The presence of numerous food processing factories and plentiful farmland around Wisbech has made it a magnet for migrant agricultural workers. In the past 10 years, a huge influx of eastern European workers has dramatically changed the profile of this small town. Accurate figures are hard to get but police estimate that the town’s population now stands at around 30,000, of whom 10,000 are new migrants from eastern Europe. The police and the council working together on what they’ve called Operation Pheasant have uncovered 19 cases involving allegations of human trafficking and 220 of illegal gangmaster activity. A gangmaster is the evocative word for a recruitment agency supplying workers to the agricultural and food sectors; gangmasters can be licensed and legitimate, but many operate illegally. Many migrants arrive independently, find good jobs and settle happily. But police are concerned about the others who pay large sums to gangmasters to come here, who are quickly pushed into debt by agents who want to increase their control over them, and who quickly find themselves forced to pay middle-men over the odds for housing and transport, and receive less than the minimum wage for the work they do. Earlier this year a local gangmaster was prosecuted for destroying payslips to allow him to underpay his workers. One employee received just £151 for five 10-hour days – less than half the national minimum wage. Another employee of the same agency worked for 20 hours over two days, but after deductions were made from his pay packet he was shown to be in debt.
Local politicians are angry with the factories for outsourcing recruitment to agencies, enabling them to turn a blind eye to abuses.
Virginia Bucknor, an independent town and district councillor, representing the deprived Waterlees ward, says: “They are taken advantage of quite appallingly. A lot of agencies are employed by these factories, which are international organisations; when they employ agency workers, the agency pays the employees. Why does the factory decide to employ via the agency? It’s so they can say: any issue, not my problem. I’ve seen employees from eastern Europe receive £7, after deductions, after doing a full week’s work. Deductions are made for transport from eastern Europe, for housing, which is often in an HMO, sometimes bed-sharing, over the shifts.“My concern is that companies absolve themselves from responsibility because they are taking them on via agencies.”
Anita Grodkiewicz, who works for the local Rosmini centre, which offers support to migrant workers, says it isn’t just those who work for illegal, exploitative gangmasters who are being mistreated. Even migrants who work for legitimate employers are expected to take on ever more unpalatable patterns of work.
“What happens now is that you get a phone call at 5 o’clock in the morning, telling you to be at the BP station at 6am. When you get there at 6am there will be eight of you. Maybe only two of you will get on the bus, the rest will be sent home. You will get to the factory and when you get there, you may be sitting there for four hours, six hours, and you’ll only be paid for two hours, and out of that you pay your transport,” she says. “The people who come from central and eastern Europe have come thousands of miles to work, and that is their primary reason for being here. If you’ve come all this way to work, you’re accepting of conditions that most English people wouldn’t accept. These are the issues the central/eastern Europeans are facing. The agencies are morally exploiting them. Because you are a seasonal worker, just before Mother’s Day, just before Easter, they need lots and lots of people to pick flowers. So they need 500 people on their books, maybe, but for the rest of the year, they don’t need to employ those 500 people, but they need to keep them on their books, until they do, so they’ll give out some hours to each person. This results in migrant workers rarely knowing how many hours work they will get each week. “If you are working for an agency and you don’t know if you are going to have 70 hours this week or seven hours it is very difficult to budget. If this week they’ve only had seven hours and they still have to find £70 a week rent, it could well be that they share their room. It’s a case of survival.”
Agencies have created a downward push on the quality of work available, making it very difficult to accept the terms and conditions offered. It is very hard for anyone with dependent children to manage the uncertainty about times and lengths of shifts.
A recent government-commissioned report by the Migration Advisory Committee on the impact of low-skilled migration to the UK analysed the pattern of exploitation of migrant workers in Wisbech. Researchers said they found “clear evidence” of “exploitation of migrants, and on a relatively large scale”. The process begins in eastern Europe, where companies advertise the life migrants can expect to lead in the UK, and charge between £300 and £600 to bring them here. “Migrants are dropped off outside a petrol station, and then brought by a minibus to an overcrowded house,” the report states. “Upon arrival, the migrants are immediately charged rent, perhaps as much as three weeks’ worth in advance, so they are immediately in debt. Their passport may also be confiscated and may be used to commit identity fraud. They are also discouraged from getting a UK bank account as this means that the exploiters have more control over them.
