Its a Free World... Loach on Mass Immigration

[conspiracy analyst]

Is this what the agenda of mass immigration is all about?
Dilution of nation states like Belgium which is about to be erased, in order to pass hand and foot into a NWO EU where one has no say about anything as everything is decided beforehand on your behalf.




The flip side of a miracle

The joys of our economic boom are lost on the migrant workers I met in
the making of this film

Paul Laverty
Saturday September 22, 2007
The Guardian

At the premiere of It's a Free World, Kierston Wareing and Juliet
Ellis, two wonderful actresses, climbed the steps of the Venice Film
Festival's Sala Grande looking so gorgeous I had to chuckle at the
thought of them in our film, squeezing migrant workers into the back
of an old van at 6am in the East End of London. Inside, as they always
do at premieres, questions came to mind: how much of what we have
seen, uncovered, wrestled with over the past two years could we
communicate in a fictional story? Can our made-up characters do
justice to the complexity of what they confront?

Article continues
Maybe the family of the man who died from exhaustion after continuous
double shifts stamping logos on cardboard boxes in a northern
warehouse, or the workers picking flowers who ended up owing more
money than they earned once "deductions" for accommodation, food and
travel had been calculated, will be unimpressed by the unbearable
lightness of our story. Will the worker dumped at Victoria station
with his broken leg in plaster and ordered to catch a bus back to
Poland, or the Portuguese worker who broke his back after being told
to climb and trim a tree with wellies on, feel we have been too soft?

I wished the group of 20 Poles I met in Birmingham could have been
with us; our conversation together started off sober and low key. In a
Pythonesque escalation their stories got worse and worse till they
positively roared with laughter as one middle-aged man explained how
he had been left unpaid in building sites in London, Liverpool and
Birmingham. The chuckles hushed at stories of accidents or near
misses, or of young women being told to sleep in rooms full of men. I
remember the look on a man's face who had been told to weld without a
mask; he phoned his wife and had his own sent over by post from
Poland. And so it went on, stories from Aberdeen, Glasgow, King's
Lynn, the Welsh borders and, of course, London. All were working
legally in the UK, so you can imagine how much more isolated and
vulnerable illegal workers felt.
********************************************************************** *********************************************
Listening to all these experiences, it was as if all the Factory Acts
and health and safety regulations had suddenly disappeared in a puff
of smoke, along with 150 years of trade union gains.
********************************************************************** *******************************************
None of this protection existed in the minds of these workers. The
government will point to an avalanche of legislation, but the devil is
in the detail. One civil servant told me off the record that there
weren't anywhere near enough personnel to make much of the legislation
effective, which of course gets to the point. All these workers
massively subsidise our standard of living, so let's not interfere
unduly.

We tell our story from the viewpoint of Kierston Wareing's Angie, who
opens an employment agency in the hinterland of "illegality lite".
Despite their "deep concern", our supermarkets depend on the Angies of
this world to lubricate the long lines of subcontracts until brutality
is safely over the horizon. Ken Loach, the director, imagined that
Angie might one day be businesswoman of the year.

I'd like to imagine Gordon Brown meeting these men and women and
explaining that in the interests of "efficiency, modernity, and
flexibility in a globalised environment", it will be impossible to
repeal Thatcher's anti-union legislation or give temporary workers the
same rights as others have - so they better cheer up and appreciate
that they are part of the Anglo-Saxon miracle.

I love the last image of the film - a Ukrainian woman paying to work
here illegally. I pay tribute to my colleagues who in one glimpse
caught both the simplicity of a face and the complexity of one life.
Perhaps the first battleground is always in our imaginations.

· Paul Laverty wrote the screenplay for It's a Free World, to be
screened by Channel 4 on Monday at 9pm

[conspiracy analyst]

They do say behind every big fortune is a crime.
Its no wonder big business loves slave labour. Thats a guaranteed way of making money alongside being a tax cheat.

Thats what they call ...entrepeneurs. As if intelligence is a pre-requirement of a scam.

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Underpaid, easy to sack: UK's second class workforce

· Unions confront ministers with demand that migrant workers get equal
rights
· Claims that use of cheap agency staff is exploitative and fuels
racial tensions

Felicity Lawrence
Monday September 24, 2007
The Guardian

The government will face a challenge from unions tomorrow over the
impact of migration on Labour's core working-class voters. The use of
agency workers, most of them migrants, to drive down the pay and
conditions of British workers is the sort of contentious issue the
Labour leadership hoped to prevent being aired at the annual party
conference but unions have decided to force the issue with a
"contemporary" resolution demanding action.

Article continues
Controversial new rules passed by the party yesterday, aimed at ending
embarrassing defeats for the leadership, mean that such resolutions
will not be allowed after this year and this year's will not to go to
a vote. The government is adamant that the flexibility provided by
agency workers has been a vital part of Britain's economic success.
But the T&G section of Unite the Union is still expected to open
tomorrow's debate by saying that the plight of more than a million
agency workers is "the single biggest issue facing the country today"
and is causing serious racial tension.

