Dire wages, poor working conditions and long hours are a fact of life for seasonal workers. Michael Barker joined a GLA investigation to find out just how tough conditions are under the gangmasters
It's a cold, clear autumn morning in a vegetable field in Lincolnshire. Decked out in a bright yellow jacket and armed with leaflets in Punjabi, I'm walking with three Gangmasters' Licensing Authority officers towards a group of Indian workers busily harvesting their way through line upon line of produce.
When we have the workers' attention, a GLA member gently quizzes the pickers about their working conditions. One of the English-speaking workers claims they are paid £2.25 for each box of produce they harvest. Given that it takes them up to two hours to do a box, that means they are earning as little as a quarter of the national minimum wage. Worse, they are not given payslips, must buy their own equipment and work unsupervised.
Sounds shocking? Unfortunately, sub-standard wages, overlong hours and unsavoury working conditions are a reality of life for many of the workers who pick and pack our fruit and vegetables for us, as I discovered last month, when I was given a rare opportunity to join a GLA enforcement team as it embarked on Operation Ajax, an intensive week of investigations across Lincolnshire.
Tracing responsibility
The very word gangmaster evokes a sense of work conditions that are Dickensian in their squalor - a sense that was accentuated in February 2004 with the death of 21 illegal Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay. The GLA was set up in 2005 in the wake of the tragedy to stop such extreme abuses, but its remit also covers everything from preventing people working over-long hours to being transported in unroadworthy vehicles and even weeding out paperwork errors.
For Jayne and Mary (I was asked not to reveal their surnames) and GLA head of operations (east), Neil Court, it's all in a day's work. Having identified potential mistreatment of the Punjabi workers, the team must now trace the gangmaster, gather evidence, interview more workers and put together a dossier of alleged abuse before the file can finally be dropped on a solicitor's desk.
It is an investigation that could take them across the country, between Government departments and to the doors of a number of potential perpetrators. But hearing a worker speak out against his conditions is a start - and any start, as far as these crusaders of workers' rights are concerned, is a good start.
Particularly today. After the worker speaks out, a man approaches who identifies himself as the owner of the field. Geoff (not his real name) immediately tries to wash his hands of all responsibility for the workers. "It's nothing to do with me, is it," he says incredibly. "They earn good money. All I'm bothered about is that the gangmaster has a licence."
He claims he pays the gangmaster between £3.20 and £3.40 for each box of produce the workers supply and is adamant conditions on his farm are acceptable. "If they weren't treated correctly they wouldn't come, would they? Indians don't do that," he insists breezily.
What he says seems unacceptable, but actually Geoff may not be doing anything illegal. A quick phone call confirms that the gangmaster is licensed. This is where we enter a moral grey area. Yes, Geoff has made sure he has hired a licensed gangmaster, to whom he pays an agreed rate. That's his legal obligation met, but to what extent should he then take an interest in the workers' treatment?
Geoff's assessment of the way the workers are treated is, unsurprisingly, somewhat different to what we've heard from the pickers themselves. According to Geoff, they are well paid, well treated and happy to be there.
Our impression is different, but that doesn't mean to say, when measured up against the workers' previous experiences of employment, that Geoff is wrong. After all, from the brief meeting we have had with the workers, it is impossible to glean enough about their lives to gauge how much better or worse their current circumstances are now than before they worked on the farm.
It would be all too easy to view the owner of this farm as a morally vacuous individual only out for his own gain, but listening to his protestations one wonders whether he is really to blame for all this. Geoff says he pays the gangmaster nearly half of what he receives from his customers, which include a major supermarket chain. The remaining half needs to pay for all his production costs from buying seeds and fertiliser to paying for fuel, he argues. And that's before he takes a cut for himself. Is he the villain of the piece or another of the victims?
