The factory in Poland’s Tczew that produces Britain’s new blue post-Brexit passports is facing an investigation because of poorly treated and underpaid staff, according to the Daily Mail.
Staff working at the factory said that they were leaving to earn more money as fishmongers or waitresses and some of them said that working conditions were as bad as in prison.
“We have a branch in Tczew and I will ask colleagues to look into this problem. Our organisation is not directly in this plant, but if something bad is happening in it, we will quickly find out. We will definitely investigate this case,” Polish workers union Solidarnosc chief Krzysztof Dosla said as quoted by the Daily Mail.
Thales Group, which has a contract with the UK Government to produce passports said that company fully respects health-and-safety regulations.
“The wellbeing of our 80,000 employees worldwide is paramount and we consider their workplace wellness a priority,” Thales said in a statement.
The United Kingdom changed the colour of its passports to burgundy red in 1998 in line with the EU design. All new passports issued from mid-2020 will be blue.
The United Kingdom officially left the European Union on 31 January completing a three-and-a-half-year process that began with the 2016 Brexit referendum. Until the end of the year, the UK will be subject to EU rules and regulations as part of a transition period that gives both sides 11 months to strike agreements on a wide range of areas of cooperation, including trade.