Next, the high street retailer run by multimillionaire Tory donor Lord Wolfson, is bussing in hundreds of Polish people to work in its Yorkshire warehouse after claiming to have failed to hire enough British people.
The company, which made profits of £695m last year, admitted that it began recruiting Poles for minimum-wage seasonal warehouse jobs 5-10 days before advertising the roles in the UK.
Next said it was not preferentially hiring Polish people, but had started the recruitment drive in Poland first because it needed more time to bring people over from the continent.
“There are not enough people to recruit in the local area,” a Next spokesman said. “We still haven’t filled the jobs. The reason they do it in Poland first is because it takes longer [before they can start work at the warehouse].”
The company has hired about 500 British and 240 Polish people for a total of 840 warehouse roles required over the Christmas shopping and January sales period. The spokesman said the jobs were advertised on Next’s website, in jobcentres and on UK recruitment websites. Next is still actively recruiting in the UK and Poland for 100 more staff.
The Yorkshire and Humber region has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country, after the north-east, with 7.2% of people out of work compared with the national average of 6.1%.
Next and its Polish recruitment agency have arranged a fleet of buses to drive the 240 Polish recruits 1,180 miles from Warsaw directly to its warehouse in South Elmsall, West Yorkshire. The first of the buses began arriving last month, with up to seven coaches travelling in convey according to the Daily Mirror, which first reported the Polish recruitment drive.
The Polish workers are charged £100 a head for the journey, which takes about 19 hours not including stops according to Google Maps.
When they arrive at Next’s warehouse, the Polish recruits are charged £50-£65 each per week for shared room accommodation provided by local landlords.
The Next spokesman said the accommodation, which is arranged by its Polish recruitment agency, was “maximum two people per room”.
Next said the posts vary from a few weeks to a few months. Staff aged over 21 will be paid £6.50 an hour – the minimum wage. The spokesman said they could be eligible for a bonus worth up to 60% more, but not until they completed 12 weeks’ service.
The GMB union, which represents Next workers and has embarked on a nationwide tour demanding staff are paid the living wage of £7.85, said it was outrageous that jobs were being offered in Poland before the UK.
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, which represents Next workers, said: “All over Europe there are labour agencies exploiting posted workers on a massive scale. Internal EU-wide union estimates show that approximately one million workers are exploited as posted workers annually.”
“From Lindsey Oil Refinery to food production, we have seen workers recruited in certain member states by agencies and exploited. They were shipped in literally in order to undermine the terms and conditions of existing workers on those contracts. Both sets of workers have been let down by UK government, the European commission and the European court.
“On exploitation – don’t blame the exploited; damn those who exploit. This has been repeated up and down the country over recent years. And that is part of the discontent that extreme political parties turn into xenophobic rhetoric to win votes.”
The GMB said it met Polish workers off the buses and handed them leaflets in Polish encouraging them to join the union.
Wolfson, who owns 1% of Next’s shares worth more than £100m, was paid £4.6m last year. In the current year, his basic salary rises 2% to £1.1m but his total pay is likely to exceed £6.2m with his long-term incentive plan and annual bonus included – even after excluding a bonus he has chosen to share among staff for the last two years.
Wolfson has donated more than £400,000 to the Tories since 2006 and advised the party on economic policy before the last general election. He was made a peer by the government in July 2010.
He has had no formal role with the Conservatives since 2010, but is married to Eleanor Shawcross, one of George Osborne’s economic advisors.