I'm impressed with the team's approach in what is clearly a very sensitive position. Jayne and Mary take a conciliatory but questioning line with Geoff. They are keen not to come across as officious, and take care not to point any accusatory fingers. Earlier, they had explained to me that, when not wearing the yellow jackets, they prefer to wear nothing smarter than t-shirts as workers are more likely to open up to them than if they turned up in suits.
People-facing organisation
The GLA is a people-facing organisation, and meeting and judging characters is central to its work. Everywhere it goes, it encounters good people, bad people and people in situations they'd rather not be in. The organisation, to my surprise, is predominantly manned not by Government pen-pushers or career suits, but by former law enforcement personnel and individuals with food industry expertise.
Jayne worked for Geest for a decade as a factory supervisor dealing with anything from 40 to 160 temporary staff at any one time before joining the GLA three years ago. Mary, by contrast, worked as a criminal investigator at HM Revenue & Customs. This makes the pair a formidable combination for weeding out troublemakers in the food industry.
The agency's 24 enforcement officers are aided and abetted by a team of intelligence analysts, many of whom have joined from the police, who sift through evidence and decide what leads to pursue.
The GLA operation is surprisingly fast-moving - throughout the day Court's phone rings with new information or developments that need following up. Tactics combine pursuing leads from tipsters, carrying out random checks and targeting areas where questionable practices are thought to be taking place.
The GLA could measure its success in prosecutions - so far 76 licences have been revoked, with 1,200 gangmasters licensed in total - but the team insists its role is as much about helping gangmasters improve the quality of their operations as it is about shutting them down.
Yes, where there are instances of extreme mistreatment of workers, they will do all they can to remove their licence. But where there are cases that can be resolved peacefully by showing operators how to do things properly, they give them the chance to do so.
"It's nice when you can work with labour providers who can bring themselves up to standard and flourish," explains Mary. "Lots of them are trying to do the right thing but can't get the paperwork right. It's the rogue gangmasters that we want to get rid of."
In Lincolnshire, the team are plotting their next move. Having obtained the name of the gangmaster from Geoff, the next task is to arrange a raid on the gangmaster's HQ. That will take place on another day, but there is still more work to do here as they insist on inspecting the vehicle used to transport the workers to and from the field. This involves a short drive, which gives me an opportunity to gather the team's thoughts on what we've heard so far.
"I've met so many people like Geoff," says Court. "It's the old way of working in Lincolnshire. That's a typical reaction we get - they claim to be fully supportive of what we do, but it's never their fault when the workers are treated badly. Is he really a responsible labour user? The workers are clearly the last things on his mind. I appreciate he has his own pressures, but that comes at a price for the worker."
The van, it turns out, is in good condition, which lends credence to Geoff's argument that he is holding up his end of the bargain. That brings the first investigation to an end, for now at least, and the team reflect on the operation so far. It's clear they feel the job is only just beginning in terms of this particular gangmaster.
Compliance
Attention swiftly turns to the next job - an unannounced compliance inspection of a fresh produce company that's not been visited before. This looks to be a less exciting part of the day, although as before there is no knowing what we might find.
As it turns out, things quickly get interesting again. At the factory, where seasonal workers from countries as widespread as Latvia, Portugal and even Iraq are packing fresh produce, we receive a warm welcome and are given direct access to the staff.
The GLA's remit here is to ensure that the gangmaster has placed the workers in a safe environment, and that they are being properly paid and treated by their employers.
The first three workers are interviewed without incident, even if the services of a telephone interpreter are needed. No, they aren't forced to work too long hours. Yes, they are paid properly and are given payslips. No, they have no complaints, even if they aren't aware of how much holiday they are entitled to. The team considers leaving it there and giving the gangmaster a clean bill of health.
None of the workers are particularly forthcoming, and I get the impression that the GLA is still viewed with suspicion, despite the leaflets in their own languages and the disarming way the team goes about its business.
But then a call comes in from another GLA officer, who says he is investigating a gangmaster that also has workers at our location. So another few names are picked out and the workers are brought in one by one to be interviewed.