“If they are in work, then they are often paid less than the minimum wage. This is achieved through illegal deductions from their pay including transport, food and rent ... this keeps people poor and reliant on the exploiter.”
Police and council officials are increasingly concerned about exploitation of the new workers. Because poor housing and labour exploitation are usually linked, they use regular housing inspections of the town’s many houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) as a way of investigating trafficking and exploitation.
Vera (not her real name) works in East Anglia, sometimes picking broccoli, sometimes wrapping the flowers that go on sale at petrol stations, sometimes packing up fruit for supermarkets. She came here three years ago from Lithuania. She won’t say much except that she is not happy, that she used to get more work, but now is being given very little to do. Council officers interviewed her, during an unannounced visit to the dilapidated house where she rents a room alongside at least nine other eastern European migrant workers.
“No passport, no contract agreement, no payslips – that’s pretty standard. The fact she didn’t know who she was working for, or how much she earned, didn’t know the name of the factory where she worked was worrying. There may be an intimidation aspect that we have come across in other operations. We know people get into trouble for talking,” one of the council officers says, That’s probably the worst I have seen. Nine people sharing a kitchen. It’s unsafe, unhygienic. They have no choice who they share with, don’t even know who they’re sharing with,” council officer Jo Evans says. Each tenant is paying £50 a week rent, making a total of £1,800 for the month, for a house that is in very poor condition. “The rent on that house should be £600 a month, maximum.”
Sarah Gove, housing and communities manager with the council, has been working on Operation Pheasant for a couple of years and still finds it distressing. “People come over on the promise of a job. They have their passports removed, and they are put into hub accommodation, with people they don’t know. Usually they are told there is no work, so they immediately find themselves in debt bondage. They are told, you owe me for accommodation, you owe me for food. We believe there is collusion between landlords and the agents. The migrants are being moved around all the time. They will move from the hub property to an HMO, which is where you start to get complaints from neighbours about noise and litter.” She has come across women who have been forced into sham marriages, and women who have been told they must sell their organs to pay off debts to the people who brought them here.
When work dries up, migrant workers are unable to afford food and rent. Police have found encampments hidden alongside the nearby A47, built from pieces of tarpaulin. “We have noticed a trend change from people nicking alcohol, to people nicking food. If it was organised it would be high value objects, like DVDs, but they are taking chicken breasts, meat, fish, which suggests their salaries are being cut to a point where they can’t afford meat,” police officer Nick Webber, of Operation Pheasant, says. Police are investigating a spate of five suicides by eastern European males aged between 20 and 35 over the past year around the town. “There can be quite a quick downward spiral when you lose your job,” Webber says.
From here
Local politicians are angry with the factories for outsourcing recruitment to agencies, enabling them to turn a blind eye to abuses.
Virginia Bucknor, an independent town and district councillor, representing the deprived Waterlees ward, says: “They are taken advantage of quite appallingly. A lot of agencies are employed by these factories, which are international organisations; when they employ agency workers, the agency pays the employees. Why does the factory decide to employ via the agency? It’s so they can say: any issue, not my problem. I’ve seen employees from eastern Europe receive £7, after deductions, after doing a full week’s work. Deductions are made for transport from eastern Europe, for housing, which is often in an HMO, sometimes bed-sharing, over the shifts.“My concern is that companies absolve themselves from responsibility because they are taking them on via agencies.”
Anita Grodkiewicz, who works for the local Rosmini centre, which offers support to migrant workers, says it isn’t just those who work for illegal, exploitative gangmasters who are being mistreated. Even migrants who work for legitimate employers are expected to take on ever more unpalatable patterns of work.
