The British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) has responded to new Government immigration rules, highlighting that the rules may "spark a raft of Equal Pay Claims under the Equality Act 2010", as it says existing workers in the UK seek to be paid an equal salary for the same work as their newly arrived overseas colleagues.
The BMPA said that the Government has once again announced a "seismic policy change without having produced any impact assessment of the damage it could cause", comparing the changes to Liz Truss' mini budget that "set off a chain of chaos" and "lit the blue touch paper on rampant inflation" last year.
The trade body calculated that the new rules could cost the meat sector "hundreds of millions of pounds", and stated that the proposed £38,700 threshold could "cause havoc" across factories, offices, pubs, restaurants, warehouses, call centres and shops, with existing UK workers having the legal right to demand a similar salary uplift.
It said that the potential salary uplift would "completely distort the standard market rate for jobs across the UK", and would "massively disadvantage" companies outside of the South East, while having the potential to "completely up-end the current regional, skills and experience-based salary system" that has determined how much people get paid for decades.
The BMPA warned that wage increases would mean a "large and sudden inflation shock", with businesses paying more for lower skills and less productivity.
It held that despite "current competitive rates of pay" that are "well above the official Government 'going rates'", companies in and out of the meat industry find it "impossible" to fill all their vacancies from the pool of people in the UK, who BMPA said are either not willing, not able or not in the right location to take up these positions.
BMPA calls for suspension of the plan
The BMPA maintained that British consumers will be hit with "steeply rising costs" from some of the food, retail, hospitality and manufacturing sectors if the new rules are allowed to pass into law and companies continue to bring in overseas workers. It said that as a result, the UK would become "less competitive" on the international export market.
However, the trade body said that businesses had made it clear that "filling these vacancies will become completely unviable under the new rule", and that if they can recruit neither British nor overseas workers then they will be left with one choice - contract their business and reduce the amount of food they produce, which would prevent growth for the UK and damage the economy.
The BMPA has now urged policy makers to suspend the immigration plan, engage with businesses and produce a properly worked-out impact assessment on businesses and consumers before committing to anything. It said that if policy makers do not do as such, companies and overseas workers will be forced to act now based on the "worst-case scenario", with the damage starting "well before the new rules are implemented".
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