At first this yields nothing new, but the team decide to bring in one last group of workers. One of them comes in and says she is prepared to risk the sack to speak up about the poor treatment they are getting from their gangmaster.
Bullying
The worker launches into an astonishing tirade during which she claims her gangmaster bullies the workers, doesn't allow them time off, gives them only minimal breaks and no special training on site. The team diligently notes down the complaints, gently probing for more information.
Although the rest of the group agree that their treatment is shoddy, the team wonders whether the worker's youth - and that of her young colleagues - is leading her to exaggerate her allegations. Still, the GLA outlines some of the concerns with the company's bosses, and resolves to continue investigating the gangmaster further.
And so what has been an eye-opening day finally ends. It's hard, of course, to find an employee in any industry who doesn't have some criticism of their bosses, but petty grievances pale into insignificance when compared with some of the stories of worker abuse I heard today. I'm even left wondering if this is just the tip of the iceberg.
As for the GLA, it is clear its staff are passionate about their work. Everything the organisation does impacts upon people, sometimes in life-changing ways, but not always in a positive way for the individual. If a GLA investigation uncovers an illegal worker being underpaid, and that worker then ends up being deported back to his homeland, is he going to be thankful for the intervention?
It's also easy to paint gangmasters as comic-book villains who are all out for personal gain at the expense of powerless migrant labour. No doubt the majority of gangmasters are trying to do the right thing and treat the workers with the respect they deserve. But there is still a significant minority that is flouting the law and taking advantage of its vulnerable workforce.
And it's this minority that GLA chairman Paul Whitehouse is determined to stamp out. "It'll be a foolish person who believes they can get away with mistreating their workers," he tells me following the investigation.
The employment of seasonal labour is a complex and sometimes murky world, but a world in which some things are absolutely transparent. We would pour criticism on third world nations using some of the employment practices the GLA uncover on a regular basis, and yet here are examples of these things happening in 21st century Britain.
These are issues that are not always at the forefront of our minds when we stand in supermarkets choosing our shopping, but maybe it's time they were. At least now there is an organisation fighting for the workers' rights, and maybe in time the number of people like those we found today working long hours for minimal recompense can be greatly reduced.
It's a cold, clear autumn morning in a vegetable field in Lincolnshire. Decked out in a bright yellow jacket and armed with leaflets in Punjabi, I'm walking with three Gangmasters' Licensing Authority officers towards a group of Indian workers busily harvesting their way through line upon line of produce.
When we have the workers' attention, a GLA member gently quizzes the pickers about their working conditions. One of the English-speaking workers claims they are paid £2.25 for each box of produce they harvest. Given that it takes them up to two hours to do a box, that means they are earning as little as a quarter of the national minimum wage. Worse, they are not given payslips, must buy their own equipment and work unsupervised.
Sounds shocking? Unfortunately, sub-standard wages, overlong hours and unsavoury working conditions are a reality of life for many of the workers who pick and pack our fruit and vegetables for us, as I discovered last month, when I was given a rare opportunity to join a GLA enforcement team as it embarked on Operation Ajax, an intensive week of investigations across Lincolnshire.
Supermarkets
This year has heralded a new era of co-operation as the GLA and supermarkets pledge to work more closely together. The two sides are currently negotiating a written protocol, expected to be signed after Christmas, to cement the relationship.
The new collaboration is likely to include: joint surprise inspections of suppliers’ farms and factories; enhanced supermarket audits to include points on worker treatment; exchange of knowledge between GLA and retailers on non-compliance; a requirement for primary suppliers to pass their gangmasters’ details on to the GLA annually; and joint press statements from the GLA and retailers.
I was only with the team for a day, but it was a day that shattered many of my preconceptions and, despite the obvious abuses taking place, painted a much more morally ambiguous picture of the supposed perpetrators - the gangmasters - than I was expecting.This year has heralded a new era of co-operation as the GLA and supermarkets pledge to work more closely together. The two sides are currently negotiating a written protocol, expected to be signed after Christmas, to cement the relationship.
