Only Poles need apply: Factor that 'bars Britons' highlights growing market in cheap migrant labour

British workers are routinely being denied jobs in factories and food processing firms in favour of foreign applicants, the equality watchdog has found.

The problem was highlighted yesterday when it emerged that one company has been advertising for Polish-speaking staff only.

The effective ban on British applicants for jobs at Forza AW, which is Asda's biggest cooked meat supplier, was claimed to be because all health and safety training is carried out in Polish.

But the Equality and Human Rights Commission separately found that in many firms, places are being handed to migrant workers because they are easier to exploit and often receive terrible pay and work conditions.

They are also favoured over British applicants because they are considered to be harder working and less likely to complain.

Details emerged in the commission's report into the meat and poultry processing industry, which found that 'most (recruitment) agencies had experience of firms breaching the Race Relations Act in asking for workers from specific countries'.

A third also admitted acting unlawfully by supplying workers based on what nationality they thought the processing firm would prefer or following 'direct requests' from clients.

Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green said the situation exploded the myth of Gordon Brown's promise to create 'British jobs for British workers'.

He said: 'He must regret ever saying that because it has proved a cruel deception for millions of the unemployed.'

Forza, which supplies several supermarkets and has a £140million turnover and 600 employees, is temporarily leasing space at a Bernard Matthews site in Great Witchingham, near Norwich, after a fire at its West Yorkshire plant.

Its advert was sent to hundreds of potential applicants on the of East Anglia-based employment agency OSR Recruitment earlier this month. It said: 'Applicants must speak Polish. Please call asap!'

One job hunter who received the email contacted OSR last Tuesday and was asked if he spoke Polish before being told: 'You have to be fluent because the health and safety training is all done in Polish.'

Any refusal to register a job applicant because of their nationality is unlawful under the Race Relations Act.

Forza chief executive Max Hilliard claimed the advert happened because of a 'breakdown in communications' between his firm and OSR and he hadn't seen the final version before its release. 'In normal circumstances, this ad would have been vetted and the error removed,' he said.

Around 88,000 people work in the meat and poultry industry. A third of the permanent work force and 70 per cent of agency workers are migrants.

The commission spoke to 260 workers as well as 190 meat and poultry processing firms and 131 recruitment agencies for its report.

Director general Neil Kinghan said: 'The commission will be writing to Forza AW this week to ask it to respond to the allegations and to confirm that it will not discriminate against British, or any other workers, on the grounds of their nationality.'

Mail

EHRC “Has Moved Goalposts” — Now Seeks to Outlaw Any Policy Aimed at Keeping Britain British

The Race Gestapo Equalities and Human Rights Commission has moved the goalposts in its malicious court action against the British National Party by saying that any policy which declares that Britain should be kept British is contrary to the law.

“What this means is that the EHRC wants to outlaw any party’s policy with which this Tory/Labour created body does not agree,” BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP said today after the hearing in London. “This is nothing but an attempt to ban the BNP.”

Robin Allen QC, representing the EHRC, told the hearing the changes the party had proposed to its constitution were “highly suspect” and “unquestionably” racially discriminatory.

He said that making potential members agree that they supported the “unity and integrity of the indigenous British” would in effect bar some people from joining.

The party’s new statement of principles includes: “We are pledged to the continued creation, fostering, maintenance and existence of the unity and of the integrity of the indigenous British and of the government of … our ‘British Homeland’.”

It also states that the party is “implacably opposed to the promotion by any means of any form of integration or assimilation of any indigenous people, including the indigenous British, which is likely to deprive such people of their integrity as a distinct people or the distinctiveness of their cultural values or of their ethnic or national identities or characteristics.”

Mr Griffin said the EHRC’s latest argument was “unbelievable” and was clearly motivated by the fact that the BNP was now winning elections and had become a factor in politics.

“The argument that the BNP’s policies would indirectly discriminate are pure nonsense. There are policy positions in the Labour Party which make it impossible for BNP members to join that party, but that is not going to be ruled illegal by the EHRC,” he added. “Different policies are the reason why there are different parties.”

The real cause of the problem is that the establishment is hysterical over the argument that there exist indigenous people in Britain, Mr Griffin said.

“There are significant numbers of ethnic minorities who have no trouble at all accepting that the indigenous British exist and that we are the people who made the country in the first place.

“They, and we, fully support the idea that the indigenous people should remain the majority population. That policy does not shut out anyone,” he said.

“Every ethnic group must be able to talk about its own interests and concerns, and to organise politically to protect and advance those interests.

“What the EHRC wants is to outlaw the right of the indigenous British people to do this, while ignoring all the other non-British ethnic organisations engaged in precisely the same activities,” Mr Griffin said.

“It is still shocking to see the naked hatred expressed by Mr Allen and others for their own kind and the extent to which they are prepared to break all moral codes,” he continued.

“The bizarre thing is that all they are doing is convincing the public even further of how fundamentally unfair and anti-British the establishment is.”

The BNP leader also pointed out how the judge had criticised the media for their coverage of the last court hearing.

“The judge specifically said that the media had totally misrepresented what had happened at the previous hearing,” Mr Griffin said.

“He pointed out that contrary to press reports, the BNP’s constitution was not, and never had been, ruled illegal or discriminatory.”

The judge also said that there was no doubt that the main anti-discrimination clause of the proposed new law would definitely go through.

* Mr Griffin pointed out that when the new amendments to the BNP’s constitution were drawn up they were created with the understanding that there would be further attacks on the party.

“We knew we were not dealing with reasonable people and on that basis the amendments, if passed, will provide me with the power to make changes which will cope with any further attacks,” Mr Griffin said.
British National Party