chaplain,
The University of Hull)
11. Pauline Doyle, Head of Campaigns, Unite, T&G Section
12. Richard Dunstan, Social Policy Officer, Employment, Immigration
& Asylum, Citizens Advice Bureau
13. Don Flynn, Director, Migrant Rights Network
14. Dominka Futyma, Manager, Polish Advice Bureau, Hull
15. Derek Johnson, UCATT Regional Secretary, Yorkshire Region
16. Wayne King, Regional Industrial Organiser, Unite, Hotels and
Catering
17. Denise McDowell, Former Coordinator of Migrant Workers North
West and current Director of Greater Manchester Immigration Aid
Unit
18. Maggie Peberdy, Manager, Boston Citizens Advice Bureau
19. Dan Rees, Director, Ethical Trading Initiative
20. Nicola Smith, Senior Policy Officer, TUC
21. Barckley Sumner, National Press and Research Officer, UCATT
22. John Thorpe, Head of the Employment Agency Standards
Inspectorate, BERR
23. Dave Turnbull, Regional Industrial Organiser, Unite, Hotels and
Catering
24. Paul Whitehouse, Chairman, Gangmasters Licensing Authority
* Also consulted were several ethical trading/responsible sourcing
officers at major retailers, advice agency workers and migrant workers
who chose to remain anonymous.

91

DECENTWORKFORADECENTFUTURE:REVIEWINGLABOURSUPPLIERPRACTICESINEUROPE.
ALINEGAUS,GARYCRAIGANDMICKWILKINSON

Decent work should be at the heart of global, national and local strategies for
economic and social progress. It is central to efforts to reduce poverty, and a
meansforachievingequitable,inclusiveandsustainabledevelopment.(ILO)

1.Introduction
Intimesofgrowingflowsofmigrantworkers,generallyfrompoorercountriestoricherones,trends
tomoreflexibleandderegulatedlabourmarketsandgrowingratesoftemporarywork,progressive
forces, especially trades unions, within European countries are struggling to protect their
workforces.Moreandmorereportsonexploitativeworkingconditionsor'enslaving'gangmasters35
aretestimonytothegrowingneedfornewandmoreappropriatemeasurestomeetthenewforms
andincreasingscaleofinjusticeinchanginglabourmarkets.In2004,theUKgovernmentlegislated
tointroducelicensingproceduresforemploymentagenciesoperatinginspecificeconomicsectors
the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act. Acknowledging that this is only one step in a long process, with
many other potential steps to follow, this report focuses on further possibilities to protect
vulnerable workers. In a European context, it sets out briefly to review what initiatives currently
existtoprotectworkersfrompotentiallyexploitativeemploymentsituationsandhowtheUKcould
learnfromtheseexamples.35

IntroducedbytheInternationalLabourOrganisation(ILO)in1999,theconceptofdecentworkhas
been vital to the understanding of and fight against exploitative, discriminatory and precarious
laboursituationsbyofferingacrosspolicyareaapproach.Inordertoreachacomprehensivebasis
for discussion and comparison, and because many of the issues as with other troubling issues
addressed by the ILO such as forced labour35 many of the issues involve the crossborder
movementofworkers,itisinsufficienttolookatindividualcountrycases.Therefore,theconceptof
decentworkisusedinthisreporttorenderdifferentnationalinitiativescomparableinthewaythey
addresstheneedsofvulnerableworkers.

The research findings outlined later provide a number of recommendations which offer new
methods to detect and control illegal working practices and enforce existing legislation. More
importantly,theyalsodescribehow,throughstructuraladjustment,newinstitutionalarrangements
andadaptedpolicyframeworks,progressforimprovementcanbemade.

