Member Article

Labour Party embroiled in row with retailers over migrant workers

A row has ensued between the Labour Party and two of the UK’s biggest retailers over claims British workers are being overlooked in favour of cheaper migrant workers.

Shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant named and shamed Tesco and Next in a speech, due to be made today, that was leaked to newspapers yesterday.

He then attempted to retract his claims on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme this morning, saying the Sunday Telegraph newspaper conflated two speeches which took his comments out of context.

Mr Bryant did maintain, however, that some employers are acting ‘unscrupulously’ in the labour market.

Ahead of the speech, he said he wanted to “refocus the economy” so firms did not have to “bring in workers”.

Tesco and Next reject the claims that they are paying staff less than the minimum wage, and that they are actively employing Eastern European workers rather than local workers.

Mr Bryant’s speech was expected to focus on a Tesco distribution centre, which, Bryant claimed, was moved to kent where a “large percentage” of staff were “from Eastern Bloc countries” and that staff at an original site, “most of them British, were told that they could only move to the new centre if they took a cut in pay”.

But the supermarket giant said it was “wrong to accuse Tesco of this”, saying it did not have such a distribution centre in Kent.

Mr Bryant acknowledged this morning he didn’t know how Kent got into his speech, and seemed to be unable to justify his assertions when quizzed by presenter Evan Davies.

He said: “The difficulty is, I would say, that the way we regulate our economy and the labour market in the UK has meant that sometimes there are negative sides to migration in terms of the labour market, in particular for those who are in spitting distance of the minimum wage.”

Norman Rose, from The Recruitment Society, accused Labour of ‘jingoism’ - patriotism defined by aggressive foreign policy. Mr Bryant, however, denied he is a xenophobe.

In other extracts from the speech, Mr Bryant was reportedly expected to say: “Look at Next Plc, who last year brought 500 Polish workers to work in their South Elmsall [West Yorkshire] warehouse for their summer sale and another 300 this summer.”

“They were recruited in Poland and charged £50 to find them accommodation.”

“The advantage to Next? They get to avoid agency workers regulations, which apply after a candidate has been employed for over 12 weeks, so Polish temps end up considerably cheaper than the local workforce, which includes many former Next employees.”

But a Next spokesman said the measure was not designed to get around the regulations, adding: “We are deeply disappointed Mr Bryant did not bother to check his facts with the company before releasing his speech.”

“In fact, agency workers from Poland cost us exactly the same as local agency workers and our existing employees.”

“The only reason we seek the help of people from Poland is that we simply can’t recruit enough local people to satisfy these spikes in demand for temporary work.”

Commenting on Mr Bryant’s media appearances this morning ahead of his speech, Kevin Green, CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the professional body for the recruitment industry, said: “Chris Bryant sounds painfully uninformed about UK employment regulation in his remarks about Tesco and Next.”

“We will read the full text of his speech carefully to be sure he doesn’t make similarly unjustified criticisms of our members, British recruitment companies who work hard every day to help people find work, support British business and grow the economy.”

A Downing Street source said net immigration had fallen by a quarter since the general election and that Labour should apologise for having let immigration get out of control when in power.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Graham Vincent .