Labour will make it a criminal offence to exploit migrant workers, Miliband to announce

Today, Ed Miliband will announce that Labour will make it a criminal offence for employers to exploit migrant workers.

At a speech in Great Yarmouth, Miliband will explain how a next Labour government would stop employers from systematically exploiting people from other countries. This exploitation, Miliband will outline, hurts not only migrants workers – through low pay and poor working conditions – but also undermines the wages for “local workers”.

To combat this, Labour would introduce a new law defining different forms of exploitation and make it so that if evidence were provided to prove that employers had been abusing their power and employing migrant workers on different terms to local workers this would warrant a criminal offence.

Miliband is expected to say:

“I am the son of parents who came here as refugees.

“I am proud that Britain enabled them to build a home and family.

“And I am proud of the contribution that immigrants – of all origins, races, and faiths  – have made to our country.

 “But when people worry about the real impact immigration has had, we will respond to those concerns not dismiss them. That is why I have changed Labour’s approach since 2010.

“People want there to be control of immigration. That means being tough on illegal immigration, with proper entry and exit checks. But control doesn’t stop at the border, it is also about fair rules when people get here.

Fair rules means that entitlement to benefits needs to be earned. That is why we have already published proposals to prevent people coming here claiming benefit for at least two years. Fair rules means people integrating into communities and learning English.

 “But it isn’t just the benefits system that needs to be fair. It is the workplace too. We know that so many workplaces are so far from being fair today. And that is especially true in many workplaces with a large number of employees who have come from overseas.

“We have all heard the most truly shocking stories of people having their wages stolen, and having to live in the most appalling conditions, exploited because they come here from abroad.

“These practices have an effect on local workers too.  Because when people can be exploited for low wages or endangered at work, it drags the whole system down, undercutting the pay and conditions of people here.

“We have a plan to change this. We will increase the fines for firms paying below the National Minimum Wage. We will close down loopholes in agency worker laws that allow firms to undercut directly employed staff. We will ban recruitment agencies from hiring only from abroad.

‘Today, I am announcing that the next Labour government will go further still: making it a criminal offence to undercut pay or conditions by exploiting migrant workers.

“We are serving notice on employers who bring workers here under duress or on false terms and pay them significantly lower wages, with worse terms and conditions.

“This new criminal offence will provide protection to everyone. It will help ensure that, when immigrants work here, they do not face exploitation themselves and rogue employers are stopped from undercutting the terms and conditions of everyone else.

“The choice at the next election is whether we change our economy to make it work for everyday people or carry on with an approach which means it works only for a privileged few at the top. We can’t do that unless we deal with the undercutting of wages which is made possible by the exploitation of migrant workers.

“Neither the Tories nor UKIP will do any of this.

“They turn a blind eye to exploitation and undercutting because it is part of the low skill, low wage, fast-buck economy they think Britain needs to succeed.

 “We won’t make false promises on immigration, like David Cameron.

And we won’t offer false solutions like UKIP—leaving the European union would be a disaster for jobs, business and families.

Instead, we will offer clear, credible and concrete solutions which help build a country that works for working people again.”