2.InitiativesfordecentworkintheUK:theGangmasters(Licensing)Act2004
With the introduction of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act in 200435, the UK has taken a first step
towards a more comprehensive policy framework in order to protect vulnerable workers from
exploitation. 'Gangmasters', also termed 'labour providers' or 'employment agencies', have long
possessedanambiguousstatus:Ontheonehandtheyhavebeenviewedasanefficientmeansto
facilitate the rapid and flexible mobility of labour to meet demand in sometimes volatile market
environments;ontheother,theyhaveoftentimesbeenaccusedofaproclivitytoexploitvulnerable
workers. As early as the 1920s, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommended to its
memberstatesthattheyestablishstatecontroloveremploymentagenciesbyissuinglicensesand
abolishingthoseworkingforprofit(ILOUnemploymentRecommendationNo.1,191935).

92

Inthe1970s,similarlegislationwaspassedinFrance(197335),Germany(197235)andtheUK,where
the government launched the Employment Agencies Act 197335, under which all labour providers
hadtoregisterandcomplywithlegalstandards.UndertheConservativegovernmentofJohnMajor,
however,amoreliberallabourpolicyintroducedtheDeregulationandContractingOutAct199435,
throughwhichthesystemofagencylicensingwasabolishedandactionagainstexploiters became
primarily dependent upon the complaints of victims. In 2004, in the wake of the public outcry
around the deaths of 21Chinese immigrants in the Morecambe Bay cockling disaster, and greater
publicawarenessofthewidespreadexploitationofagencyworkers,theNewLabourGovernment
waspressuredintorestoringamoreproactivestateroleintheenforcementofgangmasterlabour
standardsviatheGangmasters(Licensing)Act2004.

Thislawapplies,however,onlytolabourprovidersplacingworkerswithintheagricultural,shellfish,
food processing and packaging sectors. The regulatory authority, the Gangmasters Licensing
Authority (GLA),wasestablishedin2005tosafeguardthewelfareandinterestsofworkerswhilst
ensuringLabourProvidersoperatewithinthelaw.35IntheAct,itisspecifiedthatcertainstandards
havetobemetbylabourprovidersbeforetheycanobtainalicense.

Inordertooperateasalicensedgangmaster,ithastobedemonstratedtotheGLAthatcompliance
isensuredinthefollowingareas:

paymentofwages,tax,nationalinsurance,VAT(viaanaccuratepayrollsystemthatprovides
workers with wage slips; no less than national minimum wage paid; prevention of illegal
deductionsfromwages)

nodebtbondage,harshtreatmentorintimidationofworkers;

appropriateaccommodationofworkers;

hoursworked,workingtimeregulations;

statutoryhealthandsafetyrequirementsarerespected,includingtrainingprovisions;

recruitmentandcontractualarrangements;

provisionofbenefits(e.g.sickpay);

freechoiceofemployment;

identityissuesandunderageworking;and

legalityandrightsofworkers.

Inadditiontoissuinglicenses,theGLAisresponsibleformonitoringandreviewinglicensedlabour
providers.Itinformslabourusers(factories,farmers,etc.)aboutlicensedgangmasters,andservesas
aninstrumentfortheinternalevaluationoftheoverallinitiative.35Thefailurebylaboursuppliersto
meet the standards is a legal offence as is the contracting of unlicensed gangmasters by labour
usersinthesesectors.

TheGangmasters(Licensing)Act2004istargetedattheprotectionofthemostvulnerableworkers
in what is argued to be a comprehensive way, by holding both labour providers and labour users
accountablefortheiractions.Notonlyworkersprofitfromthescheme,butalsoemployersandstate
authoritiesbenefitfromamoretransparentapproach.Employmentagenciesintheincludedsectors
are discouraged from remaining in the informal and unregulated economy, therefore promoting
decent work, employment rights, social protection and social dialogue between stakeholders. One

93

estimate puts the numbers of gangmasters within the UK as around 2,000 but this is generally
acceptedtobeaverylowfigure.FromtheoverallpoolofgangmastersintheUK,itissuggestedthat
75% are in cleaning, construction and hospitality sectors, 25% in agriculture, shellfish and food
processing sectors (ILO 2007). Thus approximately three quarters of all gangmasters are not yet
subjectedtolicensingstandardsorcoveredbytheprovisionsoftheAct.TheGLAitselfhasindicated
thatitwishestoextenditsremitandacknowledgesthatitsresourcesareinadequateeventopolice
itscurrentverylimitedremit.

