Hitting the gangbusters

Jim Sheridan, the former Labour MP whose law targeted illegal gangmasters exploiting migrant workers and ripping off the tax and benefit system says the law must be updated and extended.

Jim (pictured below) warns that the Tories are talking tough but acting weak in a ‘smoke and mirrors’ operation rather than taking a more active approach to tackling horrendous abuses.

Jim Sheridan’s private member’s bill led to the Gangmasters Licensing Act in 2004, after an approach from Unite (T&G).

The union, together with good employers were concerned about the appalling abuses of workers in the agricultural, horticultural and shellfish sector.

Exploiting migrant workers

Illegal gangmasters and unscrupulous employers were exploiting predominantly migrant workers.

Three months after he introduced the private members bill, 23 Chinese migrant workers drowned in Morecambe Bay while trying to collect cockles. The cocklepickers were getting paid ÂŁ5 for a bag of cockles, had no training and new little of the severe dangers they faced.

Jim Sheridan said, “Unite was on the ball before the Morecambe tragedy, with the bill being introduced months before the incident. Unusually for a private members bill it was formally taken up by the then Labour government which put it on the statute books.

“The act required gangmasters to be properly licensed and regulated by the newly created Gangmasters Licensing Authority. It had its own team of specialist inspectors with power to investigate and prosecute.

“It covered a range of sectors and industries aiming to drive out the cowboys, the illegal gangmasters and unscrupulous employers. It could have been extended across other sectors if it was shown to be effective.

“The GLA was backed by good employers and employment agencies who complied with the law. It could tackle the illegal gangmasters exploiting migrant workers and ripping off the taxpayer by not paying tax or national insurance on behalf of those they employed.

“Just the existence of the licensing agency and the work of its inspectors increased the income tax take and employers national insurance contributions.”

The GLA is, therefore an agency tackling illegal worker exploitation, tax and national insurance dodging and employers ripping off the welfare system.

Little more than ‘slavery’

Some of the exploitation was little more than modern slavery. One group of workers was recruited in the Czech Republic and brought to England with a promise of work.

By the time they arrived they had been burdened with a ÂŁ350 debt for finding a job in a flower factory and being paid between ÂŁ5 and ÂŁ10 a week.

They had no money, they were in debt to the gangmasters who farmed them out to, among other places, car washes. Their passports had been taken by the gang.

When they were found, they were sleeping on mattresses in a room which was infested with insects. The gangmasters made around ÂŁ1.3m from the deal, paid no tax and national insurance and ripped off the welfare system by claiming for the workers but pocketing over ÂŁ100,000 in benefits themselves.

Terrified

In another example, a Norfolk-based gangmaster was jailed for seven years. He had beaten and terrified those he was exploiting. Across the county border in Cambridgeshire around 80 workers were rescued from over a dozen addresses.

Between 2010 and 2014 the Gangmasters Licensing Authority protected over 5,000 exploited workers and recovered ÂŁ4m from those breaking the law.

But the Tories – and the coalition – undermined the agency, cutting budgets and resources and making it more ‘light touch’ regulation.

The GLA had become a target for the Tory ‘red tape challenge’ which undermined its role. The Beecroft Commission – another Tory attack on workers’ rights – wanted it abolished altogether.

The result of the right wing attack – backed by the Lib Dems in coalition – is the GLA moved under the remit of the Home Office and workers representatives were removed from its governing board.

In late 2013 the GLA stopped automatic inspections of all businesses applying for a licence.  The GLA itself warned the move could see more than one in 10 rogue gangmasters being granted a licence.

At the same time, the GLA was stopped from regulating the forestry sector. It no longer protects apprentices supplied by apprentice training agencies.

The TUC warned before the move that watering down the GLA would encourage bad bosses not to comply with health and safety standards, basic employment rights or tax obligations when supplying agency staff.

The GLA has certainly trimmed back its activity. Between April 2007 and April 2014 the agency had revoked the licences of 200 gangmasters, and average of around 30 a year. In the 13 months from April 2014 to May 2015 it had revoked 24 licences, a significant drop.

Between April 2008 and April 2013, before its light touch role was introduced, it had prosecuted 69 offenders. In over two years from April 2013 to May 2015 it has since prosecuted only 6 offenders for breaches of the Act.

 

Rather than reducing the scope of the GLA, trade unions have called for the extension of its remit to other high risk sectors such as construction, hospitality and social care.

Despite clear evidence of such abuse by agencies in these sectors, says the TUC, the government has failed to act.

Jim Sheridan also believes the scope and resources of the GLA should be expanded. And he warns of a cynical Tory approach which talks tough when they are in fact weakening the GLA.

“The Tories are talking about fining employers who break the laws set out in the Act I developed with Unite and responsible employers. It’s a smokescreen, they are cutting the GLA budget and undermining its role.

Smoke and mirrors

“They are talking tough in the media. But without resources and an expanded role for the GLA into other employment sectors that are rife with exploitation it is all smoke and mirrors.

“Tories and the employers are not living in communities where there is tension between an indigenous population whose pay is being undercut by unscrupulous gangmasters and employers exploiting migrant workers.

“They do not have to deal with those day to day tensions. The unscrupulous employers and criminal gangmasters are out in the leafy suburbs, they do not have to live with the tensions they create in our communities and which are causing problems.

“You have to attack the problem at the criminal source which looks at the migrant workers as victims rather than the problem.

“That means having a GLA with the resources to deal with unscrupulous employers and criminal gangmasters who are ripping off the workers, the taxpayer and the benefits system.”