Migrant laborforce in the strawberry industries

Spain is the world’s second biggest producer of strawberries, after the United States. One of the most important centres of this crop is the Andalusian province of Huelva which lies in the extreme south-west of the country close to the border with Portugal. Thanks to its climate, the strawberry growing season is very early in Huelva, starting in February and reaching its peak from March to May. This gives the region an almost total monopoly on the European market as all other areas produce later in the year. Around 55.000 workers are employed every year in this one region.

Thirty years ago, the region was poor and the population was obliged to emigrate in search of work either abroad or in other parts of Spain. Strawberry production began twenty years ago and has become a mono-culture with a very high level of productivity (40-45 tonnes per hectare). The type of strawberry grown is not local, but comes from California and the farmers in Huelva have to pay royalties. The area cultivated is constantly increasing. The farmers receive considerable grants from the Andalusian government and also indirect support from the European Union. One of the crucial advantages of this sector is the low cost of labour.

The industry is very well organised with 95% of the enterprises belonging to “Freshuelva” which ensures high marketing efficiency throughout Europe.

In 2001 of the 55.000 workers in the strawberry sector in Huelva, around 10.000 were immigrants, the others being Spanish jornaleros(agricultural day workers). The vast majority of the immigrants were from the Maghreb, most of whom did not have legal permits. Their employment and living conditions were appalling. Many had been coming to Huelva for many years for the strawberry season.

During 2001 undocumented migrants launched a massive campaign throughout Spain demanding their regularisation. This resulted in well over 100.000 migrants receiving a legal status. Among those communities particularly active in this campaign were the Moroccans, Mauritanians, Senegalese and Ecuadorians.

With the assistance of certain Spanish organisations, above all the CGT (small trade union existing throughout Spain), ODITE (organisation defending foreign workers) and the SOC (Andalusian agricultural workers union), the migrant workers in Huelva started to try and improve their situation by calling for residence and work permits. Following a lengthy occupation of a church in Huelva they finally succeeded in obtaining permits which, however, were specifically restricted to the agricultural sector in the province of Huelva. They were not allowed to work elsewhere or in a different economic sector.

In order to obtain these permits they had to prove that they had a promise of employment for the next season. This involved considerable corruption as many agricultural enterprises “sold” such precontratosto Moroccan workers.

Confronted by the high level of organisation of the immigrants in 2001, the Spanish authorities have since sought to encourage labour migration from other countries and in particular central and eastern Europe. Despite having given such restricted permits to over 4000 North African workers for the 2002 season, the government signed agreements with Poland and Romania which resulted in around 6500 Polish and 1000 Romanian workers being recruited for this same harvest with contratos de origen. The vast majority of these workers were women.

The farmers were also reluctant to employ Moroccans with a legal status, as they would be more likely to demand their rights. Already in the past the farmers had sought to avoid employing members of combative Spanish unions of agricultural day workers. The Eastern European women are ideal as they are far more docile and do not protest when obliged to work above the prescribed number of hours. The Spanish authorities would seem to specifically seek young women with considerable economic difficulties but also with family responsibilities as they are more likely to return home after the season.

In order to organise the selection, recruitment and travel of these workers the Spanish government, Freshuelva and the main trade unions (COAG, UGT and Comisiones Obreras)[1] established a commission which opened offices in Poland and Romania.

In Romania the candidates had to fill out a questionnaire and fulfil a series of conditions (medical certificates, absence of a criminal record…). This costs them about half of a monthly salary in Romania. They then presented themselves in very large numbers at recruitment offices organised by COAG and Freshuelva in the Spanish embassy in Bucharest and in certain towns (in offices made available by the Romanian authorities). They generally have to wait about ten hours in a queue for their interview. They then have to wait several days to know whether they have been accepted or not.

The workers receive contracts and the employer pays the two-way ticket, but in many cases retains the return ticket until the end of the season. The contracts are drawn up by COAG, Freshuelva and the two main trade unions (UGT and CCOO). The trade unions explain their involvement by the need to regulate employment in the strawberry sector and thereby protect the rights of the workers.  

Since 2002 the SOC has been active in the region, particularly with workers from Romania. It has not been able to establish such close relations with Polish labourers. According to the SOC, there were many abuses. The contracts shown by Romanian workers to the SOC were in fact a “T” type solicitud(work application form) made up of a “pre-contract” which should be confirmed once the worker arrives in Spain. This solicitudfixes the level of wages, but not the number of hours. The fact that the contract is in Spanish means that most workers cannot understand the conditions and guarantees laid down in them.

In most cases, the employers keep the contracts and do not give a copy to the workers. In 2003 the SOC’s representative in Huelva was asked to visit eight farms by workers who needed assistance because they were worried about the fact that when they went out to the local town or Huelva they had no papers to show if they were controlled. The employers kept their passports under the pretext that they needed them to establish the contract. They did not, however, give the passports back until the end of the season (along with the return ticket).

Some of the workers explained to the SOC that those who were obliged to return early before the end of the season due to family problems had to buy the return ticket themselves because the employer refused to give them the one that they had brought with them. The fact that employers keep both the passports and return tickets enables them to put constant pressure on the workers and to force them to work longer hours than foreseen in the contract.

