Unions: All gangmasters should be licensed
Unions are calling on the Government to ensure the new licensing system for gangmasters covers everyone in the food processing industry.
They are concerned by proposals to exclude gangmasters providing manpower for secondary processing, such as turning meat into meat pies, from the licensing system.
The legislation is planned to cover gangmasters providing staff for primary processing, for example abattoirs, and fruit and vegetable picking.
The failure to extend it to those involved in secondary processing will leave thousands of mainly migrant workers open to exploitation, says the TUC in its submission to the Government’s consultation on the proposed legislation.
Under the terms of the Gangmaster Licensing Act, which was passed in July 2004, the Rural Affairs Secretary has the power to make regulations specifying circumstances in which a licence is not required.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is proposing to narrow the scope of the act to make secondary processing activities exempt.
But the TUC wants to see all agencies and gangmasters providing manpower for secondary processing to be covered by the regulations.
The T&G takes a similar view, arguing that any exemptions to the legislation must be limited, extremely narrow and frequently reviewed.
It says that up to a quarter of a million workers are employed in secondary processing.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Ministers must allow the licensing scheme to have the widest possible reach. Only a scheme covering both primary and secondary processing will be robust enough to deter those ruthless individuals who are currently making a lot of money from exploiting large numbers of mainly foreign, temporary workers.”
T&G national secretary Chris Kaufman added: “Wide-reaching exemptions will in effect take scythe to the act. Far from protecting tens of thousands of workers in food and agriculture only a few thousand would find themselves covered.”
Exploitation by gangmasters was brought into the public eye following the deaths of twenty Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in February 2004.
Labour MP Jim Sheridan brought forward a private members bill to licence gangmasters, which was adopted by the Government and formed the basis for the existing legislation.
