Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004

Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004^[1]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to make provision for the licensing of activities involving the supply or use of workers in connection with agricultural work, the gathering of wild creatures and wild plants, the harvesting of fish from fish farms, and certain processing and packaging; and for connected purposes.
Citation	2004 c. 11
Territorial extent	England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland[2]
Dates
Royal assent	8 July 2004
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 (c. 11) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that regulates the agencies that place vulnerable workers in agricultural work, and the shellfish collecting and packing industries (s.3). It is the most recent plank of UK agency worker law. It establishes the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (s.1), which requires that all such agencies have a licence before they operate, and adhere to proper labour practice standards. Most of its provisions came into effect after 2005.^[3] The immediate cause of the legislation was the 2004 Morecambe Bay cockling disaster, where 21 Chinese immigrant labourers were left to drown by their employers (the racketeers were subsequently convicted of manslaughter, and some deported back to China) off the coast of Lancashire as the tide swept in around them.

The Gangmasters Licensing Act was based on a voluntary project, the UK Temporary Labour Working Group [1], carried out by companies in conjunction with trade unions through the Ethical Trading Initiative. The project provided a working model for how a licensing scheme could work, and also meant that ETI-member companies, including major UK supermarkets, lobbied for the new law.