Bryant Attacks Tesco Over 'Unfair' Migrant Use

The Shadow Immigration Minister criticises UK employers who target foreign workers, but softens his stance on the issue.

Even good British companies have been affected by the impactof low-skilled migrant workers. Take Tesco, a good employer and an important source of jobs in Britain.They take on young people, operateapprenticeship and training schemes and often recruit unemployed or disabled staffthrough job centers. Yet one of thedistribution center was moved to a new location, existing staff saidthey would have lost staff by transferring. And the result was ahigh proportion of staff at the new site from A8 countries taking up the jobs. Tesco are clear that they've tried to recruit locally and I hope theycould provide for insurance for their existingstaff. But thefact that staff are raising concerns shows how sensitive the issue has become. Somecompanies have found themselves far more heavily affected. Next PLCrecruited extra temporary staff for their south Amzore warehouse for the summersale last year and this year.Now South Amzore is in a region with 9%unemployment and 23.8% youth umemployment, yet several hundredpeople were recruited directly from Poland. The recruitmentagency next usedcalled flame has its website wwww.flamejobs.pl entirely in Polish. Now ofcourse short-term contracts and work are sometimes necessary in order tosatisfy seasonal spikes and demand. But when agencies bring such a large of workersof a specific nationality at a time when there are one million young unemployedin Britain, it isright surely to ask why that is happening. Now many employerssay they prefer to take on foreign workers, they have lots ofget-up and go they say they are reliable, they turn up andthey work hard. But I'veheard examples from across the country where employers appear to have madedeliberate decisions not to provide training to local young people but to cutpay and conditions and to recruit from abroad instead. All to use tightaccommodation and undercut the minimum wage. It maybe the case assome have argued that many young people discount hospitality or care industryas beneath them, but inmany other countries a job in a hotel is not a dead-end or a gap appear stopgap, but astart of a rewarding career. Tourism is one of our largest industies but I have heard horror tales ofhotel management deliberately cutting hours of youngBritish workers and adding hours to migrantworkers who don't complain about deductions ofearnings that almost certainly take people below the national minimum wage.