One of Britain’s most popular supermarket chains has landed itself in hot water with Border Force this week. Members of the immigration authority arrested 20 workers who allegedly breached visa conditions at Tesco.com’s Croydon office earlier this week as part of a series of overnight raids.
Should the commercial property supermarket chain be found guilty of illegally employing foreign students, it will face fines totalling thousands of pounds as punishment for the breach of employment law.
Authorities put the raids into action after discovering that the students, mostly of Indian and Bangladeshi origin, had worked up to three and a half times longer than their student visas allowed. Student visas permit the applicant to work 20 hours per week, but some of the workers had exceeded their working hours limit by up to 50 hours.
A spokesman from the UK Border Agency said; “We received information that some staff members were working in the UK illegally at Tesco.com on Factory Lane, Croydon. In response, officers carried out an operation in full cooperation with the company shortly after 3am on Saturday, July 21 2012.
“Twenty individuals have been arrested and now face removal from the UK. The operation was part of an ongoing campaign to tackle visa abuse which has seen over 2,000 offenders removed since the beginning of May.
“The employer now needs to provide evidence that it was carrying out the legally required checks to avoid a fine.”
In order to avoid paying a fine, the retailer must provide evidence to the Border Agency that all twenty student workers had provided the correct paperwork upon employment at the Croydon commercial property, and members of management staff at Tesco’s warehouse consistently checked the working hours of each foreign employee were in keeping with their visa allowance. Should it be discovered that these checks were not conducted on a regular basis, Tesco will be fined up to £10,000 for each illegal employee – totalling a huge £200,000 fine.
Since the statement issued by Border Force was released, at least seven of the incarcerated Tesco employees have been deported, while the rest remain under investigation. So far, none of the arrested student workers have been identified.
Tesco claims that, following the July raids, employment procedures had been tightened considerably in order to avoid further hiring of illegal workers.
A spokesman for the chain said; “In cooperation with Tesco, the UK Border Agency visited our dot com store in Croydon in July. As a result of this visit, a small number of staff were found to have breached the terms of their working visas.
“We continue to cooperate fully with the UK Border Agency as they look into this issue – we take our responsibilities as an employer very seriously and do not condone illegal working of any kind.
“We have a comprehensive system for ensuring all the correct procedures are followed in this area which has been externally audited and generally works well.
“We have now taken additional steps to ensure an incident of this nature does not happen again.”
The latest immigrant worker scandal comes in the wake of a report released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), claiming that employers prefer to hire foreign workers than young British school leavers and graduates. Rising levels of immigration and falling standards in British schools have been blamed for the youth unemployment crisis currently overshadowing economic recovery in this country, as well as the work ethic of young British people.
Perhaps this latest bust for a large multi-national company will encourage employers to take on more British workers or, at the very least, stick more closely by the regulations set down by employment law – ensuring a fairer working environment for everyone.
Do you believe that Tesco should face penalties for allowing foreign employees to work over the hours allotted to them by their visa conditions? Or do you believe that it should be the workers who bear the brunt of the blame?
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