Many of the new immigrants had 10% of their salaries deducted to cover accommodation costs, although this was not laid down in the contract. On the other hand, many were not given any lodging at all and had to live in overcrowded apartments.

In 2002 a group of Romanian workers organised a strike with the help of the SOC at an enterprise which is a member of the COAG. As a result the COAG threatened the workers and the SOC that if they continued to hold protests or demand the strict application of the contract they would have to stop recruiting workers from these countries.

In connection with these conflicts the SOC has sought to develop contacts with the Romanian embassy in Spain, but these have been fruitless. The ambassador and consul have generally advised their compatriots to keep quiet and to refrain from making demands in order to avoid creating scandals which could negatively affect the image of their country.

The North African workers found themselves confronted by an absurd situation. At the beginning of the 2002 season they were there waiting for the work to begin. Much to their surprise, they saw thousands of young Polish and Romanian women arrive who began picking strawberries, often for less money than the Moroccans would have received.

This left the Moroccans in a state of total poverty and despair in the streets, without shelter, food or even water. The situation became extremely tense, giving rise to a wave of racism against the Moroccans seen as dirty, unshaved and lazy. 4000 local people demonstrated in Huelva against "civil insecurity". For the first time in Andalusia posters of the extreme right-wing "National Democracy Party" could be widely seen. The arrival of new migrants can cause resentment and tensions among the more traditional immigrant communities who see their status lowered even further.

In fact, the Moroccans also played their part in the strawberry harvest. Desperate for any work and unable to go elsewhere, they stayed in the region. Whenever there was a particularly big harvest, or on Sundays or religious holidays, the employers could turn to this reserve army of labourers whom they paid miserable wages in humiliating conditions. At the end of the season the employers stated with satisfaction that it had been one of the most profitable so far.

Meanwhile, many of the Polish and Romanian women stayed in Spain to work in other fruit and vegetable producing areas and it is said that some ended up in the prostitution business.

The number of Polish and Romanian workers with “contracts of origin” was considerably increased for the 2003 season to around 12,000. There were enough of them to completely replace the North African workers. However, once again many thousand came from the Maghreb, both with and without papers, in the hope of finding employment. They tried to find shelter in huts made out of plastic, palettes and cardboard. These camps were mostly set up in woods far from the town. There was a particularly big camp between Moguer and Lucena.

The employers are well aware of the fact that these workers are far more used to the local conditions and pick strawberries much more quickly. They therefore often fetch some of them on Sundays or in the evenings when there is less likelihood of a visit by work inspectors. This is in fact no new phenomenon in the region. Earlier there used to be a huge camp of Portuguese workers who came to Huelva with the whole family in the hope of being given a few hours or days work now and again. 

Following its experiences in the last two strawberry seasons the SOC has not been able to establish good relations with the UGT and CCOO. In certain conflicts with employers in which the SOC has defended workers these unions made discreet interventions on behalf of the employers.

In one instance, four Romanians working for FresGonzalez denounced the fact that the employer deducted €2 every day from their wages and also complained about the appalling lodging conditions. Many workers were obliged to share a small building without ventilation or infrastructures (electricity, showers…). The Secretary General of CCOO in Huelva, Santiago Lepe, intervened discreetly in support of the employer and whipped up the media against the SOC. The case went to trial and the court decided in favour of the workers supported by the SOC.

In April 2003 the SOC held a meeting with CCOO to express its alarm with regard to the attitude taken by certain of its delegates. The CCOO clearly admitted that the abuses of clauses laid down in contracts which the SOC had denounced were widespread throughout the strawberry zone in Huelva. They claimed, however, that these were not that serious and only involved the workers losing a few euros.

Many members of the CCOO are unhappy with the attitude of their union. It must be remembered that the strawberry season provides work for 55.000 people. The traditional work force was made up of agricultural labourers (jornaleros) coming from different provinces of Andalusia (Sevilla, Cadiz, Cordoba and Granada) who often went to Huelva with their families. They had no relationship with the CCOO. Most were either members of other unions or had not joined any union.

Recently, with the arrival of increasing numbers of migrant workers, less and less Spanish jornaleroshave come to Huelva. This is also because the region of Huelva has one of the lowest wage rates in Andalusia and Spanish workers increasingly seek employment in other zones or in Andalusia’s booming construction industry.

The CCOO does not have a strong base in Huelva. In fact it plays more the role of an employment agency, acting as an intermediary between the employers and workers coming from elsewhere. In 2002, when the situation in Huelva was very explosive with regard to undocumented workers, the CCOO and UGT did not show solidarity towards migrant workers without papers.

In 2003 the SOC observed some alarming conditions in large farms, such as Pinares del Pilonar, where the employers have many security guards who prevent access to the lodgings of the workers by people who do not work for the enterprise. They close the door at ten at night and workers are unable to enter or leave the building after this time. The employers seem to want to prevent the workers from going for a walk or to have a drink with friends. At the Fresoliva enterprise at Palos the Polish workers have to ask permission from the employer every time they want go out. They have to say at what time they intend to return because the gate is kept constantly locked. 

