Poultry sector

The largest supermarket poultry slaughtering and packing factories in the UK are increasingly dependent on low-paid migrants employed through agencies, the T&G says. The sector is dominated by three companies: Grampian, Moy Park and Bernard Matthews.

The union accuses the industry of using agency labour to bypass normal employer obligations, giving examples from Grampian and Moy Park to the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. It believes over a third of agency workers in the sector have been working for more than six months but as well as being paid less for the same work, they lose out on sick and holiday pay, it says. The union claims that at some sites up to half the workforce can be migrants from agencies.

But the companies dispute the figures. Grampian says its chicken business employs almost 4,000 people, of which 6.7% (264 people) are agency labour. It says it uses migrant agency workers "to complement its core workforce at times of peak production, for short-notice cover, and in areas where it has become difficult to recruit due to low levels of unemployment and the rural nature of facilities." Some 1,400 union members took strike action in April at Grampian factories over pay, the use of agency workers and cuts in pensions.

At Moy Park poultry factories, agency workers, most of them migrants, are paid the minimum wage and not only receive less money than permanent workers doing the same jobs but miss out on sick pay and holiday, according to the union. Moy Park said it needed agency workers to cover peaks in demand and because there was a shortage of local workers. Some 350 agency staff have joined Moy Park since January and more than 600 in the past 18 months, a spokesman said. He added that the company met all the requirements of EU law and the ethical trading code in independent audits.