The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has revoked the licence of a firm which failed to pay agricultural workers for 35 days. They reported that 40 Bulgarian workers had to scavenge for food in the fields where they worked because Cornwall-based Baltic Work Team Ltd had not paid them. Paul Whitehouse, chairman of the GLA, said: “Revoking [...]

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From April 2009 UK workers will be entitled to a minimum of 28 days holiday. This is becuase a change in the law means that bank holidays will no longer be allowed to count as part of the 20 days’ leave guaranteed under the EU Working Time Directive. It is being introduced in phases, with [...]

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Conservative Shadow Economic Development Minister in the Welsh Assembly, David Melding, has backed the Wales TUC’s campaign to enforce the minimum wage more effectively.  The South Wales Echo reports Mr Melding’s comments that is is “unfair” that some rogue employers are cheating the system. “A fair and level playing field requires the effective enforcement of the [...]

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Kwik Save staff are still waiting to be paid – more than a month after the company went into administration.  In Scarborough,  full and part-time staff had worked for seven weeks without pay up until the store’s closure and may only receive a percentage of what they are owed when the matter is finally resolved.  The Scarborough [...]

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A new report from IPPR has shown that whilst employment in the UK has reached a record high, job quality has not been increasing at the same rate. Although the average quality of jobs in the UK has increased overall, recent evidence suggests that polarisation of employment has emerged in Britain in recent decades – [...]

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The HSE has reported that 241 people died at work last year, an 11% rise on 2006. The largest number of fatalities was on building sites where 77 people were killed – 31% more than the previous year.

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The TUC has called on Government to look at new ways of enforcing the minimum wage and finally bringing rogue employment agencies to task, in its submission to the BERR consultation on National Minimum Wage enforcement, fair arrears and enforcing temporary agency standards.   Currently, 95 per cent of employers caught underpaying the minimum wage [...]

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The BBC has reported on exploitation of staff working for a Domino’s pizza franchise in Derby. Fifteen young Hungarian workers joined the T&G section of Unite to challenge what they considered to be systematic exploitation by the franchise holder employing them. They were seeking to be treated on a par with the UK workers they worked [...]

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