Campaign targets modern-day slavery

A group of employers and industry bodies have launched an initiative to combat the problem of forced labour and hidden migrant worker abuse in the food and agriculture industries.

Organised criminal gangs are often behind such practices and in 2012, nearly a third of all labour exploitation reported to the UK Human Trafficking Centre occurred within these industries.

The Stronger Together campaign aims to equip UK employers with the knowledge and resources to recognise the signs of exploitation and tackle it with a range of free resources. These materials, which include best practice guidance and a toolkit containing multi-language workplace posters and worker leaflets, will help employers deter, identify and deal with the problem.

The initiative was developed by the Association of Labour Providers (ALP), the GLA gangmasters licensing authority and Migrant Help with sponsorship from five retailers: the Co-operative Food, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

Paul Broadbent, GLA chief executive, said: “This initiative will help us to work more closely with industry to prevent exploitation by the early identification of the signs that a worker or workers are being abused so that the criminals can be exposed and dealt with by the GLA.”

http://stronger2gether.org/