At the Costaluz farm, Spanish workers have been thrown out because they had become friends with Polish women migrants. Workers are prevented from going out for a drink or to the cinema. The employer often enters the sleeping quarters of the workers without warning.

It must also be said that the number of marital conflicts and even divorces in the region has considerably increased due to the presence of a large number of young and often attractive women.

The atmosphere was extremely explosive in 2002 and 2003. In 2003 one Moroccan was murdered, three were beaten up while sleeping in Huelva station, while two others suffered burns when petrol was thrown on them and then ignited. In 2002 one worker disappeared without trace and several were beaten up by a group of over 20 Spanish people who attacked the abandoned building in which the migrants were living.

It is to be feared that it will be the same in 2004. There are tensions between the immigrant communities, as African migrants resent the newly arrived workers from Eastern Europe for taking their jobs. Many Spanish people in the region also reject the migrants, above all those from North Africa. The difference between this region and the province of Almeria is that the strawberry season lasts for only three months, whereas the production in Almeria continues for most of the year, thus further increasing the risk of an escalation of tensions.

Huelva update

The evolution described in above continued during the 2004 season. The number of workers coming from Poland and Romania with contratos de origen rose further to a total of 19.800 (7500 in 2002, 12.000 in 2003). They were once again almost all women.

This increase in the number of contracts led to a deterioration in the employment and lodging conditions. According to the contract, travel costs should be covered by the employer, but in most cases workers only received a part of the costs, or even none at all. In some cases, workers were forced to borrow around 300 euros for the trip at interest rates of 15%, resulting in high debts.

Employers continued to rarely pay the full wages and to oblige the workers to do extra time for no extra pay. Officially the hourly wage was 7 euros, but it was often less than 5 euros. Lodging should be provided by the employer free of charge, but in many cases a sum was deducted from the wages to cover lodging costs.

Perhaps the most important development was that it has become common practice for Romanian and Polish contract workers to be given work for only 18 or 20 hours a week (and to be paid only for this time), which is totally contrary to the provisions of the contract. In fact, it would seem that there is a deliberate policy to ensure an over-supply of labour, with the employers turning not only to the contract workers, but also to undocumented and legally residing North Africans, Spanish agricultural day labourers, depending on the level of orders and growing conditions.

This obviously ensures that all of the workers become desperate for a few additional hours employment and remain docile for fear of losing out altogether.

Nicholas Bell (nicholas.bell@gmx.net)

Sources:
Maria Garcia Bueno and Jorge Garcia, Sindicato de Obreros del Campo

Decio Machado, ODITE

[1] COAG is a federation of farmers unions throughout Spain; UGT is a workers trade union traditionally close to the Socialist Party, while the CCOO is closer to the Communist Party. 

Strawberry workers' situation

It's strawberry harvest time in Huelva and thousands of african migrants find themselves marginated and living in dreadful conditions due to the negative of the agricultural employers in Huelva to take them on. This is the same situation they are forced to go through since 2002.

From mid 90s on, the number of african workers taking part in the strawberry harvest (“la campaña –the campaign, militar name- de la fresa”), tradicionally carried out just for andalusian workers (“temporeros” –time workers-), has been inceasingly increasing. There was, there's still, a growing labor demand in the nearby irrigated lands. For quite a long time it was highly profitable for its owners to contract workers without papers (“sin papeles”) and to pay them a pay's day (“el jornal”) much lower than it was fixed in the workers' agreement. However, it all changed when these migrant workers began to organize themselves with the help of the unions already operating there: They began to reclaim their labor rights.

From the 2002 “campaña” onwards, and after several labor fights, the employers, in colusion with the PP Government, decide to get rid of these african workers and to replace them with migrant women from Eastern Europe. This situation culminated with the dramatic “sit-in” (“encierro”) in the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville in june 2002, at the same time that the European Union summit was being held in this city. Two years later, the situation hasn't changed.

In this context we had an interview with a worker in CGT-Andalusia Immigration Secretary:

How is the general situation of african workers in the strawberry harvest in Huelva this year?

African workers are living in several “shanty towns” in subhuman conditions. You can find these settlements all along the strawberry region: Mazagon, Palos, Lepe,... with 800, 900 or even 1000 people living there. They live under plastics, without water, “recycling” food form the dustbins… There's an increasing number of subsaharian migrants, though most of them still are from Morocco, with more and more presence of minors, and also there are important groups from Mauritania and Algeria. The settlements are structured according to ethnic groups. Among them, you can find many migrants with papers that didn't find a job either –due to the racist, and not only legal, discrimination against them-, though most of them are “sin papeles”.

And what about Eastern Europe workers?

They are about 19.000, mostly romanian or polish women, that come here for 3 months with 3 months-term contracts already signed in their countries (“contratos en origen”). They usually don't know thier labor rights and the employers consider that they are meeker than african workers. African workers find themselves fully marginated: 3 years ago they were day laborers (“jornaleros”) and now they are on the edge of begging. However, the situation of these Eastren women isn't good either.

