No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
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No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
Chelseaboy Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:41 pm
British workers have been turned away from jobs in a local factory – for not speaking Polish.
Cooked meat manufacturer Forza AW effectively barred anyone but Poles for applying for jobs on its production line in East Anglia by insisting all staff speak the language fluently.
The company claimed it was necessary as all health and safety training was conducted in Polish.
Gruelling work: Migrant workers who responded to the Polish advert gather outside the Bernard Matthews plant where Forza is temporarily based
But Forza – a major supplier of Asda supermarkets – was last night accused of anti-British discrimination because of the adverts, which came after an official report detailed how unscrupulous employers prefer to hire migrants because they are cheap and less inclined to answer back.
Forza’s insistence on Polish speakers may be illegal, as a spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said last night: ‘Under the 1976 Race Relations Act, unless there is a genuine need for a worker to speak a particular language it is against the law to require that they should do so as a condition of employing them.’
'I couldn't believe it - are we in England or in Poland?'
Forza’s advertisement came as the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report condemned the ‘mistreatment and exploitation’ of foreign workers, who are often too afraid to raise concerns for fear of being sacked.
The commission said it uncovered ‘widespread evidence’ of physical and verbal abuse and lack of proper health and safety protection, while workers often have little knowledge of their rights.
It is also reported that British workers had spoken of difficulty in registering with employment agencies that supply mainly East European workers.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said the advert exposed the hollowness of Gordon Brown’s pledge to create ‘British jobs for British workers’.
Enlarge
English not necessary: The advert in a local shop
He added: ‘He must regret ever saying that because it has proved a cruel deception for millions of the unemployed.’
Forza’s advert was sent out via email by East Anglia-based employment agency OSR Recruitment earlier this month.
Headed ‘Immediate factory work available!!!!’ it continued: ‘If you are available or have any friends available, work is starting tomorrow for induction training.
‘Ongoing factory work (meat production) for 4-5 months, shifts are 7am-5pm or 9am-7pm.
‘Transport provided. Applicants must speak Polish. Please call asap!!!!!!’
The advert was signed Katrina Massingham, the company’s ‘industrial team leader’ and it was dispatched to hundreds of potential applicants on the firm’s books.
One job seeker, who contacted The Mail on Sunday after receiving the email, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I first read it – are we in England or Poland, for goodness sake?
'It was weird. I thought it must be a mistake'
‘If it was a job where you were flying back and forth to Warsaw, I could understand it, but you wouldn’t think language ability would be high on the list of requirements for someone packing sausages all day long.’
A reporter listened in as the 31-year-old man called OSR to ask about the jobs last Tuesday.
The first question he was asked was: ‘Are you Polish?’ When he said no, but could speak the language ‘a little’, he was told: ‘Actually, you have to be fluent because the health and safety training is all done in Polish.’
By Friday, however, after The Mail on Sunday rang again several times and got the same response, the company appeared to have second thoughts about the wisdom of the advert.
An OSR employee gave a different version to a Polish-speaking reporter saying: ‘Actually, you don’t have to be Polish, but it helps.’
When another reporter posed as an English applicant, Ms Massingham told him that all the jobs had been filled but that the language requirement was ‘not too important now’.
She added: ‘For some reason the training was in Polish but we’re trying to get them to change it, because it’s a bit silly, really’.
Earlier, OSR also posted the advert in Polish in several of the Eastern European shops in East Anglia.
In one, the manageress took the ad over the phone, and – when asked to translate it from English – was surprised to hear the line about needing to speak Polish.
‘It was weird, and I assumed it was a mistake,’ she said. ‘After all, we’re in England. So I translated that part as “English not necessary” instead. There have been quite a few people following up the advert since it went up.’
Asda's sausage supplier: Forza is temporarily based at the Bernard Matthews plant in Norfolk
The advert, as she had translated it and posted in her shop, read: ‘Work for Poles. Urgent! Production line work starting March 5, 2010, Full-time (5 days a week). Transport from Norwich city centre and uniforms provided. English not necessary. OSR Agency, Katrina or David.’
Last night, Forza AW claimed the advert was ‘a mistake due to a breakdown in communications and should never have gone out’.
Forza is a leading supplier to supermarkets, and holds a multi-million- pound contract to supply the majority of Asda’s cooked meat range.
Led by £780,000-a-year Max Hilliard, once described as the most powerful man in the British pig industry, it has a £140million turnover and 600 employees. It is normally based in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, but about a third of its plant was destroyed in a blaze last month.