“What happens now is that you get a phone call at 5 o’clock in the morning, telling you to be at the BP station at 6am. When you get there at 6am there will be eight of you. Maybe only two of you will get on the bus, the rest will be sent home. You will get to the factory and when you get there, you may be sitting there for four hours, six hours, and you’ll only be paid for two hours, and out of that you pay your transport,” she says. “The people who come from central and eastern Europe have come thousands of miles to work, and that is their primary reason for being here. If you’ve come all this way to work, you’re accepting of conditions that most English people wouldn’t accept. These are the issues the central/eastern Europeans are facing. The agencies are morally exploiting them. Because you are a seasonal worker, just before Mother’s Day, just before Easter, they need lots and lots of people to pick flowers. So they need 500 people on their books, maybe, but for the rest of the year, they don’t need to employ those 500 people, but they need to keep them on their books, until they do, so they’ll give out some hours to each person. This results in migrant workers rarely knowing how many hours work they will get each week. “If you are working for an agency and you don’t know if you are going to have 70 hours this week or seven hours it is very difficult to budget. If this week they’ve only had seven hours and they still have to find £70 a week rent, it could well be that they share their room. It’s a case of survival.”
Agencies have created a downward push on the quality of work available, making it very difficult to accept the terms and conditions offered. It is very hard for anyone with dependent children to manage the uncertainty about times and lengths of shifts.
A recent government-commissioned report by the Migration Advisory Committee on the impact of low-skilled migration to the UK analysed the pattern of exploitation of migrant workers in Wisbech. Researchers said they found “clear evidence” of “exploitation of migrants, and on a relatively large scale”. The process begins in eastern Europe, where companies advertise the life migrants can expect to lead in the UK, and charge between £300 and £600 to bring them here. “Migrants are dropped off outside a petrol station, and then brought by a minibus to an overcrowded house,” the report states. “Upon arrival, the migrants are immediately charged rent, perhaps as much as three weeks’ worth in advance, so they are immediately in debt. Their passport may also be confiscated and may be used to commit identity fraud. They are also discouraged from getting a UK bank account as this means that the exploiters have more control over them.
“If they are in work, then they are often paid less than the minimum wage. This is achieved through illegal deductions from their pay including transport, food and rent ... this keeps people poor and reliant on the exploiter.”
Police and council officials are increasingly concerned about exploitation of the new workers. Because poor housing and labour exploitation are usually linked, they use regular housing inspections of the town’s many houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) as a way of investigating trafficking and exploitation.
Vera (not her real name) works in East Anglia, sometimes picking broccoli, sometimes wrapping the flowers that go on sale at petrol stations, sometimes packing up fruit for supermarkets. She came here three years ago from Lithuania. She won’t say much except that she is not happy, that she used to get more work, but now is being given very little to do. Council officers interviewed her, during an unannounced visit to the dilapidated house where she rents a room alongside at least nine other eastern European migrant workers.
“No passport, no contract agreement, no payslips – that’s pretty standard. The fact she didn’t know who she was working for, or how much she earned, didn’t know the name of the factory where she worked was worrying. There may be an intimidation aspect that we have come across in other operations. We know people get into trouble for talking,” one of the council officers says, That’s probably the worst I have seen. Nine people sharing a kitchen. It’s unsafe, unhygienic. They have no choice who they share with, don’t even know who they’re sharing with,” council officer Jo Evans says. Each tenant is paying £50 a week rent, making a total of £1,800 for the month, for a house that is in very poor condition. “The rent on that house should be £600 a month, maximum.”
Sarah Gove, housing and communities manager with the council, has been working on Operation Pheasant for a couple of years and still finds it distressing. “People come over on the promise of a job. They have their passports removed, and they are put into hub accommodation, with people they don’t know. Usually they are told there is no work, so they immediately find themselves in debt bondage. They are told, you owe me for accommodation, you owe me for food. We believe there is collusion between landlords and the agents. The migrants are being moved around all the time. They will move from the hub property to an HMO, which is where you start to get complaints from neighbours about noise and litter.” She has come across women who have been forced into sham marriages, and women who have been told they must sell their organs to pay off debts to the people who brought them here.
When work dries up, migrant workers are unable to afford food and rent. Police have found encampments hidden alongside the nearby A47, built from pieces of tarpaulin. “We have noticed a trend change from people nicking alcohol, to people nicking food. If it was organised it would be high value objects, like DVDs, but they are taking chicken breasts, meat, fish, which suggests their salaries are being cut to a point where they can’t afford meat,” police officer Nick Webber, of Operation Pheasant, says. Police are investigating a spate of five suicides by eastern European males aged between 20 and 35 over the past year around the town. “There can be quite a quick downward spiral when you lose your job,” Webber says.
From here
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