The TUC has welcomed Sundays change in the law requiring all gangmasters and employment agencies supplying people for work in agriculture and food processing to have a licence as key to weeding out the cowboys who seek to exploit vulnerable workers.
From Sunday it will be illegal to supply businesses such as farms, orchards, shell-fish pickers, meat and food factories with labour without a licence from the Gangmaster Licencing Authority. And from the end of the year, any company taking on workers from an unlicensed gangmaster could be prosecuted.
Although welcoming the new duties on gangmasters, the TUC is concerned that licensing in the farming and food sectors could simply force unscrupulous labour suppliers to move into sectors such as cleaning, construction and hospitality where there are currently no such restrictions.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: Until the Morecambe Bay tragedy, gangmasters were pretty much a law unto themselves, with the worst operators having a free rein to exploit some of the UK’s most vulnerable workers. Licensing of all labour suppliers in farming and food processing should make a real difference and improve the treatment of workers in the sector.
But our fear is that the cowboys will simply set up shop in other parts of the economy and start supplying workers at cut price rates to the cleaning and hospitality industries. A comprehensive licensing scheme covering all employment agencies is now a must. This would improve working conditions for thousands of vulnerable workers and make it harder for rogue operators to undercut decent employment agencies.
Gangmaster law could force cowboys to move into different sectors
Says TUC
