A Dudley gangmaster who appeared to be paying agricultural field workers below the National Minimum Wage has been stripped of her licence by the GLA.
Managing director Mrs Sahra Rizwan appealed against the authority’s decision to revoke the licence of her company A N Recruitment Ltd in May last year. But all of the GLA’s findings were upheld by an appointed judge at the Birmingham court and now the revocation has been triggered.
As well as finding evidence that showed the pea and sprout pickers she employed were not having their ‘piece-rate’ pay made up to NMW levels if they failed to reach it, the business failed a number of other GLA standards.
The authority determined that managing director Mrs Rizwan – the Principal Authority named on the licence – lacked the competencies required to run the business compliantly. It was also discovered she was working for a firm of accountants three days a week, while one of her supervisors and the farmer she supplied her workers to dictate how much they would be paid.
GLA Chief Executive Paul Broadbent said: “Our findings suggested we had uncovered a case of someone being put up merely to act as ‘a front’ for a business – and the appeal judge fully backed our assessment.
“Though run and licensed in Mrs Rizwan’s name, it soon became apparent she had very little control over the day-to-day running of this company – primarily because she was working elsewhere for the majority of each week.
“She lacked much of the basic knowledge we would expect a managing director to know about her company’s operations – like the hourly rates her business charged to provide field workers to a farm.
“But the most important thing is that we’ve removed another non-compliant operator from our sector and prevented these field workers from being exploited by receiving pay rates below the legal minimum.”