Which part are the institutions playing?

Their part is essentially a welfare, and still insufficient one. The Red Cross dealt with a food distribution program, only for 800 people, and it has recently been cut off due to the lack of budget. The Red Cross has even denounced the institutions neglect and criticized that they only want to put a patch on it, and yet very poorly.

What about the unions?

The unions that are implicated in this problem are Sindicato Unitario (“Unitary Union”), Sindicato de Obreros del Campo (S.O.C., “Land workers union”) and CGT (“General Work Confederation”), that are gathering efforts in the strawberry fight. The first one, a union from Huelva, with communist roots; the second one, SOC, with a long experience in the zone, created its own “Oficina del Temporero” (day laborer's office); finally, CGT-A intervenes through the aforementioned Immigration Secretary.

What are they doing in the zone?

We carry out a work shared between “shanty towns” and the country estates (the infamous “cortijos”). We visit every day the first ones in order to offer them assistance and union information and to distribute medicines, clothes and food, and at the same time try to catch the mass media eye on the conflict to made it more and more broadly visible. In the country estates, we are organizing assemblies with the working women. There we tell them about labor rights and gather their complaints and denounces. Many of them have their passports retained, lack a copy of their contracts and get usually paid less below the agreement. They suffer also from psychologic pressure, by means of dismissal threats or even physical agressions. We try to make this situation visible, either through press conferences, or reporting it directly to the Administration.

The strawberry growing in Huelva region: Keys to union intervention

Our task takes place in El Condado, as the budget limits and the need of concentrating efforts and take advantage of the resorts that our workmates in SOC have already there unable us to make further interventions. The strawberry growing covers every range of militant intervention. It musn't be considered merely as a rural and isolated one. It's a chance for CGT-A to develope a global politic discours: ecology (use of fertilizers banned in the EU), food security, chemical industry, patents (the strawberry is bought to the California University, that holds its patent), rational use of land resources (against the land intensive exploitation and the monoculture), labor exploitation, "sexual violence" against working women, questioning of the special agricultural regime ("régimen especial agrario"), immigration and labor precariousness, lodging, shanty towns, social exclusion....

We in CGT-A deemed a priority for 2004 strawberry "campaign" to restore the bonds with Huelva organizations and to take on a politic cartography of this situation in the hope to undertake a global immigration work throughout Andalusia regions, following the ones already made in Úbeda (Jaén), Motril (Granada)...etc. Interventions in this "campaña": Since march, Carlos Serrano and Luis de los Santos, workmates in the Inmigration Secretary, have developed a work in these fields:
1. Visits to working centers.
2. Visits to "shanty towns" settlements.
3. Development of social networks in Huelva. Alliance policy. "Mesa del Temporero" (Day Laborer Committee).
4. Development of support group to these networks in Seville.

1. Visits to working centers. Groups of workers from Romania, Poland and Magreb.

Together with SOC assistants, we detected and reported before the Working Office many irregularities. We specially worked with working women from Romania, the most disadvantaged group comparing to the other collectives contracted in advance in their countries (the polish women, for example). We reported several failures to comply with the working agreement as: housing overcrowding, lack of translations of contracts, violence exerced by the employers against working women, passports retaining by agricultural cooperatives to control them (it was reported to the Huelva Prosecution Office with the signatures of SOC, CGT-A and S.U. general secretaries). We have often held assemblies with these working women from Romania and made some contacts for future harvest "campaigns". The vast majority of them lacked of union experience and nevertheless they ask us for help as soons as they had problems. Thank to this CGT-A reappeared in the mass media as a union dedicated to inmigration and agriculture labor matters. An important new point is that we helped to visualize the labor precariousness of these collective, so far ignored. Never before in Huelva working conditions of this group had been reported, in a sort of disruption of the "silence pact" between CC.OO., U.G.T. (majority unions) and the employers'organization about these conflicts with working women with contracts signed in their countries, "silence pact" intending to maintain and increase these kind of working conditions.

2. Visits to "shanty towns" settlements. Groups of workers from Magreb and the South of Sahara.

We concentrated on this group, as José María Castellanos, a CGT-Huelva workmate, worked for APDH-A (Pro Human Rights Association-Andalusia). The main difficulty with these collectives was that, due to their extreme impoverishment and precariousness, they demanded other basic assistance that we decided not to cover (apart from concrete distributions of clothes in this settlements). The task we undertook was one of a different kind: Get a radiography of the groups living there and offer them the union reference of CGT-A, as most of them move to Catalonia in the summer, and then to Jaén. There was some chance of mobilization, mainly with subsaharian workers, but considering the delay of the campaign and the weakness of the social movements in Huelva we decided to give it up and concentrate in the visibilization of this situation. We couldn't cover everything, and so we decided to develop a more specific union work and to try to plan better our intervention in future "campañas". Anyway, we have some contacts available, that may be used either in Lleida (Catalonia) or in Jaén.