The Guardian has obtained submissions made to government by the
leading unions which catalogue the replacement of traditional jobs
with cheaper, casualised and often migrant labour in most industrial
sectors. We publish a sample from them below, which show how radically
the British workplace has altered since Labour came to power. Their
evidence also alleges exploitation of migrants and racial tension as a
two-tier workforce has emerged. A growing number of industrial
disputes in the UK in the last year have been linked to the use of
agency workers.

Unions will demand tomorrow that agency staff are given the same
employment rights as permanent staff, to protect both local and
migrant workers. Without new legislation, they say, they fear the
death of the real job. More than 120 backbench Labour MPs who are
under pressure from a rise in far-right nationalist parties in their
constituencies have backed efforts to bring in equal rights through a
private member's bill.

So far the Labour government has taken a lead in blocking a new
directive in Europe on agency working. It has supported the view of
the employers' federation the CBI that the effect on employment
overall would be damaging. "If the government caves in to union
pressure for a new EU law, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be put
at risk, unless Gordon Brown at least insists on a qualifying period
of a year before full rights apply," CBI deputy director general John
Cridland said earlier this month.

The battle lines are being drawn. Derek Simpson, general secretary of
Unite's Amicus section told us: "The epidemic of agency employment
threatens both our economic and social fabric. Its effects are being
felt in every industry in every region in the country."

The T&G section of Amicus, which has made recruiting migrant workers
as members a priority, agreed. "The number of those directly employed
is falling and the numbers of agency workers, overwhelmingly migrants
on poorer conditions, are growing," deputy general secretary Jack
Dromey said. "It's fuelling racial divisions. But the enemy is not the
migrant, it's the exploitation. There should be equal treatment to
protect everyone."

A&P shipbuilders, Tyneside
A&P, which has just won an MoD contract to refit a Royal Fleet
Auxiliary ship, recruits agency workers, mainly Polish, via a company
it part owns. The workers are paid £5 an hour less than permanent
staff and can have contracts terminated with a day's notice. A
subcontractor to A&P is said to use migrants at all grades except
managerial. A&P did not respond to requests for comment.

Dawn Group meats
At the South Wales Dawn Pac meat plant, Unite Amicus say between
500-600 Polish migrants are employed through an agency, and that local
staff have been steadily replaced in the last three years by agency
workers on poorer terms and conditions. Agency workers are employed on
zero hours contracts but have to do long shifts on the minimum wage,
and have their travel and accommodation costs deducted by the agency.

At the Bedford plant, which packs meat for the major supermarkets, the
T&G section of Unite says workers, many of them Polish, were forced to
take a pay cut of 20% down to the minimum wage or lose their jobs
earlier this year. The Dawn Group declined to comment.

BMW cars
Two thirds of the 700 shop floor workers at BMW's Hams Hall engine-
making factory in Birmingham are local agency staff. They are paid up
to £5 an hour less than permanently employed workers doing the
equivalent job and have fewer benefits. Some temporary staff have more
than five years' experience with the company, according to the union.

BMW's Swindon plant is currently recruiting around 100 agency workers,
including migrants. At the Cowley plant in Oxford, there are 1,200
agency workers, including migrants, out of a total workforce of 4,700.

BMW says that it needs large numbers of agency workers to manage
fluctuations in demand and run its operations "with greater
flexibility" and in areas with high employment. Agency workers have
opportunities to become fully employed.

St Ives printing
At its book division in Suffolk, unions say around 20 migrant agency
workers are used on lower pay and less favourable conditions. The
agency supplies the migrants with accommodation and transport and
Hungarian workers have reported having to pay back large debts to the
agency to cover their costs in coming to the UK.

At its factory in Andover, Hampshire, which prints leading magazines,
up to a quarter of the workforce is agency labour. Migrants reported
being bussed in for three hours from north London and being expected
to work 15-hour shifts (since reduced after complaints to 12 hours).
They have also complained of degrading practices in which supervisors
require agency workers to put peas in a cup for every bundle of work
they complete and demand they work faster.

A spokesman for St Ives said the company was confident that it
"complies with relevant legislation relating to temporary workers and
that they are fairly treated".

Trinity Mirror printing
Most of the agency staff at the Newcastle newspaper printing site are
African migrants on lower rates of pay. According to the union many of
them cover night shifts after studying or working all day elsewhere.
Health and safety reps have raised concerns about lack of safety
training and safety footwear.

At Trinity's Watford site, eastern European migrants have lower rates
of pay than other workers. Union reps have complained that managers
fuel tension between the migrants and local staff.

A spokesman for Trinity Mirror said the company used agency workers to
fill a number of positions at its sites and was "satisfied with the
excellent service they provide". He added that all agency workers
received appropriate health and safety induction.