As a temporary measure, the company leased factory space and machinery at Bernard Matthews Farms’ huge plant in Great Witchingham, just outside Norwich.
The turkey producer was able to offer spare capacity as its busiest time is some months away.
'This advert should never have happened'
There is no other connection between the two firms. As dawn broke over a rainswept Norwich on Friday, Mail on Sunday reporters watched as ten Eastern Europeans who had been hired after answering the advert gathered outside a John Lewis store waiting for the 6am bus to take them to their long shift.
Stopping three times elsewhere in the city to pick up more workers, the vehicle made its way ten miles north to Great Witchingham.
Once out of the bus, virtually every one of the workers took the chance for a last cigarette before entering the plant for the start of the 7am shift. At the same time, workers in other buses arrived from all over Norfolk and Suffolk, some to work for Bernard Matthews, others for Forza.
Yesterday, Mr Hilliard, claimed the advert’s wording was a mistake and due to a ‘breakdown in communications’ between his firm and OSR Recruitment. He said he was unaware of the ‘Must speak Polish’ clause until The Mail on Sunday alerted him to it.
Satisfied: Asda says it's pleased that Forza quickly recognised that the advert was a mistake
‘In normal circumstances, this ad would have been vetted and the error removed,’ said the 51-year-old, who is Forza’s chief executive and principal shareholder, owning 60 per cent of the company.
‘But following the chaos of the fire, and the necessity to quickly set up production with 400 workers in another part of the country, the mistake was made but wasn’t spotted.
‘We employ many English workers as well as Poles and Lithuanians, though I can’t give you exact figures, and I assure you categorically that all our training and health and safety briefings are conducted in English, Polish or whatever the employee speaks.
‘I cannot say how this error came about, perhaps a glib comment was made about the difficulty of operating in several different languages, I don’t know, but we would never turn down an English person for a job on the basis that they didn’t speak Polish or any other language.
‘When we moved production down to Norfolk, we contacted the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority to be put in touch with a reputable agency, and were directed towards OSR Recruitment.
‘I did speak to them in person about our requirements, but I didn’t see the finished advert. It should never have happened and I apologise to anyone who was put off applying for jobs as a result of this email.’
Asked whether the firm would be using OSR for recruitment in the future, he declined to comment.
Forza has become a giant in the processed meat industry in just two years. It specialises in pre-packed and pre-sliced deli-counter style products. Mario Bardwell, a director of OSR Recruitment, refused to discuss the email when approached by The Mail on Sunday. He asked us to put the questions to him in an email – but still did not respond to the written enquiry.
Forza recently announced plans to double its payroll to 1,200 staff, after winning a new contract, and has been considering plans to move to larger premises.
However, the fire at the existing West Yorkshire factory has affected migrant workers there.
'I'm sure that this happens all the time'
Some of the plant’s 600 staff, many of them migrants supplied by local recruitment company Red Rock On Site Services, were sent home. And if they have worked in Britain for less than a year, they are unable to claim benefits.
Helena Danielczuk, who works for Bradford mental health charity Sharing Voices, said she had been approached by more than a dozen Eastern European workers who lost their jobs at Forza.
She said: ‘They have to work for an unbroken 12 months otherwise they are unable to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance. Some of them are destitute.’ The charity has called for financial support for migrant workers left without work because of the fire.
In the late Nineties Mr Hilliard was boss of Malton Foods, then owned by dairy giants Unigate, which bought about a third of the pigs processed for meat in Britain.
He was at the centre of protests from pig farmers when he was awarded the industry’s top prize despite being behind cuts to farmers’ prices three times in a year. National Farmers’ Union members said that it was ‘like giving Saddam Hussein the Nobel Peace Prize’.
The new row will reopen the fierce debate touched off by the recent BBC documentary The Day The Immigrants Left, in which Britons took over migrant workers’ low-paid jobs.
In the film, presented by Evan Davis, some of the featured locals from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, complained they were routinely turned down for factory work as they were English, an assertion denied by one boss of a potato-packing factory who said: ‘Where British workers are, I don’t know, but they’re not applying for jobs.’
But when two of the participants, jobless Paul North and Terry Garner, did apply for jobs after a successful stint on the shop floor, they were told ‘no suitable vacancies were available’.
Controversial: Evan Davis presents The Day The Immigrants Left, a film about Wisbech town where the English locals are turned down for work
Mr Garner said he was ‘not surprised in the least’ to hear that such as discriminatory advert had been issued on behalf of Forza.
