More migrant workers killed in minibus crash
More migrant workers killed in minibus crash
Six people - including five who were believed to be migrant workers - died this week in a head on crash in Lincolnshire. It is the latest in series incidents in which migrant workers have been killed or injured while being ferried to and from work. The accident happened when a minibus carrying the workers hit a bakery lorry after an overtaking manoeuvre on a single carriageway went wrong. The minibus had picked up the workers from Grantham, Lincolnshire, to take them to work in the Mansfield area of Nottinghamshire. All the victims were adult males and the drivers of the lorry and minibus were killed. The crash left five people injured. Police said one of the injured from the minibus was Portuguese and another was Hungarian. Many migrant workers depend on their agencies or gangmasters to transport them to jobs which often involve unsociable hours in remote locations. The north Lincolnshire area is known to have a large population of migrant workers who are bussed between its many food and agricultural factories. Food processing plants, which the government wants to exempt from the new gangmasters' law (Risks 243), typically operate 24 hours a day seven days a week. Audits of gangmasters have found frequent breaches of the legislation on transport. Charging inflated rates for transport has been one of the ways in which unscrupulous agents claw back wages from foreign workers. Since October two accidents involving migrant workers in the Lincolnshire area have left two men dead and 13 injured.
- The Guardian. The Telegraph. ITN Online.
- Hazards migrant workers' webpage. TUC migrant workers webpages.
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