3.Decentworkforadecentfuture
In 199935, the DirectorGeneral of the ILO introduced the concept of 'decent work', offering one
singleapproachtoanumberofissues:

employmentandsecurity:opportunities,remuneration,security,conditionsofwork;

basicworkers'rights:freedomofassociation,nondiscrimination,absenceofforcedlabourand
childlabourinabusiveconditions;

social dialogue: right to engage in discussions with employers and authorities, collective
bargaining;

Considering the UK Gangmasters Licensing Act more closely, it did not only incorporate the
introduction of licensing procedures into existing regulatory arrangements but modified the
approach to temporary workers and promoted a more friendly environment for decent working
conditions.The2004UKlegislationalsoinvolvednewactorsinthedialogue,strengthenedcontrol
and enforcement mechanisms as well as labour rights, thus creating, at least potentially, a safer
environmentforenterprises,workersandauthorities.

Generally,successorfailuretoprovidedecentworkingconditionsisdependentuponnationallevels
of economic development, legislation, administration and institutional arrangements, including
effectivemonitoringandthepolicingoflegislation.Ontheonehand,Europeangovernmentsaimat
offering a flexible workforce and deregulated labour markets that represent little impediment for
businessinvestments.Atthesametime,theyareresponsibleforprovidingfordecentsocialsecurity
measuresinordertoreducepovertylevelsandensurethewellbeingofthepeople.

In this balancing act between economic growth and poverty reduction, the position is variable as
betweendifferentEUmemberstates.Whereas'Nordic'orScandinaviancountriesworkinacontext
of high trade union membership density, low rates of unemployment and undeclared work, and a
less punitive provision of social security, Mediterranean countries suffer most from comparatively
high rates of informal economic activity, little social spending and poor employment rates due to
inflexible employment policies. (Sapir et al. 2003 and 2005) Therefore, in order to create an
environmentconducivetodecentworkingconditions,socialpolicymeasureswillideallybecountry
specifici.e.legaloreconomicinitiativesinoneEuropeancountrymaynotbeassuccessfulinanother
nationalsettingbecauseofdifferingpolicyandlegislativecontexts.

At a later point in this paper, these approaches will be dealt with more closely. The following
paragraphsintroducetheissueofdecentworkinmoredetailbyanalysingthesourcesofitsdeficits
andthethreatofincreasingpovertylevelsthatappearsasaconsequence.

3.1Decentworkdeficitsandtheirsources

94

Mostofall,unregulatedeconomicactivityhasbeenidentifiedasoneofthemainsourcesfordecent
work deficits. Undeclared workers experience situations that lack protection, rights and
representationandoftenremaintrappedinpoverty.Theinformalsector'sattractivenessconsistsin
part in the opportunity for many to find work rapidly without having to deal with bureaucratic
hurdlesandinparttheabsorptionofworkerswhowouldotherwisebewithoutjoborincome.

The mostpronounceddecentworkdeficitsarefoundwherethereisnoregistration,regulationor
clear protection under labour legislation. Working conditions tend to be unsafe and unhealthy,
incomesloworirregularwithlongworkinghours,collectiverepresentationnonexistent,minimalor
generallyineffective,theaccesstoinformationlacking,skilllevelslow,andwheredependenceand
vulnerabilityaremutuallyreinforcing.Thisoftenleadstosituationsofpowerlessness,deprivationof
accesstobothcapitalandcredit,corruptionandbribery,andpotentialabuseandexploitation.

Thesenegativeimplicationsofundeclaredworkanditsassociationwith crossbordercrime,illegal
immigration,taxevasion,andlackofsocialprotectionhavemadeitamajorconcernoftheEuropean
Union which calls for an inclusive employment strategy in member states, and for labour market
flexibility to be combined with employment security.35 It has also become clear that national
developments are inadequate if they are not backed by a Europeanwide regulatory framework
whichisputintoplacetobeabletoofferdecentworkingandlivingconditionstoanymemberofthe
workforcedeclaredornot.