He said: ‘I don’t know what the story is with this firm, but I am sure this kind of thing goes on all the time, only the employers are less obvious and just sift through the applications to find the foreign workers.
‘I’ve got nothing against foreigners – they do work hard, but they do it for less money, because they often don’t bring their families and they’ll share accommodation to bring down their overheads.
‘They might pay tax, but at the end of the day, most of the money they’re paid goes back to their own country and not into our economy.’
Mr Garner and Mr North are both currently working as temporary cable layers.
Bosses at Bernard Matthews were said to be upset that the offending advert might – however unfairly – tarnish the firm’s reputation. The company was recently praised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in its report into migrant workers in the meat and poultry industry.
While the body uncovered widespread abuse of migrant and agency workers, including a lack of proper health and safety protection, Europe’s largest turkey producer was singled out for special praise.
The report stated: ‘One firm that was frequently mentioned as an employer of choice for agency workers was Bernard Matthews.
‘This was because of the respect for, and lack of differentiation between, agency staff and directly employed workers, and the steps taken to promote good relations between different nationalities.’
A Bernard Matthews spokesman said last night: ‘Forza are leasing spare capacity at our plant while they get over the fire at their factory in Yorkshire, but there’s no other link between the two companies.’
The company stepped in less than a week after the blaze, leasing its facilities for Forza for six months.
Meanwhile, an Asda spokesman added: ‘While we recognise that these were extraordinary circumstances for Forza, we’re pleased that they’ve quickly recognised the advert was a mistake.’
Cooked meat manufacturer Forza AW effectively barred anyone but Poles for applying for jobs on its production line in East Anglia by insisting all staff speak the language fluently.
The company claimed it was necessary as all health and safety training was conducted in Polish.
Gruelling work: Migrant workers who responded to the Polish advert gather outside the Bernard Matthews plant where Forza is temporarily based
But Forza – a major supplier of Asda supermarkets – was last night accused of anti-British discrimination because of the adverts, which came after an official report detailed how unscrupulous employers prefer to hire migrants because they are cheap and less inclined to answer back.
Forza’s insistence on Polish speakers may be illegal, as a spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said last night: ‘Under the 1976 Race Relations Act, unless there is a genuine need for a worker to speak a particular language it is against the law to require that they should do so as a condition of employing them.’
'I couldn't believe it - are we in England or in Poland?'
Forza’s advertisement came as the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report condemned the ‘mistreatment and exploitation’ of foreign workers, who are often too afraid to raise concerns for fear of being sacked.
The commission said it uncovered ‘widespread evidence’ of physical and verbal abuse and lack of proper health and safety protection, while workers often have little knowledge of their rights.
It is also reported that British workers had spoken of difficulty in registering with employment agencies that supply mainly East European workers.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said the advert exposed the hollowness of Gordon Brown’s pledge to create ‘British jobs for British workers’.
Enlarge
English not necessary: The advert in a local shop
He added: ‘He must regret ever saying that because it has proved a cruel deception for millions of the unemployed.’
Forza’s advert was sent out via email by East Anglia-based employment agency OSR Recruitment earlier this month.
Headed ‘Immediate factory work available!!!!’ it continued: ‘If you are available or have any friends available, work is starting tomorrow for induction training.
‘Ongoing factory work (meat production) for 4-5 months, shifts are 7am-5pm or 9am-7pm.
‘Transport provided. Applicants must speak Polish. Please call asap!!!!!!’
The advert was signed Katrina Massingham, the company’s ‘industrial team leader’ and it was dispatched to hundreds of potential applicants on the firm’s books.
One job seeker, who contacted The Mail on Sunday after receiving the email, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I first read it – are we in England or Poland, for goodness sake?
'It was weird. I thought it must be a mistake'
‘If it was a job where you were flying back and forth to Warsaw, I could understand it, but you wouldn’t think language ability would be high on the list of requirements for someone packing sausages all day long.’
A reporter listened in as the 31-year-old man called OSR to ask about the jobs last Tuesday.
The first question he was asked was: ‘Are you Polish?’ When he said no, but could speak the language ‘a little’, he was told: ‘Actually, you have to be fluent because the health and safety training is all done in Polish.’
By Friday, however, after The Mail on Sunday rang again several times and got the same response, the company appeared to have second thoughts about the wisdom of the advert.
An OSR employee gave a different version to a Polish-speaking reporter saying: ‘Actually, you don’t have to be Polish, but it helps.’