The new collaboration is likely to include: joint surprise inspections of suppliers’ farms and factories; enhanced supermarket audits to include points on worker treatment; exchange of knowledge between GLA and retailers on non-compliance; a requirement for primary suppliers to pass their gangmasters’ details on to the GLA annually; and joint press statements from the GLA and retailers.
Tracing responsibility
The very word gangmaster evokes a sense of work conditions that are Dickensian in their squalor - a sense that was accentuated in February 2004 with the death of 21 illegal Chinese cockle pickers at Morecambe Bay. The GLA was set up in 2005 in the wake of the tragedy to stop such extreme abuses, but its remit also covers everything from preventing people working over-long hours to being transported in unroadworthy vehicles and even weeding out paperwork errors.
For Jayne and Mary (I was asked not to reveal their surnames) and GLA head of operations (east), Neil Court, it's all in a day's work. Having identified potential mistreatment of the Punjabi workers, the team must now trace the gangmaster, gather evidence, interview more workers and put together a dossier of alleged abuse before the file can finally be dropped on a solicitor's desk.
It is an investigation that could take them across the country, between Government departments and to the doors of a number of potential perpetrators. But hearing a worker speak out against his conditions is a start - and any start, as far as these crusaders of workers' rights are concerned, is a good start.
Particularly today. After the worker speaks out, a man approaches who identifies himself as the owner of the field. Geoff (not his real name) immediately tries to wash his hands of all responsibility for the workers. "It's nothing to do with me, is it," he says incredibly. "They earn good money. All I'm bothered about is that the gangmaster has a licence."
He claims he pays the gangmaster between £3.20 and £3.40 for each box of produce the workers supply and is adamant conditions on his farm are acceptable. "If they weren't treated correctly they wouldn't come, would they? Indians don't do that," he insists breezily.
What he says seems unacceptable, but actually Geoff may not be doing anything illegal. A quick phone call confirms that the gangmaster is licensed. This is where we enter a moral grey area. Yes, Geoff has made sure he has hired a licensed gangmaster, to whom he pays an agreed rate. That's his legal obligation met, but to what extent should he then take an interest in the workers' treatment?
Geoff's assessment of the way the workers are treated is, unsurprisingly, somewhat different to what we've heard from the pickers themselves. According to Geoff, they are well paid, well treated and happy to be there.
Our impression is different, but that doesn't mean to say, when measured up against the workers' previous experiences of employment, that Geoff is wrong. After all, from the brief meeting we have had with the workers, it is impossible to glean enough about their lives to gauge how much better or worse their current circumstances are now than before they worked on the farm.
It would be all too easy to view the owner of this farm as a morally vacuous individual only out for his own gain, but listening to his protestations one wonders whether he is really to blame for all this. Geoff says he pays the gangmaster nearly half of what he receives from his customers, which include a major supermarket chain. The remaining half needs to pay for all his production costs from buying seeds and fertiliser to paying for fuel, he argues. And that's before he takes a cut for himself. Is he the villain of the piece or another of the victims?
I'm impressed with the team's approach in what is clearly a very sensitive position. Jayne and Mary take a conciliatory but questioning line with Geoff. They are keen not to come across as officious, and take care not to point any accusatory fingers. Earlier, they had explained to me that, when not wearing the yellow jackets, they prefer to wear nothing smarter than t-shirts as workers are more likely to open up to them than if they turned up in suits.
People-facing organisation
The GLA is a people-facing organisation, and meeting and judging characters is central to its work. Everywhere it goes, it encounters good people, bad people and people in situations they'd rather not be in. The organisation, to my surprise, is predominantly manned not by Government pen-pushers or career suits, but by former law enforcement personnel and individuals with food industry expertise.
Jayne worked for Geest for a decade as a factory supervisor dealing with anything from 40 to 160 temporary staff at any one time before joining the GLA three years ago. Mary, by contrast, worked as a criminal investigator at HM Revenue & Customs. This makes the pair a formidable combination for weeding out troublemakers in the food industry.
