Plea to NI employers over rise in migrant workers

Northern Ireland companies were today urged to update their employment procedures in response to the growing numbers of migrant workers in the workplace.

The call was made as the British Equality Commission held an event to discuss the challenges posed to employers by the rise in overseas workers.

Paul Oakes, a manager in the Commission’s Equal Programmes Department, said companies must ensure they communicate their equal opportunities and anti-harassment procedures to workers.

This could mean providing translations to workers, whose first language is not English.

“We want employers to consider all their employment policies and revisit them with the support of the Equality Commission in the light of migrant worker issue,” said Mr Oakes.

“It is a new issue and that requires that employers look at their polices and try to find out if there are things they can do better,” he said.

Around 100 companies, many from the private sector, attended the seminar in Portadown.

A number of firms present pledged to work with the Equality Commission to meet the needs of migrant workers.

The commission has suggested holding a series of equality forums to assist employers to create anti-racist workplaces.

With the rise in the numbers of migrant workers there has been an increase in racist attacks in Northern Ireland.

Mr Oakes said the public must be made aware that migrant workers were fulfilling an essential role in the employment market by filling jobs that otherwise would not be done.

This was particularly evident in the National Health Service where many medical and nursing posts were filled by people from outside Northern Ireland.

“As one of the speakers pointed out it is unlikely that our health service would function without migrant workers,” he added.

In the 2001 Census it was estimated that there were around 26,000 people in Northern Ireland who could be classified as migrant workers or dependants.

A report by the Institute for Conflict Research, published in June of this year, said most worked in the food processing, agriculture, health care, education, hospitality and catering industries.

The research revealed that migrant workers experienced a range of problems including lack of information in obtaining National Insurance numbers, poor working conditions, lack of recognition of existing qualifications and poor training.

Many were experiencing problems living in rented accommodation and had experienced racism and harassment in the workplace and in the street.

It also identified that migrant workers were necessary for many employers because of the shortage of local labour.