Quebecor World printing
Quebecor World is used by Guardian News and Media group to print its
Observer magazines and other products.

Unite Amicus says that the company has steadily replaced its permanent
workforce in unskilled areas with agency workers. Some 90 Poles and
Lithuanians are currently working long shifts for significantly less
pay than permanent staff, according to the union.

Quebecor commented: "Unemployment in the local area is low and they
receive the local market rate of pay, which is above the statutory
minimum wage. They work no more hours per shift, sometimes less, than
our direct employees. A number have subsequently taken up direct
employment with Quebecor."

Corus steel
At Corus's Teesside steelworks, self-employed agency labour is
recruited on zero hours contracts and can be laid off without notice.
At its Rotherham steel site, Polish agency workers are paid the same
rates as permanent workers but do not receive the same benefits in
overtime, sick and holiday pay. Corus employs 23,500 workers directly
in the UK. Between 5,000 and 10,000 agency workers are thought to be
used across the company.

A spokeswoman said Corus is aware that contracting companies use
agency labour but it does not support the use of zero hours contracts
and has received no complaints about contractors' terms and
conditions.

Harper Collins books
Unite Amicus claims that originally 10 agency workers were brought in
to the Glasgow warehouse/distribution site short term, but the numbers
grew, so that after three months about 50 agency staff were being
used. At peak periods up to 120 agency workers are now used, they say,
the majority of them Poles, out of a workforce of approximately 300.
The union successfully balloted for strike action over the issue of
agency workers and overtime payments earlier this month and the
dispute was settled earlier this month.

A HarperCollins spokeswoman said: "It is common practice within the
publishing industry, and right across the distribution business, to
use agency staff to respond to peak periods and fluctuating schedules.
HarperCollins has always used temporary staff to provide the
flexibility demanded by the business."

Coca Cola, Wakefield
Coca-Cola has been using an agency to recruit Polish workers to do
quality checking for £5 an hour less than local workers. They do not
have the pension, profit-sharing, and sick-pay benefits negotiated for
permanent staff. A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola said that around 40
agency workers were used at its Wakefield site but that its dependency
on agency workers had decreased in the last year. She said that their
pay was in line with local rates for agency workers and that the
disparity with its own direct employees at Wakefield arose because
those staff were on the high end of the pay scale for food
manufacturing. It also restricts the areas in which agency workers can
be used so that it can maintain its health and safety record, she
said.

Chep UK pallet suppliers
The company is part of a transnational corporation that leases wooden
pallets to large manufacturers for retail distribution systems. The
T&G says it has dismissed 70 permanent employees nationally and
replaced them with Polish agency workers. The union believes they are
paid £6 an hour compared to £9.40 per hour paid to direct labour.

A spokesman for Chep UK said that it was not company policy to replace
UK employees with agency workers but that it needed agency workers to
respond to peaks and troughs in demand from customers and necessarily
had a constant turnover of staff.

"Agency workers provide that flexibility which is why they are being
used more and more in all sectors across the UK," he said. The
nationality of workers and how much they were paid was down to the
agencies, he added.

Poultry sector
The largest supermarket poultry slaughtering and packing factories in
the UK are increasingly dependent on low-paid migrants employed
through agencies, the T&G says. The sector is dominated by three
companies: Grampian, Moy Park and Bernard Matthews.

The union accuses the industry of using agency labour to bypass normal
employer obligations, giving examples from Grampian and Moy Park to
the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It
believes over a third of agency workers in the sector have been
working for more than six months but as well as being paid less for
the same work, they lose out on sick and holiday pay, it says. The
union claims that at some sites up to half the workforce can be
migrants from agencies.

But the companies dispute the figures. Grampian says its chicken
business employs almost 4,000 people, of which 6.7% (264 people) are
agency labour. It says it uses migrant agency workers "to complement
its core workforce at times of peak production, for short-notice
cover, and in areas where it has become difficult to recruit due to
low levels of unemployment and the rural nature of facilities." Some
1,400 union members took strike action in April at Grampian factories
over pay, the use of agency workers and cuts in pensions.

At Moy Park poultry factories, agency workers, most of them migrants,
are paid the minimum wage and not only receive less money than
permanent workers doing the same jobs but miss out on sick pay and
holiday, according to the union. Moy Park said it needed agency
workers to cover peaks in demand and because there was a shortage of
local workers. Some 350 agency staff have joined Moy Park since
January and more than 600 in the past 18 months, a spokesman said. He
added that the company met all the requirements of EU law and the
ethical trading code in independent audits.

Construction sector
Large numbers of agency workers, many migrants, are classed as "self-
employed", work on zero hours contracts, are paid below agreed
industry rates and have hidden costs deducted from pay for
accommodation and transport, according to unions. Tax avoidance is
rife, and employers use subcontracting chains and self-employment to
avoid their obligations, according to the construction union Ucatt.
Large numbers of agency workers are found on all major infrastructure
projects, it says.