UK firms face recruitment ban for exploiting migrant workers

This is from last Wednesday's Guardian


politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330723123-110247,00.html

Immigration service say they are also going to offer advice on employment rights to immigrant workers

Its about time..
Some unscrupulous agencies think nothing of paying a bare minimum if they can get away with it.

I just hope the Government does what it says it's going to do.

There are even some agencies bringing people from abroad promising a job and accomodation, only for the workers to get here and find no job or accommodation. it happened to 15 Polish people near to where i live

Omg that sucks.

I used to work for a company that employed polish seasonally.
There were close to 80/90 at a time sometimes.
They were on minimum wage. and worked long hours.

I dont know where they lived though.
Or where they went after..

That is so horrible. How can people do that to others?

Some are quite simply criminals.
Some are just bad and need to be stopped or put right.

The agency the company I work for had been using, it turns out, had not been doing their paperwork.
We recruited one of the workers full-time. He was without any of the proper documentation. We had to help him get himself national insurance registration and prove to the home office that he was legally allowed to work in the UK amongst other things.

I did hear from the agency workers before about being paid late nearly every week.
My company paid the agency for them to sit on the money, earning interest, whilst leaving their employees in a position where it was difficult for them to get by without borrowing money off other people,. They also couldn't easily find work with more reputable employment firms as many knew little about the official paperwork they should have.

Some of them worked evenings and weekends doing second jobs just to pay the rent.
At least when they did work in my team, they were treated fairly and with respect, but even for these individuals, that's less than half the story.

its an excellent way of auditing the industry, thee are still many areas in uk that need to be regulated, this instigates crime and money laundering and most of all a violation of human rights, workers from where ever they are should ideaaly not be in a disadvantage, eys there are cerain differences in them and hoem workers but if there is an actual requirement then they should be rewarded.

The firms concerned are not going to pay any price.This is just a ploy to gain support from the public but will not be acted on. I would love to see these firms crippled by fines but it was by governmental design that all these cheap workers were invited in.They have no intention of undoing their own work.

you are right to an extent. atleast the dangers have been acknowledged.. the second dtage is to educate the workers and the recruitment agents.. in the financial industry the FSA has taken a few years before everything is upto scratch.. we are going in the right direction..

from my understanding of the legislation in countires like uk they will be ale to ensure there is not an overload of workes thus being a burden on the system. there will be monitorig of jobs required and then they can focus on education or developing their own workforce.

in the next few years we will still see these probs but the future looks better... basically if you are a migrant worker knwo ur rights... complain to the relevant agenices.. contact newspapers or the real story..

Jareck,EDUCATE THE WORKERS AND RECRUITMENT AGENCIES??

They already know what the score is,what the effects will be and whether its right or wrong.
Guess what.. They dont give a flying fffffffffffffffffffffffffffK and no amount of education will alter it.There need to be rules which prevent the discrimination (positive and negative),there need to be severe penalties which are actually applied and the people being abused need to find some character and stop it from their side.None of those things are likely to happen,especially the last one.

These people are employed on a low cost basis not a quality one.They are neccessary to fill places and lower the labour cost to the firms they work for.If they had the same conditions many would be ejected immediately.Agencies like the fact that these people wont answer back,when they do they'll get someone else who wont.

The government is merely trying to diffuse the situation without actually changing the cause-because it suits them as it is.It helps keep inflation down and disguise some of the holes in the economic plan they follow. Who is going to pay the bill for all the unemployment benefit and low income support benefit if there is an abnormally large presence of migrant-and maybe non resident-workers on the minimum wage in the job market?Locals will soon be in the position that they will need these benefits because the pay does not meet their living costs.I think its great to help people,but not when your own kids suffer as a result.We are not a charity and we only have limited resources in our small country.We are not the biggest world power any more and its time to be sensible,and fair to the people we already have first.

The papers will be different in a few years.They will echo the comments that we should have listened to Enoch Powell who warned of these problems many years before many of the forum users were born.Why make the same mistake so soon?Letys get it right this time at least.

i understand your thoughts nigel but the problem is there, its due to people not caring for each other and wanting more less, but that is the nature of the environment that we live in, we discard jobs like working in coffee shops or cleaning or care work, and jobs like singing dancing and football are given all the joy.. what i mean is that if people were more equal in their thoughts then we can eradicate this problem... when we will put an accountant next to a builder and not discriminate then we will not have these issues... i think maybe im wrong.. but i like the uk governemnt becasue they find the problems and atleast they attempt to do somehting.. everyhting takes time my friend

You dont know are government very well do you!
I am aware that there is a lack of respect in the world but the government wont change that now.Divide and rule is an old tactic.If the population fight between themselves they leave the leaders to do as they please unquestioned.That said a lot of those coming here dont like us,dont want to like us and are dreaming of the day they can leave.

A colleague of my wife has just had a baby.They will not stay here beyond his third birthday,he must not go to an English school and he must not get so comfortable here that he will not want to go to Poland.SAD and SELFISHand certainly not respectful.

interesting point especially regarding the ;british' a few people i have spoken to have said that the brits interfered in india pakistan in kashmir and turkey and greece in cyprus....

i think you can see evdience of this rule in the recent wars in iraq - people were made to beleive somehting and nothing was there... its easy to act when you scare people... anyway.. maybe u dont have confidence in the govt,, what else do you think can be done... there will ne more immigrants coming in from romania, bulgaria, and the next eu countries.. whats next?

Clearer rules need to be made with less loopholes.Penalties for breaking them should be very severe,to pay for the organisation needed to monitor them.A watch should be made on the level of pay,pay increases and the ethnic origin of workers.When an abnormal change occurs they should be dealt with.I.E a firm now has 60% Brits,20%poles,10% Indian,others may change to 40% Brits 40% Poles ...... At this point the pay and conditions offered to the workers should be examined.If it can establish a policy to replace a certain sector with another without good reason then they should get sorted out.If pay rises suddenly stop and the % of immigrants rises at the same time they shouls also be watched.It should be made easier for the workers to report their employers.This will work in favour of the locals and the immigrants,allow well run companies to outperform the shoestring organisations(which are the most likely to break other regulations too)-The work of those crap firms will get eaten up by the better ones,a few crooks in jail,more workers in better conditions,more pay

Its a rough idea and I admit I havent thought about it too much-am in a rush today-but I think the best path is in that area.

Solution to exploiting immigrant workers, export the work to China and let them exploit themselves.

I think people should form a Charity called: Capitalist against Expoitation.