Probe into jubilee slave labor urged

The firm said yesterday on June 6 that it was investigating the actions of employment charity, Tomorrow’s People, involved in organizing the placements, and security firm Close Protection UK, following allegations the jobseekers were forced to sleep in the cold under London Bridge before the British Queen’s Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.

Earlier on June 4, reports revealed that coach-loads of long-term unemployed job-seekers were taken to London to work as unpaid stewards during celebrations marking the British Queen’s 60th year on the throne.

According to the reports, the job-seekers from South West England had no access to toilets for 24 hours, and were taken to a swampy campsite outside London after working for 14 hours on Sunday 3 June.

“Following adverse press reports relating to the working conditions and supervision of a number of trainees over part of the bank holiday weekend, Prospects, as the prime contractor for the Work Programme in the South West, will carry out a full investigation to ascertain the facts and make recommendations for the future,” said a statement on the Prospects Group website.

The reports also show that eighty people, including 50 unpaid job-seekers and 30 “apprentices” on £2.80 an hour, from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth worked as stewards along the Thames River.

“This case has attracted attention because of its link to the Diamond Jubilee. Sadly low-paid vulnerable employment such as this occurs on a daily basis throughout the country. The number of involuntary temporary workers is at a record high. These are not the jobs that will take Britain out of recession and improve people’s living standards,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

However, responding to widespread criticisms, a spokeswoman for the British Prime Minister David Cameron regarded the scandal as a “one-off.”

SSM/SS/HE

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