Recruitment company Ethero has had its seasonal worker licence revoked, The Grocer understands.
The company, which had its licence suspended in May, is no longer present on the approved operator list.
Ethero said it had been deemed to pose a threat to UK immigration rules by the Home Office. However, the operator strongly denies the claims – and said it had proven its case to UK Visas & Immigration (UKVI).
The Shropshire-based operator said that “to the day of our licence revocation, our operation was working fully within the key contractual measures that were in place between us and UKVI/Home Office”.
“The Home Office/UKVI seasonal worker team is neither motivated nor competent to protect and serve the country or the needs of the horticultural sector,” said Gareth Hughes, Ethero group MD. “It sits with powers way beyond those that it should have, and is a danger to the UK food supply chain and the very immigration measures it is supposed to protect.”
According to the Ethero team, the revocation was based on different interpretations of the 32-hours pay rule. “It derives from what is a very poorly worded, ambiguous and ill-thought-out piece of lawmaking,” said Hughes.
While the Home Office believes workers should be guaranteed 32 hours of work every week, the operators and the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee interpret the rule as stipulating an average of 32 hours a week.
Guaranteeing the same number of hours every week can be particularly tricky amid issues such as this year’s bad weather. For example, Ethero had partnered with a daffodil grower that had significantly lower yields than expected, meaning workers were released a lot earlier than expected. The follow-on farm secured by Ethero also cancelled its order.
“This meant we had to find new jobs for the affected workers during the quietest time in the UK horticulture season, when weather conditions were so bad that the UK planting season was delayed by up to six weeks,” said Hughes.
Read more: UK seasonal worker operator is suspended
Ethero offered a worker subsistence program while they were unemployed, offering to support workers with the cost of returning home if that was their choice or to pay affected workers accommodation costs, gas, electric and £75 per week towards food until a new placement was found.
Hughes claims it was the first subsistence programme of its type and was “readily and happily taken up by the affected workers”.
The subsequent licence revocation showed the UKVI seasonal worker team failed to understand farming, argued Hughes. They “think that applying a low-bar rulebook to mother nature will somehow make the effects of weather and of crop failure or any of the thousands of daily inputs that go into farming simply vanish overnight”, he said.
Other operators were also affected in the same way at the time, he said, but no other operator has been suspended or revoked.
“The seasonal worker team at the Home Office have, in my opinion, an arrogant approach to their daily work,” said Hughes. “There is a clear climate of fear amongst the operators who have invested heavily to be able to deliver the scheme and live under constant threat of losing their operator licence, when they know how competent and knowledgeable they are about the scheme and sector compared to those who govern it in the Home Office.”
Read more: Farming sector welcomes recommendations on Seasonal Worker scheme
Ethero maintains it had everyone into secondary jobs as “quickly as humanly possible” and that its licence was only suspended after this had happened.
“We now face the challenge of repairing our reputation due to the natural questions customers, competitors, workers, the media and everyone else in the middle will have when we know we have not failed and that we certainly haven’t damaged UK immigration,” said Hughes.
The Home Office does not comment on individual cases, however a spokesman told The Grocer: “We do not tolerate abuse in the labour market and sponsors must meet their obligations to workers or potentially face removal from the sponsorship register.
“We have a set of published requirements for organisations holding a sponsorship licence that make clear those who benefit directly from migration are responsible for ensuring the immigration system is not abused,” the spokesman added. “Decisive action will be taken if sponsors break the rules.”
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