Tackling worker exploitation
British Cleaning Council (BCC) Chairman, Paul Thrupp, on the important issue of ensuring workers’ rights and stopping abuse.
The BCC will shortly be helping shape a very important piece of work – the national strategy on addressing the issues concerning the exploitation of employees.
Over the coming weeks, we will be making sure the voice of the cleaning industry is heard loudly by the newly-appointed interim
Director of Labour Market Enforcement, Matthew Taylor. Mr Taylor is the man behind
the independent Taylor Review into modern working practices.
He is now leading the fight against labour market exploitation, which can include everything from underpayment of the national minimum wage all the way through to modern slavery. His role includes setting priorities for the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, along with HMRC’s minimum wage enforcement unit.
Mr Taylor has written to stakeholders, including the BCC, to share with them his outline workplan for addressing emerging issues in the labour market next year. He has invited the BCC to have a say on next year’s strategy for labour market enforcement, either by taking part in roundtable discussions or by submitting written evidence.
The BCC is not a council to miss out on an opportunity and will certainly be getting our representatives around the table with Mr Taylor and others to ensure our voice is heard. The last Labour Market Enforcement Strategy, for 2019-2020, covered three main themes:
• Prioritisation of enforcement resources. • Helping employers get it right.
• Using joint working to tackle serious and persistent non- compliance.
That strategy identified that the workers who were most at risk of being exploited were in the car washing, agricultural and care sectors.
The UK’s legal requirements around part-time and flexible working, pay and conditions are clearly very important to the cleaning sector which, in turn, is hugely important to the UK economy, as it’s worth nearly £50bn and employs over 914,000 workers.
In the last eight years, the number of companies involved in cleaning, waste, FM and landscaping services has risen from 45,970 to 63,490, and our last research report
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
showed that whilst 19% of employees working across the four sectors are foreign born, this rises to 28% within commercial cleaning.
Whilst I’m sure there is no exploitation within our industry, we’re not naïve enough to think that it could never happen, so we welcome the chance to influence a national policy which could in turn impact on our sector.
As the voice of the cleaning sector, our aim at the BCC is also to ensure our cleaning sector colleagues enjoy an appropriate level of pay and conditions. The wellbeing of the workforce and sustainable employment are important, and we must all ensure that every worker enjoys the right terms and conditions.
Hardworking and dedicated colleagues in the sector deserve to get decent pay levels and the appropriate benefits such as sick-pay, holidays and pensions. Safety is an important factor in our industry and therefore suitable and sufficient health and safety practices and procedures are vital.
Our workers need to receive the right level of instruction, high levels of training to ensure skills and competencies are right for the job and, just as importantly, access to the correct machinery and equipment.
We can be reassured that the businesses represented by the BCC and our members are responsible employers who treat their staff well and meet all their legal requirements. But in some other sectors, there might be businesses working at the fringes who are exploiting workers.
For example, whilst there are many bona fide car wash businesses, there may be some who are charging such a small amount for a car wash service that it could be difficult for them to pay their staff the minimum wage. Companies who break the law, exploiting their workers, must not be tolerated. That’s why we’ll be happy to help Mr Taylor crack down on them.
If you become aware of someone being exploited at work, please let the authorities or even us at the BCC know. Staff in our Industry are fantastic and we must look after them.
26 | REGULAR
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