Chinese Cockle Pickers - new laws and prizes all round

The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) took up responsibility for licensing labour providers from April 2006. From October 1st labour providers have had to be licensed.

In a groundbreaking inititative the need for licensing used local radio adverts in a massive, huge, monstrous, lavish £30,000 campaign in English, Welsh, Polish and Portuguese. The labour provider adverts were also broadcast in Welsh in South Wales. Research of listeners to the adverts showed that the major countries of origin of workers were- Poland (41%) (75% in Lincolnshire) , Portugal (11%), Lithuania, Latvia(8%), Ukraine (7%)and Russia (6%).

Furthermore half the people interviewed could speak English, 43% Polish, 29% Russian and 14% Portuguese. The majority of workers could speak two or more languages, with English being one of them and 40% stated Polish was their main language followed by Russian (14%) and Portuguese (13%)

From Friday December 1st 2006 a new law comes into force. Anybody who uses an unlicensed labour provider operating in farming and food processing sectors will be committing a criminal offence and face penalties of up to 6 months imprisonment and a £5,000 fine.

This applies to an estimated users of labour from such labour providers - typically and traditionally called gangmasters who provide gangs of temporary and seasonal labour for agriculture and food processing.

The GLA we will be keen to hear from anyone who believes a Labour Provider is:

* Operating in breach of Licence Conditions
* Operating without a licence

Or that a Labour User is:

* Using an unlicensed Labour Provider.

If you have any concerns please contact the GLA on 0845 602 5020. This number is available during office hours 9am – 5pm.

The message doesn't seem to have got across to the Chinese cockle pickers although If you supply or use workers to gather shellfish, you can now apply for a GLA licence. You have until April 2007 before it becomes an offence to operate without a licence.

PS Breaking News The multi-agency 'Operation Lund' collected the Justice Shield from the stuck up nasty bitch, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland and the luscious TV presenter Fiona Bruce at a ceremony in London today for their work in prosecuting the Morecambe Bay cockle picker gangmaster (see pic - 29 year old Lin Liang Ren) resonsible for at least the deaths of 23 illegal Chinese immigrants..

An enormously complex prosecution involving more than 1,500,000 pages of evidence, the trial eventually led to a Chinese gangmaster being found guilty of 21 counts of manslaughter and jailed for 14 years in March 2006.

Operation Lund involved staff from - the Crown Prosecution Service, Lancashire Constabulary, the courts and witness services, the Heath and Safety Executive, the coastguard, Lancashire County Council, Lancaster City Council, the RNLI, the Immigration Service, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the former National Crime Squad, Defra, the former Inland Revenue, the Sea Fisheries Committee, Interpol and the Chinese Embassy....and all shall have prizes.

Few will remember Lord Carlile the barrister who defended one of the defendants who accused the Home Office and the UK Immigration Service of turning a 'blind eye' to the practice of Chinese cockling.

He claimed that officials 'connived and co-opted people into acceptance of the illegal cockle trade'. The Home Office insists it did take 'robust and appropriate action." Ho. Ho. (as they say in Guangdong)