In conjunction with the charity Citizens Advice, the TUC has produced a booklet on the rights of people coming to work and live in the UK from the so-called A8 countries. These are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland.
The booklet – “Living and working in the UK” explains how to find housing in both the private and public sectors; how to register for benefits and tax credits as well as national insurance and tax. It also explains the different employment rights for workers as opposed to employees and the rights of agency workers, among other things.
Another study – “New EU members?” commissioned by the TUC shows that thousands of Polish and Lithuanian workers are being exploited at work in the UK. A quarter of the workers in the study reported having no written contract (a figure which rose to nearly a third amongst agency workers) and over a quarter had faced problems with payment. Ten times as many migrants as indigenous workers were paid less than the minimum wage.
THOMPSONS MIGRANT WORKERS’ UNIT
Thompsons has opened a Migrant Workers’ Unit, dedicated to assisting with individual cases, providing seminars and talks, helping unions with recruitment initiatives and providing leaflets / publications in the most widely spoken languages.