News

The UK Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) has shut down a new business set up by a Birmingham gangmaster whose former company exploited workers at an Evesham vegetable packing firm.

Harnek Tung was refused a licence for PTE UK because a raid to his previous business, EMP Solutions, uncovered that workers supplied to Simms & Woods in Wyre Piddle were paid below the minimum wage, did not have accurate payslips and no records were kept of the days and hours worked.

EMP was closed in December 2007, but the GLA did not blame Simms & Woods for the illegal working practices discovered.

The GLA said Tung was not "fit and proper" to hold a licence due to his "systematic" failure to address the shortcomings in his previous business.

GLA chairman Paul Whitehouse said Tung's attempt to set up another business made a mockery of the system.

"He cannot simply set up shop under a different name. A crude ruse like this will not work. There is no easy way back for these kinds of people."

The GLA was created to protect workers from exploitation in food processing and packing, agriculture, horticulture and shellfish gathering, after the deaths of 23 Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay in 2005.

The GLA has issued approximately 1,200 licences and revoked 70. It stepped up its fight against gangmasters who exploit vulnerable workers in the food retail supply chain with the launch of Operation Ajax in June.

The operation was set up to increase the GLA's activities with an 18-month programme of unannounced raids on gangmasters.