Supermarket supplier demands workers speak Polish
A British supermarket supplier has been accused of discriminating against local workers after insisting new recruits speak fluent Polish.
14 Mar 2010
Cooked meat manufacturer Forza AW, one of Asda's biggest suppliers, said the requirement was necessary to ensure all employees could understand the same instructions.
The condition was included in an emailed advert sent out on behalf of the East Anglian earlier this month and dispatched to hundreds of potential applicants on the agency's books.
The advert read: ''Immediate factory work available!!!! 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!!!!!!''
A 31-year-old British job seeker who contacted a recruitment agency to ask about the job was told he had to be fluent in Polish to understand the health and safety training.
He said: ''I couldn't believe it when I first read it – are we in England or Poland for goodness sake?
''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 spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said the Forza's insistence on Polish-speakers could be illegal under anti-discrimination legislation.
He said: ''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.''
The advert emerged less than a week after the Equality and Human Rights Commission found some employers who preferred to hire cheap migrants because they were less likely to answer back.
The commission's report also revealed British workers had complained about struggling to register with certain employment agencies that specialised in supplying East European workers.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said the advert made a mockery of Government promises to create ''British jobs for British workers''.
He said: ''Gordon Brown must regret ever saying that because it has proved a cruel deception for millions of the unemployed.''
Forza AW is owned by businessman Max Hilliard and has a £140 million turnover.
It is currently leasing factory space and machinery in the Bernard Matthews Farms' plant in Great Witchingham, Norfolk after a fire destroyed a third of its factory in West Yorkshire last month.
Mr Hilliard, 51, said the advert was a ''break down in communications'' between Forza and OSR Recruitment.
He said: ''In normal circumstances this ad would have been vetted and the error removed.
''I assure you categorically that all our training and health and safety briefings are conducted in English, Polish or whatever the employee speaks.
''We would never turn down an English person for a job on the basis that they didn't speak Polish or any other language.
Source; telegraph.co.uk
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