Formal Inquiry into Recruitment and Employment in Meat and Poultry Processing

1. Formal Inquiry into Recruitment and Employment in Meat and Poultry Processing • Sue Coe

2. Terms of reference To gather evidence on recruitment and employment practices in the industry, particularly: • their impact on different types of workers • their impact on community relations • any examples of good practice, and • the factors which influence these practices

3. Background • Launched in October 2008 • Gathered evidence widely: workers, processing firms, agencies, supermarkets, regulators, unions. • Specific focus on identifying and understanding good practice

4. Evidence from workers • Face to face interviews with 140 workers • 15 different locations across England and Wales. • 120 written responses to call for evidence

5. Concerns • Verbal/physical abuse • Pregnant workers • Coercion • Lack of documentation/failure to translate • Health and Safety • Potential discrimination in recruitment • Cohesion and integration

6. Findings Verbal abuse “I’ll never forget it… I’m not a slave. I just can’t speak English. He talked to me like he talked with an animal or something like that. It is so terrible… sometimes I don’t even sleep in the night. Because the next day I need to go to there [to that] horrible place again.” Brazilian male working in poultry processing factory, East of England

7. Findings Physical abuse “The managers… they would pull our clothes… and shout at [us]. And they even [threw] hamburgers. They were so angry because we were new and couldn’t do the job as fast as we were supposed to… those frozen hamburgers are like stones.” Polish male working in meat processing factory, East of England

8. Findings Pregnant workers “Well, they get rid of them [pregnant agency workers] when they find out… There’s nothing we can do about it… At the end of the day, without being disrespectful, if they ring up for 20 people they are looking for 20 arms and legs to do the job. They don’t want 19 and a pregnant one who can’t do this and can’t do that.” Manager of recruitment agency

9. Findings Coercion “The Polish agency managers just treat us very badly… there was a situation where one lady she’s been… asked to work overtime and she was tired after eight hours [and refused] and the Polish manager said, ‘We have to sack, I think 20 people to make the rest realise that they have to do it’.” Polish male working in meat processing factory, Yorkshire and Humber

10. Findings Lack of documentation/failure to translate I’ve been given documentation but, unfortunately, in English...I didn’t know what I was signing. So I don’t basically know how many hours I should work, about overtime rate and things like that... I was given...loads of papers to sign so I signed, but somebody took the papers away from me. Polish female working in meat processing factory Northern England

11. Findings Health and Safety “Working at a line, it’s really hard work, and the boxes are about 16kg, each, so they’re quite heavy and my hands are swollen at the end of the day… and painful… There are days I just cannot open the door, or even keep a glass in my hand. I can’t feel anything.” Polish female working in meat processing factory, East of England

12. Findings Cohesion and integration “There’s now a lot of resentment from English against the foreigners coming in as well, because of the current climate with the credit crunch… and thinking that they’re taking their work. But the agency and the management of the site… they’re not doing anything… I think it [could] be a time bomb ready to go off to be honest.” British male working in meat processing factory, North West England

13. Findings Recruitment practices [We have] ninety Percent Migrant workers, Ten percent English. I would like to see that increased, but it just won’t happen, I just know it won’t happen. Branch Manager of Recruitment Agency

14. Findings Potential discrimination in recruitment All of the agency [workers] are foreign. You don’t get a British worker on that agency for a long, long time... a British worker once phoned up [agency name] and said can I get on the books, and they said, “no we only want Polish workers”. ... Now they have changed that a bit. Now they have Slovakians and Polish. British female working in meat processing factory, Midlands

15. Recommendations Aimed at: • ensuring a level playing field for businesses • protecting vulnerable workers

16. Recommendations • Reduce the causes of vulnerability. • Hold organisations to account. • Promote equality, human rights and good relations.