When another reporter posed as an English applicant, Ms Massingham told him that all the jobs had been filled but that the language requirement was ‘not too important now’.
She added: ‘For some reason the training was in Polish but we’re trying to get them to change it, because it’s a bit silly, really’.
Earlier, OSR also posted the advert in Polish in several of the Eastern European shops in East Anglia.
In one, the manageress took the ad over the phone, and – when asked to translate it from English – was surprised to hear the line about needing to speak Polish.
‘It was weird, and I assumed it was a mistake,’ she said. ‘After all, we’re in England. So I translated that part as “English not necessary” instead. There have been quite a few people following up the advert since it went up.’
Asda's sausage supplier: Forza is temporarily based at the Bernard Matthews plant in Norfolk
The advert, as she had translated it and posted in her shop, read: ‘Work for Poles. Urgent! Production line work starting March 5, 2010, Full-time (5 days a week). Transport from Norwich city centre and uniforms provided. English not necessary. OSR Agency, Katrina or David.’
Last night, Forza AW claimed the advert was ‘a mistake due to a breakdown in communications and should never have gone out’.
Forza is a leading supplier to supermarkets, and holds a multi-million- pound contract to supply the majority of Asda’s cooked meat range.
Led by £780,000-a-year Max Hilliard, once described as the most powerful man in the British pig industry, it has a £140million turnover and 600 employees. It is normally based in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, but about a third of its plant was destroyed in a blaze last month.
As a temporary measure, the company leased factory space and machinery at Bernard Matthews Farms’ huge plant in Great Witchingham, just outside Norwich.
The turkey producer was able to offer spare capacity as its busiest time is some months away.
'This advert should never have happened'
There is no other connection between the two firms. As dawn broke over a rainswept Norwich on Friday, Mail on Sunday reporters watched as ten Eastern Europeans who had been hired after answering the advert gathered outside a John Lewis store waiting for the 6am bus to take them to their long shift.
Stopping three times elsewhere in the city to pick up more workers, the vehicle made its way ten miles north to Great Witchingham.
Once out of the bus, virtually every one of the workers took the chance for a last cigarette before entering the plant for the start of the 7am shift. At the same time, workers in other buses arrived from all over Norfolk and Suffolk, some to work for Bernard Matthews, others for Forza.
Yesterday, Mr Hilliard, claimed the advert’s wording was a mistake and due to a ‘breakdown in communications’ between his firm and OSR Recruitment. He said he was unaware of the ‘Must speak Polish’ clause until The Mail on Sunday alerted him to it.
Satisfied: Asda says it's pleased that Forza quickly recognised that the advert was a mistake
‘In normal circumstances, this ad would have been vetted and the error removed,’ said the 51-year-old, who is Forza’s chief executive and principal shareholder, owning 60 per cent of the company.
‘But following the chaos of the fire, and the necessity to quickly set up production with 400 workers in another part of the country, the mistake was made but wasn’t spotted.
‘We employ many English workers as well as Poles and Lithuanians, though I can’t give you exact figures, and I assure you categorically that all our training and health and safety briefings are conducted in English, Polish or whatever the employee speaks.
‘I cannot say how this error came about, perhaps a glib comment was made about the difficulty of operating in several different languages, I don’t know, but we would never turn down an English person for a job on the basis that they didn’t speak Polish or any other language.
‘When we moved production down to Norfolk, we contacted the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority to be put in touch with a reputable agency, and were directed towards OSR Recruitment.
‘I did speak to them in person about our requirements, but I didn’t see the finished advert. It should never have happened and I apologise to anyone who was put off applying for jobs as a result of this email.’
Asked whether the firm would be using OSR for recruitment in the future, he declined to comment.
Forza has become a giant in the processed meat industry in just two years. It specialises in pre-packed and pre-sliced deli-counter style products. Mario Bardwell, a director of OSR Recruitment, refused to discuss the email when approached by The Mail on Sunday. He asked us to put the questions to him in an email – but still did not respond to the written enquiry.
Forza recently announced plans to double its payroll to 1,200 staff, after winning a new contract, and has been considering plans to move to larger premises.
However, the fire at the existing West Yorkshire factory has affected migrant workers there.
'I'm sure that this happens all the time'
Some of the plant’s 600 staff, many of them migrants supplied by local recruitment company Red Rock On Site Services, were sent home. And if they have worked in Britain for less than a year, they are unable to claim benefits.
