Stores reject suggestion from shadow immigration minister that they have favoured eastern European recruits over Britons
Labour has become embroiled in a row with the supermarket chain Tesco and clothing retailer Next over the recruitment of cheap eastern European workers at the expense of British staff.
Chris Bryant, the shadow immigration minister, said the party had received claims from employees that both firms were "unscrupulous employers" which had recently favoured foreign workers over Britons. But his words prompted both companies to accuse Labour of getting basic facts wrong.
The row came as figures from the House of Commons Library showed that British workers have suffered some of the sharpest wage falls in the European Union.
Bryant's intervention follows a decision by Labour to take on the Tories and Ukip over immigration and employment. Senior party figures are concerned that it could lose ground among traditional supporters who believe their jobs and terms and conditions are under threat.
In the text of a speech due to be delivered on Monday but leaked over the weekend, Bryant said: "It is unfair that unscrupulous employers whose only interest seems to be finding labour as cheaply as possible will recruit workers in large numbers in low-wage countries in the EU.
"Take the case of Tesco … they recently decided to move a distribution centre in the south-east. The new centre is larger and employs more people. But it has been alleged that the staff at the original site were told that they could only move to the new centre if they took a cut in pay. The result? A bigger percentage of the staff at the new centre are from Eastern bloc countries."
Tesco said it had recruited 350 local people to work in its distribution centre in Dagenham, not in Kent as originally alleged by Bryant. A spokesman said: "It is wrong to accuse Tesco of this. We work incredibly hard to recruit from the local area, and have just recruited 350 local people to work in our Dagenham site."
However, Bryant's claims against Tesco were partially backed by Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, who said that the retail giant had behaved "disgracefully" towards some of his constituents.
"They said they were building a new Dagenham plant and the Harlow plant in my own constituency would be alongside it.
"The moment the plant was built it was suddenly announced the Harlow plant would close. They then said to the British Harlow workers, yes, they could have jobs in Dagenham, but it would be at lower pay after transitional costs had been taken in."
In the text Bryant also outlines allegations that Next brought 500 Polish workers to work at its warehouse in South Elmsall, West Yorkshire, for its summer sale and another 300 this summer.
A spokesman for Next said the firm had been forced to look abroad for workers, not to save money, but because it had been unable to recruit temporary workers in Britain. "Mr Bryant also makes the false claim that the use of Polish workers enables Next to avoid agency working regulations. For clarity, the nationality of workers in no way affects their rights under agency workers regulations, a fact Mr Bryant should be aware of.
"We very much hope that Mr Bryant, being appraised of the facts, will reconsider his claims when he comes to make his speech," a Next spokesman said.
According to the Commons library figures on pay, a 5.5% reduction in average hourly wages since mid-2010, adjusted for inflation, means British workers have suffered a greater cut than those in countries hit by the eurozone crisis. Wages dropped by 3.3% in Spain over the same period and by 3% in Cyprus.
Only Greek, Portuguese and Dutch wages suffered a steeper decline than the UK, the analysis showed, while they rose by 2.7% in Germany and 0.4% in France.
A separate analysis by the TUC showed that in the two years to December 2012 the number of temporary workers in the UK increased by 89,000 to 1,650,000 – 46% of the total rise in employment. At the same time, ever more were employed on a casual basis, with 19,000 fewer on fixed-term contracts.
"The fact that casualised labour continues to grow even during this 'so-called' recovery suggests that the labour market is far more fragile than headline figures suggest," said Frances O'Grady, the TUC's general secretary.
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