A recent survey of construction industry managers by Scottish Construction Now magazine found that more than a third, believed that eastern Europeans needed to improve on their health and safety practices.

Mace & Jones partner and construction industry specialist Ken Salmon said the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is ready to crack down hard on employers in inspections in response to mounting evidence that eastern Europeans are facing higher workplace accidents levels. Research carried out for the HSE by London Metropolitan University found that migrant workers are concentrated in more hazardous jobs without adequate training and are working longer hours and shifts. The HSE initiated the research after suspecting elevated accident risks to migrant workers were not being reflected in official statistics.

Mr Salmon said: “Employers have a duty to improve migrant workers limited understanding of health and safety. Employers need to put in place a procedure to ensure that any problems with communication or lack of familiarity with the jobs are properly prepared for and ironed out through rigorous training. Failure to protect the safety of migrant workers risks stiff penalties and fines. Employers simply cannot afford to be complacent in this vitally important area of the labour market.”

Discrimination
However Mr Salmon said employers needed to tread with real care not to discriminate against eastern Europeans.

He said: “Although tests to assess eastern European applicants standard of written and oral English are advisable they must be applied to all candidates regardless of nationality to avoid accusations of discrimination. Moreover, the tests should not go beyond assessing the candidates ability to fulfill the job description. Overly onerous tests could again be seen as potentially discriminatory.”

Mr Salmon further urged employers to check all prospective workers’ passports, and to make sure they keep copies on file. Otherwise they will not have any defence against a charge of employing an illegal migrant worker.

He said: “The Government has employers under the microscope. Bosses who hire workers without the necessary paperwork face an unlimited fine or two years in jail. But if you check one job applicant’s paperwork because, but not another’s, you will be discriminating.”

Migration
A report by the City forecaster Capital Economics in January, which included the arrivals from the new EU member states in its calculations, estimated that net migration soared by 400,000 rather than the Government figure of 185,000 in 2005.

It also forecast that 50,000 workers from Romania and Bulgaria would head to Britain this year. "It is quite likely that many will stay and work in the black economy," the report said.

The report is the last among many that have sought to clear up the situation of migrants on British soil after authorities in London saw an influx of some 600,000 workers from the eight CEE countries that joined the EU in 2004 - compared to the expected 13,000.

As such, British authorities established a series of measures last autumn to prevent large numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians to come and work there after the accession of two countries in the EU on January 1, 2007.

The forecasters reckoned that the UK population had risen by 2.5 million over the past 10 years, of which 1.7 million — or almost 70 per cent — was due to net immigration. More than one third of this increase occurred in the last two years alone.

But while the population was increasing by 0.8 per cent a year, the economy was growing by only half that rate.

"Clearly this has important implications for the potential growth rate of GDP," the report added.

However, a Bank of England report in January said it had found "little evidence" that immigrants from eastern Europe had significantly affected the wages or employment chances of British workers. The paper found that the 0.8 per cent rise in unemployment rates over the past 18 months had "little to do with" immigration.

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Susie Hughes
The Editor © Hardhatter 2007