UK Rank and File Builders Committee Meeting

On Monday 27th November the UK Rank and File Builders Committee met in central London to discuss issues concerning the proposed building works on the 2012 Olympic Stadium. This included speakers and workers representing Trade Unions such as the GMB, TGWU, UCATT, AMICUS, EPIU and currently working on building sites such as the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Wembley Stadium, Kingscross, and T5 were also present.

The construction industry's training body is setting up an office in Poland to fast-track migrant workers into Britain.

More than 400,000 east Europeans have registered to work in the U.K. since their countries joined the EU in 2004. The government estimated 26,000 would come.

Poland's 15.5 percent unemployment rate is the highest in the EU, compared with 3 percent in Britain. A full-time waitress in Poland making the minimum wage would earn £157 a month, compared with the equivalent of £853 in Britain, according to the European Commission. 100,000 Poles who have moved to London since Poland joined the European Union in 2004, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain says.

HMP Wayland at Griston, near Watton, yesterday revealed that from next February it will become a national hub for prison labour, supplying big business with skilled workers from jails across the UK.