Migrant labour

Kent-based Tilmanstone Salads is the largest supplier of freshly prepared salads and vegetables to Marks & Spencer and is part of the Bakkavor Group, a leading supplier of fresh prepared foods in the UK.

Like other UK-based fresh produce suppliers, it relies on temporary workers to manage seasonal peaks and troughs in customer demand for its products.

To protect migrant workers in supply chains, what collective action can businesses, governments and civil society take? Attendees share brief thoughts from a...

- 200 million people live outside their country of birth or citizenship

- 1 in 10 Chinese people work away from their home towns

- 95 million working people live outside their country of origin

- 10% of the EU workforce were born elsewhere

- 25-5% of the workforce in Switzerland were born elsewhere

- 60-80% of the workforce in the Gulf states were born elsewhere

Migrant worker
A person who migrates or who has migrated from one country to another with a view to being employed other than on his own account.

Bonded labour
A system whereby people are required to repay a debt by working for their creditors.

Trafficking in persons, trafficking of labour
Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

Partnering with business to protect international migrant workers...

Stamping out exploitation of seasonal workers: ETI led an industry-wide alliance that lobbied the UK Government to introduce extra legal protection for temporary agricultural workers, and that helped labour providers prepare for the Gangmaster Licensing Act, passed in July 2004.