Labour Attacks Tesco Over Foreign Staff

[Jazzy]

Labour has ignited a row with supermarket giant Tesco by planning to attack the chain for employing foreign workers.

Shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant is due to condemn Tesco and other leading companies for being "unscrupulous" and pursuing cheap labour from Eastern Europe.

In a speech on Monday, he is expected to claim Tesco moved its distribution centre to Kent where a "large percentage" of the staff are from the eastern bloc.

He will claim Tesco had recently decided to move its distribution centre in Kent but slashed pay for existing staff, penalising Britons.

"The new centre is larger and employs more people, but the staff at the original site, most of them British, were told that they could only move to the new centre if they took a cut in pay," he will say.

On Sky News, he accused the supermarket chain of behaving "disgracefully" towards staff when it closed its distribution centre in his constituency.

"They said they were building a new Dagenham plant and the Harlow plant in my own constituency would be alongside it," he said.

"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.

"As a result the majority of them couldn't afford to work in Dagenham and had to take redundancy. Tesco in my view behaved quite disgracefully and quite ruthlessly."

Source

I'm confused. What foreign workers is minister Chris Bryant talking about?