Helena Danielczuk, who works for Bradford mental health charity Sharing Voices, said she had been approached by more than a dozen Eastern European workers who lost their jobs at Forza.
She said: ‘They have to work for an unbroken 12 months otherwise they are unable to claim Jobseeker’s Allowance. Some of them are destitute.’ The charity has called for financial support for migrant workers left without work because of the fire.
In the late Nineties Mr Hilliard was boss of Malton Foods, then owned by dairy giants Unigate, which bought about a third of the pigs processed for meat in Britain.
He was at the centre of protests from pig farmers when he was awarded the industry’s top prize despite being behind cuts to farmers’ prices three times in a year. National Farmers’ Union members said that it was ‘like giving Saddam Hussein the Nobel Peace Prize’.
The new row will reopen the fierce debate touched off by the recent BBC documentary The Day The Immigrants Left, in which Britons took over migrant workers’ low-paid jobs.
In the film, presented by Evan Davis, some of the featured locals from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, complained they were routinely turned down for factory work as they were English, an assertion denied by one boss of a potato-packing factory who said: ‘Where British workers are, I don’t know, but they’re not applying for jobs.’
But when two of the participants, jobless Paul North and Terry Garner, did apply for jobs after a successful stint on the shop floor, they were told ‘no suitable vacancies were available’.
Controversial: Evan Davis presents The Day The Immigrants Left, a film about Wisbech town where the English locals are turned down for work
Mr Garner said he was ‘not surprised in the least’ to hear that such as discriminatory advert had been issued on behalf of Forza.
He said: ‘I don’t know what the story is with this firm, but I am sure this kind of thing goes on all the time, only the employers are less obvious and just sift through the applications to find the foreign workers.
‘I’ve got nothing against foreigners – they do work hard, but they do it for less money, because they often don’t bring their families and they’ll share accommodation to bring down their overheads.
‘They might pay tax, but at the end of the day, most of the money they’re paid goes back to their own country and not into our economy.’
Mr Garner and Mr North are both currently working as temporary cable layers.
Bosses at Bernard Matthews were said to be upset that the offending advert might – however unfairly – tarnish the firm’s reputation. The company was recently praised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in its report into migrant workers in the meat and poultry industry.
While the body uncovered widespread abuse of migrant and agency workers, including a lack of proper health and safety protection, Europe’s largest turkey producer was singled out for special praise.
The report stated: ‘One firm that was frequently mentioned as an employer of choice for agency workers was Bernard Matthews.
‘This was because of the respect for, and lack of differentiation between, agency staff and directly employed workers, and the steps taken to promote good relations between different nationalities.’
A Bernard Matthews spokesman said last night: ‘Forza are leasing spare capacity at our plant while they get over the fire at their factory in Yorkshire, but there’s no other link between the two companies.’
The company stepped in less than a week after the blaze, leasing its facilities for Forza for six months.
Meanwhile, an Asda spokesman added: ‘While we recognise that these were extraordinary circumstances for Forza, we’re pleased that they’ve quickly recognised the advert was a mistake.’
Chelseaboy- Angels
- Posts : 204
Join date : 2010-01-26
Location : Top of the league
Re: No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
Dame Edna Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:59 pm
It was a " mistake"! Oh, well thats ok then as you were..
what a load of twaddle, mistake my arse! Mr N worked at Mathews many moons ago, and it was nothing like it is now. I have no problem with anyone working there, so long as its open to all and of course English should be the language used. I do however have a big prob with large company's taking advantage of any employee's, and in this case it would seem they have a captive workforce. Just remind me cb..we are still in the UK yeah??
Dame Edna- Posts : 641
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Age : 72
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Re: No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
danmaspethny Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:02 pm
Simple enough solution here..... BOYCOTT ASDA AND MATTHEWS PRODUCTS.
Stop shopping there and tell your family and friends to do the same.
Hit them where it hurts, In their profits.
Stop shopping there and tell your family and friends to do the same.
Hit them where it hurts, In their profits.
danmaspethny- Posts : 48
Join date : 2010-01-29
Re: No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
EarthsAngel Mon Mar 15, 2010 4:43 am
I agree Dan, boycott all products from Forza. Boycott all shops that stock their products, the only way to fight back at this sort of discrimination against English people in their own country is too hurt them in their pockets. The greed of these big companies is sickening, they use the cheapest labour they can find, but any savings never go to the consumer, it is for their own Bank Accounts.
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Location : District 9
Re: No job unless you're Polish: Biggest Asda meat supplier excludes English speakers as 'all instructions are in Polish'
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