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Press Releases
Trafficked migrants work as "bonded labour" in UK
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A Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Ten O'Clock News investigation into migrant factory workers tonight (25 April) reveals evidence of systematic underpayment, exploitation and conditions which – taken together – add up to a form of bonded labour.
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With the opening up of Europe's borders it's a new kind of trafficking according to the Deputy Chief Constable, Grahame Maxwell, Programme Director of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, who says:
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"It's a new and emerging issue. What you've filmed quite clearly shows is that this is a hidden issue. This quite clearly is labour exploitation. Certain elements are there; there's a deception and there's a movement of people with an expectation of being paid a reasonable and appropriate wage.
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"From what we've seen in the film and the clip that doesn't seem to be the case. This is a kind of forced or bonded labour. This is modern day slavery."
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Aidan McQuade, Director of Anti-Slavery International, says:
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"Trafficking for labour exploitation involves the use of deception, intimidation, removal of documents, excessive charges for accommodation and transport, the exploitation of someone's irregular immigration status or the fact that they are in debt, in order to force them to work in conditions they did not agree to.
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"Some of these mechanisms are reported in this Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ news investigation."
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Lithuanian journalist, Audrius Lelkaitis, agreed to pose as a migrant worker seeking a job in the UK as part of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ investigation.
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He paid hundreds of pounds in return for the promise of a job which when he arrived in Hull did not exist. He paid Β£180 to an agency called ITC in Lithuania for a job offer in the UK.
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Then in London he paid a further Β£160 to a middleman from another agency called CCCP UK Ltd and was refused a receipt for his money. CCCP UK Ltd is a dissolved company and has no licence to operate as a labour provider.
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When Audrius was finally given a job in a factory by a licensed gangmaster, Focus Staff Ltd in Hull, he worked for 120 hours before receiving a cash payment of only Β£47.
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This was payment below the minimum wage for the 20 hours he worked in his first week. With no written contract, this was the first he knew about having to work two weeks in advance.
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Furthermore, the £50 a week cost of his lodgings – sharing an overcrowded room with 11 other men and women – was automatically deducted without being displayed on his payslip, which is illegal.
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The investigation uncovered repeated evidence that migrant workers are systematically paid below the minimum wage.
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Mike Dickenson, the Director of Focus Staff Ltd, said: "I don't underpay my workers. Everything I do is legal and above board."
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ITC and CCCP UK Ltd also denied being involved in any illegal activity.
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Mike Wilson, Chief Executive of the Gangmasters' Licensing Authority, was asked about withholding the wages when workers are already in debt.
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He said: "That sounds to me suspiciously like a bonded labour situation which certainly we would not agree to at all."
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PR
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