The provision of decent working conditions in general should however not only aim at the
integration of all members of the workforce into regulated and formalised activities. More
importantly,measuresarerequiredthatreachallthose'greyareas'wherelegislationanddetection
methodsarecurrentlynotstrongenough,wherelabourrightsarelow,representationispoorand
there exists fertile ground for the development of 'second class workers.' This is particularly the
caseformigrantworkers,temporaryworkersandemployeesineconomicsectorspronetotheneed
forextremelyflexiblelabour.

3.2Europeansocialpolicies

AcloserlookatEuropeancountries'practicesshowsdifferenttailormadeapproachesaccordingto
individual national contexts. First, in terms of actors other than the government, both employers'
andworkers'organisationscanimplementinitiativesandthisisdonedifferentlyindifferentnational
contexts. The tools for improvement can be laws, social and economic policies, corporate social
responsibility,socialdialoguebetweenstakeholders,bettercoordinationbetweendifferentbodies,
increased control and sanctions as well as information campaigns. In 2007, the ILO published an
account of measures that have been implemented in different EU Member States (see Box 1)
althoughthereisnocountrythathascomprehensivelyincludedallthesemeasuresinitspolicyand
practice.Itisthereforemoreofacounselofperfectionratherthananindicationofamodelofgood
practice.

Box1:Generalareasofaction

95

Detectionandlawenforcement

Newinspectionandenforcementagencies;strengtheningofexistingauthorities;stronger
sanctions; efforts to improve the coordination of inspection and enforcement activities;
preventivemeasures;

Registration

Employmentcontracts;employmentagencies;

Coordination

Greatersharingofinformation;newcoordinatingbodies;jointteams;sectoralefforts;

Laws

Action on supply chains: subcontracting and main contractors responsibility; minimum

wage;developmentandpromotionoflabourstandards;

Employers

Trainingandinformation;ethicsprogrammes;promotegoodpractice;

Tradeunions

Services; hotlines; information about labour rights; facilitation reporting; publicizing of

malpracticecases;advocacyformoretransparency;

Collectivebargainingandjointinitiatives

Sectoral agreements; voluntary certification, seals of approval; nationallevel social

dialoguethroughtripartitecouncils;

Supportinitiatives

Small businesses and the selfemployed through tax relief, loans, social security
contributions, assistance with legal and administrative procedures; active employment
programmes: counselling, training; encouragement of transition to the formal economy;
tax reductions and reforms; simplification of rules; reduction of the burden of
administration;

Informationcampaigns

Raisingawarenessofillegality;informingaboutrights;warningofperilsandpunishment;

Crossborderinitiatives

Addressing issues of undeclared work and economic migration; bilateral agreements on

labourmigration.

According to each national political opportunity structure as well as individual perception of

differentissues,someofthesemeasuresaremorelikelytobeimplementedinonecountrythanin

96

another. A selection of national practices below provides an insight into how local opportunity
structures,traditionsanddiscoursecaninfluencethewayinwhichindividualcountriesrespondto
decentworkdeficits.

Box2:RecentlyimplementedinitiativesinfiveEUmembercountries

France Germany Italy Netherlands Sweden

- improved - main contractors - improved detection - awareness

- reformed labour
cooperation between held accountable for inspection campaigns for risks
authorities (DILTI) law infringements - closer control of and punishment
- registration of temporary
- initiative to bring - support for entry employment employment - ethics programme
personal and into self- contracts agencies in cert. developed by
domestic service employment, start-up sectors employers'
work into the formal businesses - new section within associations
economy (CES Ministry of Labour - plans to introduce a
simplifies the - trade union for better licensing scheme - hairdressing sector
process of hiring and councils offer coordination piloted voluntary
declaring through information through - sectoral agreement certification scheme
ready work hotlines, enables - incentives to to use only genuine
vouchers) anonymous reporting formalise activities employment
agencies in certain
- joint committee to - information sectors
combat unregistered campaign by
work (unions, workers'
employers, confederation
authorities)
- sectoral initiatives
for monitoring and
safety compliance in
agriculture and
construction

