LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Tesco, Britain's biggestretailer, denied an accusation by the opposition Labour partythat it turns away British workers to exploit cheaper migrantlabour.
In remarks that could drag British retailers into apolitically-charged immigration debate ahead of a 2015 election,senior Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant was due to say in a speechon Monday that Tesco and Next deliberately excludedBritish people from jobs.
Tesco, which employs more than 310,000 people in 3,146stores across Britain and Northern Ireland, said Bryant'saccusations were untrue. Extracts of Bryant's speech were madeavailable to the media ahead of time.
"The statements in relation to Tesco are untrue," Tesco saidon Twitter. "We work incredibly hard to recruit from the localarea and we have just recruited 350 local people to work in ourDagenham site."
Bryant was due to say Tesco favoured workers from EasternEurope over British ones and that it relocated one of itsdistribution centres in a way that discouraged local employeesto continue working for the firm.
Labour's allegations led local news bulletins on Monday andthe denial from Tesco could embarrass Bryant and his party, someof whose own members have accused it of lacking a strategy totake on Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party.
Retailer Next said it did hire Polish nationals to work inBritain at busy times, but said it did so because it could notfind enough Britons to fill vacancies and that it was not doinganything unethical or illegal.
"Mr Bryant wrongly claims that Polish workers are used tosave money. This is simply not true," it said. "We are deeplydisappointed Mr Bryant did not bother to check his facts withthe company before releasing his speech."
Tesco (TSCO)
Next (NXT)