3. Development of social networks in Huelva. Alliance policy. "Mesa del Temporero" (Day Laborer Committee).

This Day Laborer Committee coordinates all our work in Huelva and is formed by CGT-A, S.U, SOC, APDH-A, I.U. (Communist Party), working migrant women collective Alminar, Ecologistas en Acción and other individuals. We realized the need to promote this space, in a sort of deadlocked state when we arrived, so that we all could respond to the Huelva Immigration Committee (CCOO,UGT, FRSHuelva, Subdelegación –the Governmet representation in Huelva-..). This space uses as its main tool the "Day Laborer Rights Carta" ("Carta de Derechos del Temporero"), that isn't revolutionary, but implies an improvement in labor conditions for these workers, although it is clear that it will require constant reelaboration if we keep on with this space and are able to gain more and more contributions. Before this, only some of the unions, mainly SOC, respond to these situations, but from now on we always unite to give a collective answer to these problems (without loosing our singularities). Our weakness in CGT, and that of the social movements in Huelva, make it more neccesary to gather efforts and resources in this space. It had positive effects: renforcement of the alliances with S.U. (we could use their office, phone, fax and resources for our work), with SOC (we executed together a campaign in the country estates and collaborate with them, basicly in the legal consultancy carried out by Luis Santos and the use of their office Mazagón, number 9.

Interventions with the Day Laborer committee:

- Assemblies con working women form Romania in Mazagón.
- Reports before the Workig Office (together with SOC and SU)
- Release of the book "La fresa Amarga", that is intended to help for next year's strawberry "campaña".
- Report before the Foreign Prosecution Office in Huelva, signed by CGT-A, SOC and SU General Secretaries, broadly covered in the local and andalusian press, linking it to the attacks against migrant workers in El Ejido.
- Meeting wiht the Government Representative in Huelva to expose him the situation and introduce our Day Laborer Committee to him.
- We intend to meet also with the Representative of the Autonomic Government ("Junta de Andalucía") and of the Social Security.
- Elaboration of a report about the 2004 campaign by the two CGT-A workmates and Miguel (SU)
- Elaboration of audiovisual material.
- Elaboration of a global proposal by these three unions and people form social movements in Seville, regardinf the union intervention from october 2004. We are still with it and intend to discuss it among unions and social movements.

The negative side is that we weren't able to coordinate any street mobilization due to the lack of time and joint experience within this Committe, and also due to priority commitments of some of us (SOC, for example). We also failed to bring some people from UMT (Morocco) to report about the agricultural situation in Huelva. The positive one is that we colud lay the foundations of a joint work that will begin next year with the creation of a union space inside this Committee to reclaim the improvements contained in the aforementioned "Day Laborer Rights Carta" ("Carta de Derechos del Temporero"), thinking of next year's signature of the Provincial Country Agreement. Some workmates have already made contact with unions in Romania.

4.- Development of support group to these networks in Seville. Another important new point has been the promotion, thank to the commitment of CGT-A in Huelva, of a working group for that Day Laborer Committee in Seville, city in which the migration work was deadlocked from the 2002 University "sit-in". We had several meetings with different people and groups as CNT, and we are elaborating a working plan for next year (as this work is intended to intervene for next "campaña", not for the current one). Legal and scientific studies, juridic reports and denounces, films, communication campaigns, economic self-management, precariousness, are some of the ideas we reached in our "brainstorming" session. This is a completely open group or the people in Seville and in September we have promoted a big forum where we have dealt with these problems again. The interesting matter is how CGT-A has reached to set forth a social group concerned with migration in Huelva and Seville, taking into account the previous negative experience, where we intend to recover and build a group that doesn't only intervene around the strawberry harvest "campaign", but also has as a core axis that of precariousness and migration, both areas requiring the confluence of leftist and autonomous spaces, collectives and people.

Report made by Luis María de los Santos Castillo and Carlos Serrano. CGT-A Immigration Secretary

European Civic Forum

Over the past three years the European Civic Forum has carried out an extensive study of the exploitation of migrants in European agriculture. It is impossible to examine the question of migration, whether legal or illegal, without seeing it within the context of a labour market in which certain economic sectors depend on the existence of an underpaid and exploited workforce, much of which is undeclared and of immigrant origin.

All European administrations know perfectly well that the decision taken in the 70s to put a stop to most forms of legal immigration drove migrants into the illegal economy. Workers in the textile workshops in the Sentier district of Paris or in the greenhouses of Andalusia are clandestine only by name. Everyone knows that it is thanks to their sweat and labour that European con-sumers are able to buy fruit, vegetables or clothes at ridiculously low prices. The authorities turn a blind eye, refusing to legalise undocumented migrants, and thus acquiesce to the overall deterioration of labour structures.

These 3D jobs - dirty, degrading and dangerous - are to be found in the construction industry, domestic work and cleaning, textiles, hotel and restaurants, agriculture… Recently new activities have been added, including highly qualified work at the unattractive end of the new technology sector, repairing computers by night etc.

Patrick Taran, Senior Migration Specialist at the International Labour Office, speaks of the "benign tolerance by some States for poor work conditions and non-regulation - situations that attract irregular labour. Such tolerance appears to be all but official policy in some countries, in order to maintain marginally productive economic activity that nonetheless provides employ-ment, export products etc.".