In Sweden, where trade union membership density has traditionally been one of the highest in
Europe(approx.>90%oftheworkforce35)andonecanlookbackatalonghistoryofsocialdialogue
betweennationalstakeholders,mostinitiativesfordecentworkoriginatefromemployers',sectoral
orworkers'associationscomparedwiththeothercountriesmentionedabove.

Withpeakingundeclaredemploymentratesamongthe'old'EUcountries(e.g.in2001,representing
about1617%oftheGDP35),Italymainlyconcentratesonmeasurestotransforminformaleconomic
activityandformaliseworkingrelations.TheNetherlands,Germany,FranceandtheUnitedKingdom
account for the highest proportions35 of temporary workers in relation to the total working
populationintheEU,yetdealdifferentlywiththissteadilygrowingsector.TheNetherlandsputsthe
emphasisondetectingillegallyoperatingemploymentagenciesandhasimplementedmeasuresto
improvetransparency,detectionandcontrol.ItsneighbourGermany,however,tendsmoretoself
regulationmeasuresandincentivestructureapproaches.

97

Since1973,forinstance,Germanyhasbeenregulatingthecircumstancesofemploymentrelations
betweenworkers,employmentagenciesandenterprisesviacollectiveagreements.Theconceptsof
'equal treatment' as well as 'main contractor responsibility' secure the legal status of temporary
workers in reference to the traditional workforce. Yet, due to the lack of national minimum wage
regulationsandthetraditionalsectoralagreementsonemploymentconditionsandwages,migrant
workers from other EU countries are allowed to work in Germany for the potentially lower salary
standardsoftheirrespectivecountryoforiginfromMay2009onwards.ComparabletotheUKafter
2004, agency licensing is compulsory but compliance with labour standards is only sporadically
controlledinGermanyonaverageabout6,000controlsover4years.(DGB2007)

Coming back to the question of how decent working conditions can be facilitated, it is clear that
thereisnosimpleanswerornationalgoodpracticeexamplewhichcouldeasilybeadaptedbyother
countries. Not only do decent working conditions depend on national levels of economic
development,legislation,administrationandinstitutionalarrangements.Itisalsoamajorbalancing
act for governments to secure labour market flexibility, employment security and an inclusive
employment strategy at the same time. Nevertheless, there is an urgent need to identify good
workingpracticeswhichcanbereplicatedacrossEuropeasawholeandthismaybeataskwhichthe
ILOcanbeencouragedtotakeup.Therecommendationsbelowthushintatwhatmaybeimportant
initiativesbutwehaveyettoestablishhowtheseinitiativeshaveledtopositiveoutcomesovertime.
Thismaybethesubjectofafurtherinvestigation.

4.Recommendations
Everyapproachtodecentworkisdifficultasithastobeincorporatedintodifferentpolicylevelsand
sectors simultaneously: these might typically include employment, remuneration, working
conditions, social security, workers' rights, participation and collective bargaining. Recommended
strategies include: realising fundamental principles and rights at work; creating greater and better
employment and income opportunities; extending social protection; and the promotion of social
dialogue. For the largescale creation of sustainable, decent jobs and business opportunities,
governmentsmustprovideconducivemacroeconomic,social,legalandpoliticalframeworks.These
different elements should reinforce each other to comprise an integrated poverty reduction
strategy.

Thefollowingrecommendationspresentaresumeofinitiativesthathavealreadybeenimplemented
in other European countries, as well as structural adjustments which have been shown to be
necessary in order to create an environment conducive to decent work and a decent future for
workersparticularlythemostvulnerableworkersintheUnitedKingdom.Theyarepresentedas
thebasisforfurtherdiscussionandinvestigation.