The agency's 24 enforcement officers are aided and abetted by a team of intelligence analysts, many of whom have joined from the police, who sift through evidence and decide what leads to pursue.
The GLA operation is surprisingly fast-moving - throughout the day Court's phone rings with new information or developments that need following up. Tactics combine pursuing leads from tipsters, carrying out random checks and targeting areas where questionable practices are thought to be taking place.
The GLA could measure its success in prosecutions - so far 76 licences have been revoked, with 1,200 gangmasters licensed in total - but the team insists its role is as much about helping gangmasters improve the quality of their operations as it is about shutting them down.
Yes, where there are instances of extreme mistreatment of workers, they will do all they can to remove their licence. But where there are cases that can be resolved peacefully by showing operators how to do things properly, they give them the chance to do so.
"It's nice when you can work with labour providers who can bring themselves up to standard and flourish," explains Mary. "Lots of them are trying to do the right thing but can't get the paperwork right. It's the rogue gangmasters that we want to get rid of."
In Lincolnshire, the team are plotting their next move. Having obtained the name of the gangmaster from Geoff, the next task is to arrange a raid on the gangmaster's HQ. That will take place on another day, but there is still more work to do here as they insist on inspecting the vehicle used to transport the workers to and from the field. This involves a short drive, which gives me an opportunity to gather the team's thoughts on what we've heard so far.
"I've met so many people like Geoff," says Court. "It's the old way of working in Lincolnshire. That's a typical reaction we get - they claim to be fully supportive of what we do, but it's never their fault when the workers are treated badly. Is he really a responsible labour user? The workers are clearly the last things on his mind. I appreciate he has his own pressures, but that comes at a price for the worker."
The seasonal worker problem
The Government's handling of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme - which is due to be phased out by 2010 - has been hugely criticised within the fresh produce industry.
Growers have repeatedly claimed that the Home Office is making it incredibly difficult for them to go about their business. Talk of crops rotting in fields as a consequence of the scheme's withdrawal is not an overstatement, growers' representatives claim. Last month, an NFU survey estimated the UK fresh produce industry had lost £13m so far this season as a result of migrant labour restrictions.
The Government is accused of failing to grasp that UK employers are simply unable to recruit British workers to carry out repetitive tasks such as picking crops in fields. They just won't do it, and certainly not for the minimum wage levels many growers struggle to afford. And neither, increasingly, will eastern European nationals as they find themselves able to earn more elsewhere in the European Union.
There are other problems too. According to GLA head of operations (east) Neil Court, some companies are starting to make use of unauthorised workers from countries not seen previously in the UK. Somalians and Nepalese are now appearing in British fields and are so desperate for work that they are prepared to buy false documents or accept far less money for their services than they should.
As the deadline approaches for the removal of SAWS, the pressure on the Government to balance its desire to curb immigration with the needs of the food industry is only going to intensify.
Court laments the fact that in the food chain everyone takes their cut and the last person to get a share is the temporary worker. Should the supermarkets one day decide to double prices, he wonders whether the workers would get paid more, or whether each element further up the chain would just take a larger piece of the pie.The Government's handling of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme - which is due to be phased out by 2010 - has been hugely criticised within the fresh produce industry.
Growers have repeatedly claimed that the Home Office is making it incredibly difficult for them to go about their business. Talk of crops rotting in fields as a consequence of the scheme's withdrawal is not an overstatement, growers' representatives claim. Last month, an NFU survey estimated the UK fresh produce industry had lost £13m so far this season as a result of migrant labour restrictions.
The Government is accused of failing to grasp that UK employers are simply unable to recruit British workers to carry out repetitive tasks such as picking crops in fields. They just won't do it, and certainly not for the minimum wage levels many growers struggle to afford. And neither, increasingly, will eastern European nationals as they find themselves able to earn more elsewhere in the European Union.
