16 November 2005
Amicus, the UK's largest private sector union is recruiting Polish workers in the North West to ensure that migrant workers coming into the UK are employed on the same terms and conditions as UK workers and are aware of their employment rights.
Tomasz Laskowski, a national organiser from the Polish Trade Union, Solidarnosc, is assisting Amicus Regional Officers to identify pockets of Polish workers who are not represented by UK trade unions and encourage them to join Amicus.
Amicus' North West Regional Secretary, Kevin Coyne, said:
"We are here to support Polish migrant workers and ensure they are not faced with problems such as pay below the agreed hourly rates within industries and poor terms and conditions. Our commitment to organise in these sectors will encourage migrants to gain confidence to challenge exploitation in their workplaces. It will also prevent employers using migrant labour to undercut hard fought pay and conditions and health and safety standards in the UK.
"We are pleased with the excellent assistance we have received from Tomasz and we believe his interaction with polish workers will help to protect migrant workers North West companies. We are confident this will encourage more migrant workers to join Amicus and become part of the workforce."
Amicus says that migrant workers should benefit from the same rights that apply to every other worker in the UK.
The total number of Polish migrants arriving into the North West in 2003/04 was 5,200.