Formulatenewnationalpolicies:

Bylaw,theexistenceofsecondclassworkersmustbeprevented.FortheUK,thismeans
thattheambivalentlegalstatusofagencyworkers35hastobeclarified.Agoodpractice
examplethereforemaybetheGermanArbeitnehmerberlassungsgesetzof1973that
guarantees'equalpayandequaltreatment'.

Thelicensingstandardsthathavetobemetbyagencieswhichfallunderthe
GangmastersAct2004mustbeextendedintoallrelevantindustrialsectors.

98

Extendrepresentation:

Unioncoveragehastobeextendedrapidlytotemporaryandagencyworkers.
Representationisessentialtomaintainsocialdialogueandcollectivebargaining
betweenstakeholders.Sometradesunionsaremoreactiveinpursuingthisgoalthan
others,althoughthegoalitselfhasbeenendorsedbytheTUC.Similarly,thereare
sectors(suchasconstructionandhealthandsocialcare)whereitismoredifficultto
organise.

Employers'andworkers'associationscanbeimportantactorsforthedevelopmentof
jointefforts,informationcampaigns,voluntaryethiccodes,etc.(e.g.:Swedishvoluntary
certificationinitiative;theAustrianawardofsealsofapprovalscheme).

Facilitateimplementation(administration)

Thecreationofjointcommitteesandcoordinationbodiesiscrucial.Itfacilitatesthe
sharingofdatabasesbetweenagenciesandenablescommonactivities.

Improvedsystemsoflabourinspection:(negativeincentives)

Thedetectionofinfringementsisvitaltoprotection.ApartfromLabourInspectorates,
socialpartnersshouldberequiredtoassumeanimportantroleinmonitoringand
notification.

Jobcreationprogrammes,trainingopportunities:

InDenmark,the'flexicurity'modelacombinedapproachbasedbothonflexibilityand
securityhasimpressivelyimprovedtrainingopportunitiesinordertofacilitate
reintegrationintothelabourmarket.

ActiveemploymentprogrammesinBelgium,Finland,France,Germany,Ireland,the
NetherlandsandSwedenwhichspendatleast1percentoftheirGDPtoofferservices
andactivities.

Expandknowledge:

Collationandpublicationofrelevantstatisticsforpublicdissemination;

Advocacyandlobbyingformoretransparency;

Informationcampaignstoinformworkersabouttheirrightsandopportunities;

Raisingawarenessoftheperilsofillegalwork;

Publicisingcasesofbadperformance;

Coordinationofefforts:

Developingtransnationalscrutinynationallyandinternationally(perhapsviatheILO);

99

Supportingandcreatingnewincentives:

Bringingmarginalizedworkersintotheeconomicandsocialmainstream;

Offeringmicrofinancetostartupbusinesses.

