英伦广角 2013-08-17 英国影子移民大臣指责两家名企剥削廉价外国劳工却拒聘本地人

 Even good British companies have been affected¹ by the impact of low skilled migrant workers.

 

Take Tesco. A good employer and an important source of jobs in Britain. They take on young people, operate apprenticeships and training schemes and often recruit unemployed² or disabled staff through job centres.

 

Yet when a distribution centre was moved to a new location， existing staff said they would have lost out by transferring and the result was a higher proportion of staff at the new site from A8 countries taking up the jobs.

 

Tesco are clear that they have tried to recruit locally. And I hope they can provide more reassurance³ for their existing staff. But the fact that staff are raising concern shows how sensitive the issue has become.

 

Some companies have found themselves far more heavily affected.

 

Next PLC recruited extra temporary staff for their South Elmsall warehouse⁴ for the summer sale - last year and this year.

 

Now South Elmsall is in a region with 9% unemployment and 23.8% youth unemployment.

 

Yet several hundred people were recruited directly from Poland. The recruitment agency Next used,called Flame, has its web-site, www.flamejobs.pl, entirely⁵ in Polish.

 

Now of course short term contracts and work are sometimes necessary in order to satisfy seasonal⁶ spikes⁷ in demand.

 

But when agencies bring such a large number of workers of a specific nationality at a time when there are one million young unemployed in Britain it is right,surely, to ask why that is happening.

 

Now, many employers say they prefer to take on foreign workers. They have lots of get up and go, they say. They are reliable. They turn up and they work hard.

 

But I've heard examples from across the country where employers appear to have made a deliberate decision not to provide training to local young people but to cut pay and conditions and to recruit from abroad instead, or to use tied accommodation and undercut the minimum wage.

 

It may be the case, as some have argued, that many young people discount hospitality or care industries as beneath them, but in many other countries a job in a hotel is not a dead end or a gap year stopgap but the start of a rewarding career. Tourism is one of our largest industries and yet I have heard horror tales of hotel management deliberately⁸ cutting hours of young British workers and adding hours to migrant workers who do not complain about deductions⁹ from earnings¹⁰ that almost certainly take people below their national minimum wage.

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

3 reassurance   

n.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• He drew reassurance from the enthusiastic applause.热烈的掌声使他获得了信心。
• Reassurance is especially critical when it comes to military activities.消除疑虑在军事活动方面尤为关键。

4 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

5 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

6 seasonal   

adj.季节的，季节性的

参考例句：

• The town relies on the seasonal tourist industry for jobs.这个城镇依靠季节性旅游业提供就业机会。
• The hors d'oeuvre is seasonal vegetables.餐前小吃是应时蔬菜。

7 spikes   

n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划

参考例句：

• a row of iron spikes on a wall 墙头的一排尖铁
• There is a row of spikes on top of the prison wall to prevent the prisoners escaping. 监狱墙头装有一排尖钉，以防犯人逃跑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

9 deductions   

扣除( deduction的名词复数 )； 结论； 扣除的量； 推演

参考例句：

• Many of the older officers trusted agents sightings more than cryptanalysts'deductions. 许多年纪比较大的军官往往相信特务的发现，而不怎么相信密码分析员的推断。
• You know how you rush at things,jump to conclusions without proper deductions. 你知道你处理问题是多么仓促，毫无合适的演绎就仓促下结论。

10 earnings   

n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得

参考例句：

• That old man lives on the earnings of his daughter.那个老人靠他女儿的收入维持生活。
• Last year there was a 20% decrease in his earnings.去年他的收入减少了20%。