Newsnight: Immigrant Workers Exploited
Last night Newsnight broadcast an investigation into the exploitation of immigrant labour in London hotels. Newsnight found that workers were being paid according to the number of rooms cleaned not hours worked. This meant that workers were regularly being paid below the £5.73 per hour minimum adult wage. Example payslips which the BBC uncovered [...]
Give me back my passport!
Reports of employers holding migrant workers’ passports are commonplace in Gulf countries. Retailers and brands, as well as human rights activists (eg Human Rights Watch) consider this to be bonded labour, but the practice is widespread in construction and manufacturing sectors.
Employers come up with a range of excuses for retaining passports. We’ve heard ‘just [...]
Impactt’s Middle East North Africa office – update
Over the past few months, as the building next door and the mercury levels inch slowly higher, Impactt’s Middle East North Africa office in Dubai has been taking shape.
The operating environment here is both an unusual and changing one. Dubai’s dramatic experience of the global recession has been widely reported and there is no [...]
Gangmaster’s Licensing laws to be extended to the construction industry
We are pleased to hear that the Gangmaster Licensing laws will be extended to the construction industry as part of a government inquiry into the number of deaths in the construction industry.
Yvette Cooper the Work and Pensions Secretary will release a report: ‘One Death too Many’ which summarises the findings of the government inquiry. [...]
The Cost of Living, in Britain and Beyond
An exploratory study published last week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation states that about one in four people in Britain are living below the minimum income standard and this is increasing as unemployment rises. The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) for Britain is based on the public’s perception of what is deemed to be a [...]