Inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sector
“Well they get rid of them [pregnant agency workers] when they find out… There’s nothing we can do about it… At the end of the day, without being disrespectful, if they ring up for 20 people they are looking for 20 arms and legs to do the job. They don’t want 19 and a pregnant one who can’t do this and can’t do that.” (Manager of work agency)
Health and safety problems Concerns about health and safety were raised in over half the interviews. One in six interviewees highlighted health and safety as an area where agency workers received worse treatment. The main issues were: poor quality and ill-fitting personal protective equipment (PPE) – such as gloves which easily split lack of appropriate PPE – such as warm clothing for workers in cold areas, or protective gloves for people working with knives and frozen products, and sharing PPE – having to share wet, sweaty or soiled overalls and boots which had not been cleaned or dried between shifts. Workers spoke of pains to the limbs and extreme fatigue, partly due to the lack of job rotation, which meant they had to carry out repetitive tasks on fast-moving production lines for extended periods of time.
“Working at a line, it’s really hard work, and the boxes are about 16kg, each, so they’re quite heavy and my hands are swollen at the end of the day… and painful… There are days I just cannot open the door, or even keep a glass in my hand. I can’t feel anything.” (Polish female working in meat processing factory, East of England) Many migrant workers had either not been provided with health and safety training or had been unable to understand it fully. Only about three in five (59 per cent) firms said that their business provides the agency with a health and safety risk assessment of the relevant job roles before using staff. This is a mandatory requirement to ensure agency workers are placed in a safe environment.
Working time breaches Some workers told us they worked every day of the week without any days off. We were told: the maximum number of hours worked per week, on a regular basis, was 90 hours of other workers regularly doing over 60 hours and, of individual shifts lasting 16–18 hours, with workers expected to start work again after a few hours’ rest. Even if workers have signed an opt out of the 48-hour maximum working week – which most agency workers do – they have the right to at least one day off a week and a break of at least 11 hours between one day’s work and the next.
12