OSR Recruitment Services has labelled a story which appeared in The Mail on Sunday, suggesting that the multi-sector recruiter had supplied workers to a meat producing factory solely on the basis that they could speak Polish, as ‘out of context’.

The Mail on Sunday report claimed that Forza AW, a major supplier of cooked meat to Asda supermarkets (part of Walmart), had been accused of anti-British discrimination due to the advertising of jobs via OSR Recruitment with the proviso that applicants must speak Polish even though their place of work would be in the UK.

An OSR statement released to Recruiter said: “OSR wish to make comment that following the very short notice it received from the client that they needed workers to start at this site as soon as possible, we were also informed that the latest inductions were being performed by the client in Polish. Therefore, we looked to initially place Polish-speaking workers with this company for obvious reasons.

“We should like to point out that there is nothing illegal about this type of positive selection criteria in such circumstances where reliance on health and safety briefings (for example) in factory settings are crucial and should, wherever possible, be made to persons in their first language.

“OSR therefore believes that the story as reported was ‘out of context’ and wishes to correct the misinformed suggestion that only Polish workers are being selected to work for this client; this is absolutely not the case.”