A French anthropologist, Emmanuel Terray, has a particularly striking image to depict the situation. For him, this "economy based on illegal work" represents a form of "délocalisation sur place" – a difficult phrase to translate. It basically means "relocating on the spot". Thus the industries and economic sectors that cannot be transferred to Third World countries, where labour costs are very low, simply import low-wage workers in the form of clandestine immi-grants.

As he puts it, "What do the neo-liberals want? They want a workforce which is as flexible and docile as possible and which is deprived of any protection. Undocumented foreigners represent a totally flexible workforce, because you can recruit or dismiss them as you wish, as orders arrive. The best way to have products at very low prices is to generalise slavery. The funda-mental question is whether we accept sectors in which slavery is common practice, or if we are not prepared to accept this".

To come back to agriculture, our attention was drawn to the situation by the vicious racist riots that broke out in February 2000 in the Andalusian town of El Ejido. The victims were Moroccans working, mostly illegally, in the 30.000 hectares of greenhouses in the area.

The European Civic Forum sent an international commission there to investigate, which resulted in the publication of a detailed report. The commission of enquiry soon realised that the presence of thousands of illegal immigrants working and living in intolerable conditions was vital to this economic "miracle". They make up an instantly available cheap labour force at moments of picking.

15,000 farm businesses produce up to 3 million tonnes of fruit and vegetables, half of which is exported to northern Europe, mainly Germany. Around 1000 lorries leave the region every day during the high season. At the time, almost 92% of the region's agricultural workers were immigrants, the vast majority coming from the Maghreb And sub-Saharan Africa (64% were Moroccans). In 1998 the Office for the social integration of immigrants in Almeria estimated the number of legal immigrants at 15,000 and the number of illegals at between 15,000 and 25,000.

The municipality of El Ejido has a deliberate policy of segregation and makes a point of harassing immigrants with the aim of discouraging them from "colonising" the town centre. Most of them have to live in old shacks abandoned by the rural population; 55% of them have no drinking water, 57% no washing or toilet facilities and 31% no electricity. Hundreds of people squat in huts made of old wood and plastic. In 2000 the region's officials put the number of immigrants living in unfit conditions at 17,000.

These immigrants also have to put up with unacceptable working conditions, including heat of up to 50°C in the glasshouses and contact with huge amounts of pesticides. Needless to say, they are poorly paid. The producers are squeezed by bank loans, the farm supplies industry and marketing firms, so they try to survive by making savings in the only area they control, namely employment.

Three years after the riots in El Ejido and the ensuing outcry in the Spanish and international press, the situation has in no way improved. Indeed it has deteriorated and remains highly explosive. We will return to this later on.

The massive presence of illegal immigrants working in Spanish agriculture was also highlighted by a terrible road accident near Murcia in January 2001, which killed 12 illegal labourers from Ecuador. This led to the discovery that there were some 20,000 clandestine immigrants from Ecuador just in this region and some 150,000 in the Iberian peninsula. The accident victims had all been working without a residence permit or contract for an hourly wage of 2.41 euros.

Of course this phenomenon does not just concern Spain. The situation in Almeria is more obviously shocking, but there are abuses in the fruit and vegetable sector throughout Europe. It is for this reason that the European Civic Forum decided to launch a Europe-wide inquiry, resulting in the publication of a second study called “Le goût amer de nos fruits et légumes”.

In Great Britain, for example, a study carried out by Don Pollard, the former chairman of the Rural, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union, shows that it is the "gangmasters" system that supplies the large number of labourers needed by the fruit and vegetable sector at peak picking times. The gangmasters fix wage levels and working conditions and are paid for this service by the farmers.

In the last ten or fifteen years this has become big business. Some gangmasters employ up to 2,000 people, making a turnover of some 20 million Euros. When the local labour supply is no longer enough, they seek workers elsewhere, especially in Eastern Europe. They are in direct contact with recruiters based in these countries who "organise" the illegal migrant labour. The recruits pay between 2,500 and 4,000 Euros each for visas and, in many cases, fake passports. They then have to work in atrocious conditions.

In the Netherlands, one of the first countries in the world to have intensified its agriculture, one third of illegal labourers work in the sector and above all in market gardening. One study by Rotterdam University puts the number of illegal migrant workers at 100,000.

The influence of supermarket chains is enormous. In many countries they control up to 80% of the market, and it is they who decide what must be produced. They constantly cut prices to compete with their rivals and attract customers. Their buyers can call farmers at any moment and ask for a lorry-load, or just one or two palettes, of this or that product the next day. If the farmer is unable to deliver, the buyer will look elsewhere. The fact that a dozen or more workers are suddenly required for a few hours makes it impossible to have a fixed labour force. A reserve army of unemployed, supplementary benefit claimants and clandestine workers is needed.

This is one of Europe's little known facts: the hidden face of our fruit and vegetables which have the bitter taste of modern slavery. This is going on in our countryside, far from the towns where there are immigrant communities and human rights associations capable of reacting.