Appendix1:EstimatedsizeofundeclaredworkinEuropeasapercentageofGDP

Country Estimated Year Source

size
Austria 10% 2003 University of Linz

Belgium 20% 2004 Government

Bulgaria 22%/30% 2003 NationalStatistical

Institute/Institutefor

MarketEconomy

Cyprus 4.2% 2003 Greek Cypriot Administration

Denmark 5.5% 2001 RockwoolFoundation

Estonia 89% 2001 Eurostat

France 1020% 2003 AgenceCentraledesOrganisations

de

ScuritSociale

Germany 17% 2004 Government

Greece >20% 1998 Unconfirmedfiguresinapress

release

Hungary 2535% 2004 Eurostat

Ireland 510% 1998 Unknown

Italy 1617% 2001 Eurostat

Latvia 18% 2000 LatvianBureauofStatistics

100

Netherlands 13.8% 2002 EU

Poland 14% 2003 CentralStatisticalOffice

Romania 20% 2003 AllianceforEconomicDevelopment

Slovakia 18% 2003 FriedrichEbertStiftung

Slovenia 17% 2003 Government

Sweden 4.6% 1998 NationalAuditOffice

UK 1.5% 2003 UKNationalActionPlan

Note:theinformationintheabovetablehasbeentakenfromRenooyetal.2004:106,andBiletta
andMeixner2005:7.Thetableprovidesthemostrecentinformationavailableforeachcountry.
AlsonotethatinthecaseofmostcountriesincludingtheUK,theinformationissubstantiallyoutof
dateandpredatesthehugenumbersofmigrantworkerswhohavesoughtemploymentineachof
thesecountries(perhapsasmanyas800,000declaredworkersintheUKandmanymoreundeclared
workers).Giventhefactthatmanyofthese,andafurthersubstantialnumberofundeclared
workers,35willnotfeatureinofficialdata,thesefiguresshouldbetakenasprovidingonlyasenseof
variationbetweencountriesratherthanabsolutenumbersforeachcountryandcertainlyshouldnot
betakentosuggestthatthereisarelativelyminorproblemwithintheUK.

Bibliographyandfurthermaterials
Biletta, I. and Meixner, M. (2006) EIRO thematic feature: Industrial relations and undeclared work,
Dublin:Eurofound,onlyavailableat:

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2005/135/en/1/ef05135en.pdf

BundesagenturfrArbeit(2007)MerkblattfrLeiharbeitnehmer,AG107/2007;

Cyrus,N.(2005)MenschenhandelundArbeitsausbeutunginDeutschland,Geneva:ILO

DGB(2007)PrekreBeschftigung,Berlin:InformationenzurSozialundArbeitsmarktpolitik;

EUROCIETT (2007) More work opportunities for more people: Unlocking the private employment
agencyindustry'scontributiontoabetterfunctioninglabourmarket,Brussels;EUROCIETT.

EuropeanCommissionReports

(2002) Proposal on working conditions for temporary workers, Brussels: COM(2002)

149final,Amendment:COM(2002)701final.

101

(2006a)Promotingdecentworkforall:theEUcontributiontotheimplementationof
thedecentworkagendaintheworld,Brussels:COM(2006)249.

(2006b) Green Paper: Modernising labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st
century,Brussels:COM(2006)708final.

InternationalLabourOrganisationReports

Ghai, D. (2002) Decent work: concepts, models, indicators, Geneva: Int. Institute for
LabourStudies(IILS).

Heyes,J.(ed.)(2007)Tacklingunregisteredworkthroughsocialdialogue:Finalreport
ofthe20052007EUILOProject;DIALOGUEPaperNo.14,Geneva:ILO.

ILO (2007) Guide to Private Employment Agencies Regulation, Monitoring and

Enforcement,Geneva.

Kuptsch,C.(ed.)(2006)MerchantsofLabour,Geneva:ILO.

Renooy, P. et al. (2004) Undeclared work in an enlarged Union: An analysis of

undeclared work An indepth study of specific items; Final Report (Brussels,
EuropeanCommission,DirectorateGeneralforEmploymentandSocialAffairs);

Sapir,A.etal.(2003)AnAgendaforaGrowingEurope,Brussels:BruegelThinkTank;

Sapir, A. et al. (2005) Globalisation and the Reform of European Social Models,
Brussels:BruegelThinkTank.

102


HAVE YOU BEEN EXPLOITED AT WORK?

Oxfam, an international charity, is looking into exploitation at work.

Do you work in:

o Agriculture
o Factories
o Packing
o Care
o Restaurants or hotels
o Building and construction?

If you have experienced exploitation at work, Oxfam would

like to interview you as part of our research.

Examples of exploitation

Cheated out of your wages by your gangmaster or employment

agency?

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Forced to work long hours?

Living in overcrowded accommodation provide by your work?

Threatened by your gangmaster or agency?

Oxfam will ensure complete confidentiality and anonymity.

We will pay 25 to talk to you about how you have been

exploited.

If you are willing to speak to us, please telephone this number and
ask to speak to or email

103


CZY BYE/A
WYZYSKIWANY/NA W
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Rolnictwie
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104