Critics
Critics of the authority have variously accused it of being ineffective, overly media-focussed, having board members with conflicts of interest or heavy-handed .
Research by Oxfam, issued in July 2009, whilst generally supportive (see Advocates section) was also critical of the GLA's approach . It found that the GLA's practice of providing information to the UK Border Agency is preventing the most vulnerable migrant workers from coming forward. "Given the GLA’s reliance on workers speaking out, and given that many workers within its remit are migrant workers, the GLA’s role in enforcing immigration law and sharing information with the UK Border Agency fundamentally thwarts its ability to fully achieve its goal of ending worker exploitation",(page 19). They argue that this prevents the most vulnerable from reporting exploitation: "Effectively, through the inclusion of this standard, the GLA creates a distinction between the labour rights of regular migrants and irregular migrants. The consequence is two-fold: both regular migrants unsure of their immigration status and irregular migrants will be discouraged from reporting abuses; and secondly, irregular migrants will be more likely to be driven further underground and work for unlicensed and more exploitative gangmasters", (page 29).
In May 2010 reports began to emerge that over 70 dairy farmers were caught up in the GLA’s biggest ever criminal investigation and 19 were prosecuted . In a test case against one of the 19, who pleaded guilty, a judge concluded that the wrongdoing was "purely technical" and categorically involved no worker exploitation. .
After public interest in the GLA peaked in October 2010 with claims that the GLA had found trafficked child slaves forced to work in English agriculture it was reported that these reports had been fabricated to save the GLA from budget cuts.
In February 2012, the Daily Mirror highlighted examples of a GLA board member providing consultancy advice to gangmasters subject to investigation, law-enforcement or prosecution by the GLA suggesting that potential conflicts of interest at the authority were “hidden from public gaze”.
In March 2012 Confor (the Forestry industry body) broadly welcomed the government's response to the Forestry Task Force, but in a meeting with forestry minister Lord Taylor, chief executive Stuart Goodall expressed frustration that the issue of Gangmaster licensing had been left to the government's Red Tape Challenge, and said it will continue to lobby hard for complete exemption from licensing . As a result it issued a press statement in April 2012, leading to coverage in several regional media outlets. These alleged that the GLA had an “in your face” style that is not only unnecessary but also costing jobs and harming British forests as small and medium-sized enterprises are no longer willing to take on work which might require GLA licences . The criticism failed to acknowledge the positive effect of the GLA's forestry pilot, which includes the removal of costly inspection fees complained of in the reports.
Read more about this topic: Gangmasters Licensing Authority
Famous quotes containing the word critics:
“When the critics come around it’s always too late.”
—Sidney, Sir Nolan (1917–1992)
“With a few exceptions, the critics of children’s books are remarkably lenient souls.... Most of us assume there is something good in every child; the critics go from this to assume there is something good in every book written for a child. It is not a sound theory.”
—Katharine S. White (1892–1977)
“My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer ... writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)