Over the past few years, European governments and EU institutions have changed their tack on immigration policy. After years of being tacitly tolerated, irregular immigration is now presented as a scourge requiring immediate remedy. The response is above all repressive, particularly against traffickers said to be responsible for much of the problem. But, as Patrick Taran of the ILO puts it, "basic labour economics theory would suggest that placing barriers between high demand and strong supply creates a potentially lucrative market for services of getting the supply to where the demand is".

The supply is enormous: hundreds of millions of people across the world suffer from desperate poverty or political repression. The demand is such that any migrant who manages to make it across the Mediterranean, or across vast distances in Asia, and who is willing to accept appall-ing working and living conditions, knows that he or she will find a job in the "illegal economy" within weeks of arriving.

At the same time, European governments are now seeking to open up new channels for immi-gration for the needs of the labour market. This involves creating statuses for temporary, sea-sonal or fixed duration immigration. A clear aim is to separate the right to a specific work permit from any possibility of obtaining the right to longer-term residence in the EU.

In fact, such statuses have existed for many years. For example, several thousand workers have come every year to France from Poland, Tunisia and above all Morocco since the 70s. Their OMI contract allows them to work for up to six or eight months in agriculture. “OMI” stands for l’Office des Migrations Internationales, a French semi-state body, not to be confused with the Geneva based IOM. OMI contract workers are physically in France, but as far as their rights are concerned they are in Morocco. Although they pay social charges at the normal French rate, the family allowances they receive are based on the Moroccan rate, over five times lower than the French one. The same is true for their pensions.

In many ways, an OMI contract worker has less rights than a clandestine worker. He can come to France every year for 25 years and have no right whatsoever to apply for a residence permit, whereas a migrant who has been illegally in the country for ten years has some chance of being regularised.

OMI workers very rarely protest against the abuses they suffer. They know that there is a sort of black list and anyone who complains will not obtain a new contract in France the next year. Recently, however, a certain number of workers have decided to take their employers to the labour court. They have been greatly helped in this by the Collective for the Defence of Foreign Workers in Agriculture which was created two years ago in the region. This collective is proba-bly unique in Europe in that it brings together leading trade unions, a progressive farmers union (the Confédération Paysanne), anti-racism organisations, the Human Rights League… This question has been given considerable media coverage in the local and national press and television. This has forced the Préfecture to take the Collective’s allegations seriously and hold discussions with all concerned. With national organisations such as GISTI the Collective now intends to examine the possibility of contesting the legality of the OMI contracts as such.

In the Lot et Garonne region, fruit and vegetable producers organised a demonstration in July 2001 with the slogan "We want Polish workers!". They were demanding an increase in the number of OMI contracts allowed in the area. The local president of the Rural Coordination, a farmers union, explained to the press that "the employment agency says that there are thou-sands of local candidates for employment, but we know that this workforce is not adapted to our needs. They come one or two days and then leave because the work is too hard for them. We do not want people from the yoghurt generation, but competent, efficient and readily available workers".

"Available" means that they have no family on the spot, are lodged (badly) at the farm, and are ready to work ten hours a day and at weekends without ever demanding overtime payments. "Efficient" means that they will obey every order for fear of being sent back home.

The Spanish small farmers union, COAG, has expressed great interest in the OMI system and there is a danger that it could serve as a model elsewhere.

Similar contracts exist in other European countries. For example, in Austria the "Erntehelfer" (harvest helper) status was established in May 2000. Up to 7000 seasonal workers can be recruited for up a maximum of six weeks. There is practically no social insurance, the wages are low and the unions absent. The employer saves over 15% because he does not have to pay social charges.

In 1991 Germany introduced the status of seasonal worker for the agriculture, forest and hotel sectors. The contract is limited to three months. In 2000, a total of 220.000 new permits were issued for agricultural seasonal workers. In theory there is a ceiling on the number of permits for eastern Europeans – 180.000 – but this is not respected as the government has introduced a whole series of exceptions, such as "the danger of bankruptcy due to an over-costly workforce"...

Germany has helped to establish recruitment agencies in the countries of central and eastern Europe. Many comes outside this framework and it is estimated that there are about the same number of undocumented workers in German agriculture as legally registered ones. About 90% of the migrants working on German farms are Polish. They work longer hours than permitted and are paid less, but in view of the fact that wages are much higher in Germany, few will complain. They are keen to earn as much as they can during the months they are in the country.

Some of the abuses suffered by migrant workers in Germany have been brought to public attention and also attacked in the courts thanks to the efforts of the Polish Social Council based in Berlin which has set up an advice centre for migrants from eastern Europe (ZAPO). On many occasions a telephone call from this organisation to an employer who has refused to pay proper wages or provide correct lodging has succeeded in bringing about an improvement.

By introducing such seasonal and temporary work statuses European decision-makers are in the process of cementing an intolerable form of segregation on the labour market. As Alain Morice, a French researcher on Migration and Society, puts it, "one can imagine that little by little, by adopting one derogation after another, by gradually dismantling the Labour Laws, it will no longer be necessary to resort to illegal workers for the simple reason that the very notion of legality in the field of labour rights will have so strongly receded. When you look, for example, at agricultural work, you can see that the French "Rural Code" includes a vast mass of derogations weakening positive labour rights".

