Supermarkets profit from illegal workers
19 June 2000
‘Supermarkets profit from illegal workers’
By FWi staff
SUPERMARKETS are buying produce packed by illegal workers on British farms, claims a television documentary to be shown on Monday (19 June).
Gangmasters who organise casual labour for farmers are arranging work for illegal immigrants and sometimes agree to organise false papers for them.
The claims will be made on Panorama, to be shown at 10pm on BBC1.
Investigators infiltrated workers sent to work in four large suppliers across the country, processing goods including chickens, lettuces and potatoes.
They claim that east European illegal immigrants work in factories and farms supplying Asda, Sainsbury, Iceland, Harrods, Morrisons, Aldi and the Co-ops.
Many illegal immigrants work in the UK in the hope they will be able to return home having saved money for their families, the programme will report.
Some are sold forged asylum-seeker documents and then charged to be introduced to the gangmasters who find them work.
Two Estonians told how they pay 60 per week each for a flat that has a bare concrete floor and is so cold at night that their clothes become frosted.
The suppliers and supermarkets featured in the programme claim that they had no knowledge that illegal workers are being employed.
But workers conditions are often forgotten when profits are at stake, said Don Pollard, chairman of the Rural Allied Agricultural Workers Union.
“Supermarkets dont always question who produces the goods and at what price,” he told Farmers Weekly.
Supermarkets are putting so much pressure on suppliers to meet exacting standards that farmers are sometimes forced to cut corners, added Mr Pollard.