Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#1
Thanet Earth or Tilmanstone Salads as it used to be called has come under fire as migrant workers accuse firms of using gangmaster labour
The site supplies the likes of Tesco,M&S Asda etc and employs about 300 people but Unite union alleges that some employment employees in positions of authority of taking cash and gifts for work, denial of paid holidays. It also states that most of the workers are treated as casual labour and don't have any contracts.
The company originally boasted they would create 500 jobs for local Kent residents but I know from friends who work there that the management only very rarely take on local people and about 95% of the workforce is made up of recently arrived immigrants who (allegedly) have the right to work in the UK. Apparently the Gangmaster Licensing Authority is looking into the allegations.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
#2
I went to Tilmanstone Salads last year (not for a job I might add) and they supply exclusively to M & S, not those others you mentioned.
I doubt if any illegal activities are going on there Marek; they couldn't afford to lose the contract with M & S. They seem a very well run company and do quite a lot for their work-force and support local community bodies.
These scare stories could put hundreds out of work; another example of interfering unions - close down the company 'cos someone's upset them and then everyone loses; very sensible.
Roger
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#3
marek,i think you find that they are two [2] differant companys.
on saying that tilmanstone salads do employ some agency staff,but whatever holiday/sick pay etc on agency terms are differant to tilmanstones enployed staff.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#4
Roger
Are we talking about the same site ...the one with hectacres of glasshouses?
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#5
marek,no.planet earth is in between margate/ramsgate,tilmanstone salads is on eythornes industrial site on pike road.
i hope thats cleared that up.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#6
Je ne vinaigrette rien, eh Marek?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#7
Roger how do you know this "scare story" has anything to do with unions?
There is nothing to suggest in post 1 the source of any complaint if there was one. (The fact that Unite went public with this in late March is by the by - and they are surely trying not to close down work but ensure parity of conditions and compliance with the existing laws - but one man's half full glass is another's half empty)
But of course the likelihood that it may actually have been a disgruntled former employee, or an unsuccessful local, or a racist local or a concerned council employee or charity worker doesnt fit your political view of the labour market
I do agree with you that Planet Earth are unlikely to be involved in using gang labour due to their supply contracts
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#8
This is the web page about the history of the owner of Tilmanstone Salads
http://www.bakkavor.com/about-us/who-we-are/our-history.aspx
This is the "about us" web page for Thanet Earth
http://www.thanetearth.com/about-us.html"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#9
thanet earth are not conneted with tilmanstone salads.
they were on the news a while back about their new hi-tech greenhouses.
incidentally i heard the same stories abut them as marek, before it hit the media.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#10
Pickers and packers get the minimum 5.93/hour, and most British people laboured with the British cost of living cannot be expected to make a career on such a laughable sum, unless you own your own house, so as not to pay rent, and ride a bike.
That 95% of the people working in Kent's food-processing industry are migrant workers is a likely figure, and they also work along agency-contracts, which tend to exclude all those luxuries that once were the result of a social work-policy (social in the non-political sence).
I was told that in one factory - I won't give any name - somewhere in Dover, the work-leaders spoke in mono-syllables to the employees, who hardly understood English and came from 25 different countries. And that English people working there on an agency contract couldn't cope with such treatment (as they too were spokent to in the same way) and just walked out.