Agency staff deported after immigration raid

The Copthorne Tara hotel in London confirmed this week that it had been raided by immigration officers who had found a number of illegally-employed foreign agency staff.

They took away 15 housekeepers, some of whom were subsequently deported.

Those deported were students who had exceeded the 20-hour-a-week working limit stipulated by their visas.

The hotel's management said it did not know who the housekeepers were or what had happened to them.

This reaction has angered a union official who condemned as "scandalous" the widespread practice of London hotels using agency staff but refusing to take responsibility for them.

Des Kent, general manager of the 800-bedroom hotel in Kensington, west London, said: "I don't know what nationalities they were and I don't know where they have gone.

"It is up to the agencies to control them. They were not my employees and they worked at all sorts of hotels."

Dave Turnbull, London regional organiser for the Transport and General Workers' Union, said: "Almost every hotel in London employs staff from agencies, and they have an obligation to make sure they work properly and legitimately.

"It is unacceptable for a hotel to make an economical decision to take on agency staff and then say that what happens to them is not up to them."

Clive Gates, general manager of KMS, one of the agencies used by the hotel, disagreed.

He had 37 staff at the Copthorne Tara when the raid happened. Of those, four were detained by immigration officers and three deported. Gates said: "At the end of the day, those four employees were our responsibility, not the hotel's."

Kent said he used agency staff because he was unable to find people to fill the jobs on a full-time basis.

He denied they were cheap labour and said they were paid "not a great deal less" than his 40 full-time housekeepers.

by Louise Bozec

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 30 May - 5 June 2002