Examination of Witnesses (Questions 131-139)
Wednesday 21 May 2003
Mr Peter Allenson, and
Mr Don Pollard
Q131 Chairman: Welcome to the Committee.
Would you like to identify yourselves for the sake of the record,
please?
Mr Allenson: Chairman, I am Peter
Allenson and I am the National Secretary for the Rural Agricultural
and Allied Trade Group of the T&G.
Mr Pollard: My name is Don Pollard
and I see I have been described as a gangmaster expert. I am not
quite sure what that means.
Q132 Chairman: It means we cannot
think of anything better.
Mr Pollard: I have been doing
research on gangmasters for some time.
Q133 Chairman: You say that many
of those who work for the unscrupulous gangmasters are recruited
from abroad especially Eastern Europe. You did a report on gangmasters
in Sussex and you described the process by which they came to
the United Kingdom via holiday destinations like Greece and then
the conditions in which they work when they got here. Would you
like to summarise for us the conditions of people who are recruited
by the dark side of this business?
Mr Pollard: Okay. If I can start
off. It depends how they are recruited. If they come in in some
legal form the treatment is a lot better than if they come in
illegally through false documents or if they come in semi-legally
by being allowed into the country as a tourist or as a student
but then become illegal when they start working. Once they are
in that position of an illegal situation then their treatment
is pretty bad. I think I have outlined the abuses in one of my
reports but if you want me to go through some of them I will gladly.
I must say, also, before I start, that the gangmaster issue is
not just an issue about illegal immigrant labour, the majority
of gangworkers are UK workers and, therefore, it is a problem
for UK workers as well as illegal workers.
Q134 Chairman: I was going to ask
you what have you estimated as the proportion of those employed
by these unscrupulous gangmasters who came illegally from abroad?
Mr Pollard: It seems to be about
30% from the results that we have seen so far from Operation Gangmaster
and raids they have had and feedback of who is legal and who is
illegal.
Q135 Chairman: In this business,
of course, there are always a lot of accusations made, and sometimes
when one says "Well, let us try and substantiate these, tie
them down" it becomes less easy to do so. What is the evidence
of workers being threatened and intimidated?
Mr Pollard: I have personal experience
myself of talking to workers who have been threatened. There was
quite a well known case that occurred in Norfolk three years ago
where somebody who spoke out to the press about the conditions
gangworkers were facing was attacked in the middle of the night
in his bedroom and beaten with metal bars. In that particular
case the gangmaster was prosecuted and sentenced to five years
in prison, but certainly verbal intimidation is a regular part
of the day for gangworkers and physical intimidation is not unknown.
Q136 Chairman: The extreme lengths
you have referred to that gangmasters are prepared to go to to
avoid responsibilities, could you give us an indication what those
are? What is encapsulated within that phrase?
Mr Pollard: They seem to operate
on two levels. There is an official level, which is above board,
where people are employed, pay taxes, are given payslips etc.
There is another level, often designated through subcontractors,
who take on workers who are off the books and who knowingly use
illegal immigrant labour or use workers who they know are on benefits.
There are two levels. Sometimes the same gangmaster might be involved
in both sides.
Q137 Mr Lepper: I think a lot of
the work about gangmasters has focused on East Anglia. I know
your union produced a report on the situation in Sussex about
three years ago.
Mr Pollard: Yes.
Q138 Mr Lepper: I wonder if you could
tell us whether since that report was produced in August 2000
you are aware of any improvements in the situation in the Sussex
area in particular?
Mr Pollard: The contact I have
in Sussex, who I have to call Operation DeepThroat, because it
is a gangmaster who tells me what is happening down there, he
claims that it is getting worse.
Q139 Mr Lepper: Worse.
Mr Pollard: One of the main gangmasters
in that area was arrested and imprisoned for VAT violations, his
firm is still operating even though he is still in prison. I know
of other cases where gangmasters are in prison. There is one in
the Birmingham area. The gangmaster is in prison, again for VAT
fraud, his firm is still operating, supplying farmers, supplying
packhouses who in turn supply supermarkets.
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