Employers must take active interest in the welfare of workers

One case of labour exploitation brought to the attention of Scotland Against Modern Slavery involved a construction worker in Aberdeen.

Originally from Poland, Piotr, 48, was working at a factory in England. He was in a romantic relationship with his supervisor and started living with them.

When the relationship ended, Piotr was thrown out of his flat and lost his job, putting him in an extremely vulnerable situation.

With nowhere to go and hampered by his limited grasp of English, he struggled to find employment and so began to look at job adverts online.

Eventually he was offered a job in Aberdeen as a labourer on a construction site and so he travelled north. Piotr was told that he would be provided with accommodation through his job.

But things were not as they seemed.

He went weeks without receiving a wage for his work.

Despite being threatened by his employer and not getting paid, Piotr continued to work at the site as his place to live was tied to his job.

One day he suffered an accident at work, believed to involve a pair of ladders, and was taken to hospital.

While in hospital, a triage nurse became concerned with Piotr’s living situation and contacted the authorities on his behalf.

After being identified as a victim, the 48-yearold was referred to Scotland Against Modern Slavery.

Shan Saba, founder of Scotland Against Modern Slavery, who helped Piotr in Aberdeen, believes the construction industry is at risk due to the complex contractor and subcontractor relationships on site. She warned that there are “red flags” that businesses and recruitment agencies need to be aware of when taking on workers.

These red flags include individuals who have control of all the documentation for a group of people, or the documents for someone they claim is their partner.

Groups of people shouldn’t have the same mobile number or bank details.

“You can’t even do a minute’s worth of work if you have the same email address because that’s your method of communication and you don’t want to share that with anyone,” said Shan – who also works for Brightwork recruitment.

“There’s all these flags of worker registration we have to look at.”

Business owners becoming aware of suspicious activity around recruitment is not enough to solve the problem though, claims Shan.

He thinks that employers need to take a more active interest in their workers’ welfare and their daily lives to make sure they are connected into communities.

Normal everyday conversations about how they enjoyed the weekend or if they watched the big football game can be important identifiers.

Even just the ability to ask someone, in person, if they are OK.

“If you find that you’re not communicating with the workforce, or saying that’s just the way Polish people or Romanian people are and just leaving them to it, that shouldn’t be accepted in any workplace,” said Shan.

Employers should not only seek this level of engagement with their direct workforce, but also with their agency staff and sub-contractors.