RECRUIT Right, one of the region’s biggest suppliers of temporary labour, is continuing its battle against worker exploitation by supporting Anti-Slavery Day today.
The Birkenhead-headquartered business is already making inroads into tackling the major issue of human trafficking and modern slavery by incorporating good practice measures of Stronger Together, a business-led alliance sponsored by the UK's largest supermarkets to tackle modern slavery in business supply chains.
However, Recruit Right director Helen Cornah and her team are using national Anti-Slavery Day as a platform to raise awareness among employers and job-seekers of the plight of thousands of people in the UK who are still being hidden in forced labour.
She said: “As a major supplier of temporary labour in the industrial and commercial sectors, we believe it is our responsibility to raise awareness of an appalling situation that deals in human misery.
“By incorporating the Stronger Together good practice, our business can hopefully help to change this culture and bring about working practices that put people's lives ahead of profit.”
Recruit Right, whose national head office is in Argyle Street, places a high volume of temporary labour in the region’s commercial and industrial sectors. Currently, the business is placing 627 people in temporary work every day.
Helen explained that modern slavery takes many forms – people being forced to work when they don't want to, having to pay money to get work, being forced to live in accommodation against their will, their identity documents or bank accounts being controlled by others or families being intimidated.
Last year it was estimated there were 3,280 potential male and 1,476 female victims of modern slavery in the UK. Most commonly, people are trafficked into forced labour in industries such as agriculture, construction, hospitality, manufacturing and car washes.
Helen added: “Even with our high volume of placing people in temporary jobs, we regard our agency workers as part of the Recruit Right 'family' and therefore have duty of care to them.
“We already have strong measures in place to ensure transparency in supply chains requirements - for instance, we regularly audit our system every month to check if there are any duplications of phone numbers, next of kin, addresses and bank accounts.
“We can take further steps, however, to detect, deter and deal with modern slavery by raising awareness among our own staff, employers and job-seekers of the need for a united effort to work towards a slave-free supply chain.
“By taking action to root out exploitative practice and raise the alarm should any evidence become apparent, we can help to stem criminal activity that exploits these vulnerable workers.”