There are other problems too. According to GLA head of operations (east) Neil Court, some companies are starting to make use of unauthorised workers from countries not seen previously in the UK. Somalians and Nepalese are now appearing in British fields and are so desperate for work that they are prepared to buy false documents or accept far less money for their services than they should.
As the deadline approaches for the removal of SAWS, the pressure on the Government to balance its desire to curb immigration with the needs of the food industry is only going to intensify.
The van, it turns out, is in good condition, which lends credence to Geoff's argument that he is holding up his end of the bargain. That brings the first investigation to an end, for now at least, and the team reflect on the operation so far. It's clear they feel the job is only just beginning in terms of this particular gangmaster.
Compliance
Attention swiftly turns to the next job - an unannounced compliance inspection of a fresh produce company that's not been visited before. This looks to be a less exciting part of the day, although as before there is no knowing what we might find.
As it turns out, things quickly get interesting again. At the factory, where seasonal workers from countries as widespread as Latvia, Portugal and even Iraq are packing fresh produce, we receive a warm welcome and are given direct access to the staff.
The GLA's remit here is to ensure that the gangmaster has placed the workers in a safe environment, and that they are being properly paid and treated by their employers.
The first three workers are interviewed without incident, even if the services of a telephone interpreter are needed. No, they aren't forced to work too long hours. Yes, they are paid properly and are given payslips. No, they have no complaints, even if they aren't aware of how much holiday they are entitled to. The team considers leaving it there and giving the gangmaster a clean bill of health.
None of the workers are particularly forthcoming, and I get the impression that the GLA is still viewed with suspicion, despite the leaflets in their own languages and the disarming way the team goes about its business.
But then a call comes in from another GLA officer, who says he is investigating a gangmaster that also has workers at our location. So another few names are picked out and the workers are brought in one by one to be interviewed.
At first this yields nothing new, but the team decide to bring in one last group of workers. One of them comes in and says she is prepared to risk the sack to speak up about the poor treatment they are getting from their gangmaster.
Bullying
The worker launches into an astonishing tirade during which she claims her gangmaster bullies the workers, doesn't allow them time off, gives them only minimal breaks and no special training on site. The team diligently notes down the complaints, gently probing for more information.
Although the rest of the group agree that their treatment is shoddy, the team wonders whether the worker's youth - and that of her young colleagues - is leading her to exaggerate her allegations. Still, the GLA outlines some of the concerns with the company's bosses, and resolves to continue investigating the gangmaster further.
And so what has been an eye-opening day finally ends. It's hard, of course, to find an employee in any industry who doesn't have some criticism of their bosses, but petty grievances pale into insignificance when compared with some of the stories of worker abuse I heard today. I'm even left wondering if this is just the tip of the iceberg.
As for the GLA, it is clear its staff are passionate about their work. Everything the organisation does impacts upon people, sometimes in life-changing ways, but not always in a positive way for the individual. If a GLA investigation uncovers an illegal worker being underpaid, and that worker then ends up being deported back to his homeland, is he going to be thankful for the intervention?
It's also easy to paint gangmasters as comic-book villains who are all out for personal gain at the expense of powerless migrant labour. No doubt the majority of gangmasters are trying to do the right thing and treat the workers with the respect they deserve. But there is still a significant minority that is flouting the law and taking advantage of its vulnerable workforce.
And it's this minority that GLA chairman Paul Whitehouse is determined to stamp out. "It'll be a foolish person who believes they can get away with mistreating their workers," he tells me following the investigation.
The employment of seasonal labour is a complex and sometimes murky world, but a world in which some things are absolutely transparent. We would pour criticism on third world nations using some of the employment practices the GLA uncover on a regular basis, and yet here are examples of these things happening in 21st century Britain.
These are issues that are not always at the forefront of our minds when we stand in supermarkets choosing our shopping, but maybe it's time they were. At least now there is an organisation fighting for the workers' rights, and maybe in time the number of people like those we found today working long hours for minimal recompense can be greatly reduced.
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