Cheap labour rap for supermarkets

By Tim Hirsch
BBC environment correspondent

Casual workers from Eastern Europe arrive in the UK to pick vegetables

The government and Britain's supermarkets have come under strong attack for failing to clamp down on abuses in the use of casual labour to supply fresh fruit and vegetables.

MPs on the food and rural affairs committee say they are appalled at the failure to prevent the exploitation of part-time farmworkers, some of whom are brought illegally into the UK.

The UK's farms and orchards have always relied on seasonal labour to pick fruit and vegetables.

And since the 19th Century so-called gangmasters have been used to recruit the workers.

Poor wages

Recently the gangs have been made up largely of workers from overseas, some of them illegal migrants.

The highly-critical report by MPs says that while some gangmasters work within the law, many operate in a culture of fear, paying poor wages and dodging employment laws.

The committee heard of two workers who'd died because of arduous working conditions.

It accuses supermarkets of trying to wash their hands of the problem, when it was their demand for cheap produce which encouraged suppliers to cut corners on labour.

The MPs also say they're appalled at the woefully inadequate government response to the problem, claiming that an initiative called Operation Gangmaster set up six years ago had achieved little.