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Temporary Labour Working Group
The Temporary Labour Working Group, a consortium of major UK food retailers, growers, suppliers, labour providers and trade unions, was set up in September 2002, convened by the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), with co-operation from the UK government.
Retailers involved included Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Marks and Spencer, Morrison’s, Somerfield, Asda and the Co-op and food manufacturers Mack Mulitples and Premier Foods. Trade Union members included National Farmers’ Union, Trades Union Congress Transport and General Workers’ Union. Trade Body members included the Association of Labour Providers (May 2004 onwards) and Fresh Produce Consortium.
The aim of the working group was to establish a set of minimum standards for labour providers which could be enforced by new statutory controls. Formation of the group was prompted by the realisation that major abuses of the rights of temporary workers commonly exist in UK food production.
Impactt’s role within the TLWG included:
- Developing the audit protocol
- Training specialist auditors - through formal training, witnessed audits, regular sharing of best practice and ongoing mentoring with short feedback loops
- Quality control of audits - monthly checks on the quality of audit reports and accompanied audits
- Analysis of findings - using the audit findings to identify trends and the key challenges labour providers face. This information is passed onto labour providers so they can learn from others and make improvements before their audit
- Developing and managing the registration of labour providers
- Running a help-desk for labour providers - Impactt offered labour providers an opportunity to ask questions and give advice about the process, what they can expect from the audit and what they need to do (in practical terms) to meet the requirements of the code of practice.
- Running a help-line for workers and others who wished to whistleblow on bad practice and abuses - workers, labour providers and other members of the public have called to pass on information about abuse of workers and violation of UK legislation. Impactt compiled a central database of this information and if appropriate put workers in touch with local organisations that could help them get out of difficult situations.
By January 2006, 818 Labour Providers had registered on the Temporary Labour Working Group website. This was 75% of the total number of Labour Providers in the UK as estimated by the Gangmaster Licensing Authority. 396 of these had booked audits or consultancy and audit packages, and the results of 234 audits had been received and analysed.