BRUSSELS
European Union governments are being urged to prevent severe forms of labor exploitation within the 28-nation bloc.
A new report released on Tuesday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) says EU states need to make a “great effort to promote a climate of zero tolerance” against labor abuses.
FRA interim director, Constantinos Manolopoulos, said: "The exploitation of workers who have been forced by their economic and social circumstances to agree to substandard working conditions is unacceptable."
The FRA's report says some workers are paid 1 euro or much less per hour, working 12 hours or more a day for at least six days a week.
They are not allowed to go on holiday or take sick leave, it adds.
Although there is EU legislation which prohibits certain forms of severe labor exploitation, workers moving within or migrating to the EU are at risk of becoming victims, according to the FRA.
"We are talking here about an endemic problem that we must take urgent action to end," Manolopoulos added.
The report finds that criminal labor exploitation is extensive in the agriculture, construction, hotel and catering, domestic work and manufacturing sectors.
Perpetrators also face little risk of prosecution or of having to compensate victims, according to the FRA, while adding that customers at the end of the supply chain also have a role to play in stopping labor abuses.
"Consumers are often unaware that the food they eat or the clothes they buy may have been produced by people working under conditions of severe labor exploitation," the report said.