The consequences will be disastrous, and not only for migrant workers. Europe is creating a new form of underclass of temporary workers, who will replace each other in a sort of perma-nent rotation of precarious existence, without the same rights as other workers. Immigrants will above all not have the right to live in a normal way with their family or be able to make any clear plans for the future.

Another important recent phenomenon is that of immigrants arriving in western Europe from central and eastern European countries, with or without legal papers. They are beginning to replace the traditional immigrant labour forces coming, for example, from the Maghreb.

This must of course be seen within the context of the enlargement of the European Union. The social and economic consequences of enlargement, including the destruction of small-scale agriculture in countries like Poland, will force millions of people to seek their livelihood elsewhere. This can only be of great advantage to Europe's employers and I would say also politicians. What better than to obtain a cheap and easily exploitable workforce which is, in addition, white and even Christian.

This is the true background to the El Ejido riots in February 2000. Over the years, the Moroccan community had become organised and had succeeded in holding several strikes that totally stopped production. Shortly before the riots, representatives of the employers from the region had gone to Lithuania and other Baltic countries in the search for workers who could replace the troublesome and, to put it bluntly, detested Moroccans.

Open racism and hostility form part of the recipe for forcing the Moroccans to leave the region. This is no new tactic. It was already used in the 19th century in the fruit and vegetable planta-tions of California. Jean-Pierre Berlan, a researcher with the French National Agronomy Institute, has studied the history of the "Californian model" which closely resembles today's reality in Almeria. "It is important", he insists, "to understand that racism plays an essential role in this schema. It is necessary to split up the labour market by various methods, including racism".

A spectacular example of this phenomenon of immigrant replacement occurred in spring 2002 in the Andalusian province of Huelva. Every year, 55.000 workers pick strawberries over a period of three months. Unlike in El Ejido, most of them are Spanish day labourers. Traditionally up to 10.000 workers have been immigrants, the vast majority being undocumented Moroccans.

In 2001 the "sans-papiers" launched a massive campaign in Spain demanding their regularisation. This resulted in well over 100.000 migrants receiving a legal status. They included around 5000 Moroccans who obtained permits specifically restricted to the 2002 strawberry harvest in Huelva. They were not allowed to work elsewhere or in a different economic sector. At the beginning of the season they were all there waiting for the work to begin.

Much to their surprise, they saw thousands of young Polish and Romanian women arrive who began picking strawberries, often for less money than the Moroccans would have received. Despite having regularised the Moroccans specifically for this job, the Spanish government had decided to offer "contracts of origin" to 6500 Poles and to 1000 Romanians, most of whom were women, for this same job.

The farmers were in fact very reluctant to employ Moroccans with a legal status, as these would be more likely to demand their rights. Already in the past the farmers had sought to avoid employing members of combative Spanish unions of agricultural day workers. The Eastern European women are ideal as they are far more docile and do not protest when obliged to work above the prescribed number of hours. There were also many abuses. Many of the new immi-grants had 10% of their salaries deducted to cover accommodation costs, although this was not laid down in the contract. On the other hand, many were not given any lodging at all and had to live in overcrowded apartments.

This left the Moroccans in a state of total poverty and despair in the streets, without shelter, food or even water. The situation became extremely tense, giving rise to a wave of racism against the Moroccans seen as dirty, unshaved and lazy. 4000 local people demonstrated in Huelva against "civil insecurity". For the first time in Andalusia posters of the extreme right-wing "National Democracy Party" could be widely seen.

In fact, the Moroccans also played their part in the strawberry harvest. Desperate for any work and unable to go elsewhere, they stayed in the region. Whenever there was a particularly big harvest, or on Sundays or religious holidays, the employers could turn to this reserve army of labourers. At the end of the season the employers stated with satisfaction that it had been one of the most profitable so far. Meanwhile, many of the Polish and Romanian women stayed in Spain to work in other fruit and vegetable producing areas or ended up in the prostitution business. The number of Polish and Romanian workers with “contracts of origin” considerably increased for the 2003 season.

According to a representative of the Sindicato Obrero del Campo (SOC) in the province of Almeria, this phenomenon of replacement of the labour force has also taken place in El Ejido during the season which is now coming to a close. Whole busloads of Romanians and Lithuani-ans have been arriving to take the jobs that used to be done by Moroccans and other Africans. This is now possible due to the fact that they do not need visas. In general they do not have any contract and while they are not illegal migrants they are doing undeclared work. There are also many Latin Americans who arrive with visas often provided by consulate officials in exchange for a bribe. They have been working for as little as €18 a day, which is far lower than the €27 – €30 that the Moroccans used to earn in 2000.

Those migrants who have managed to obtain a legal status in Spain are generally refused employment in the greenhouses because they are in a position where they can more easily demand that the agreements on wages and conditions are respected.

In the meantime, a very large number of migrants from the Maghreb and the rest of Africa are still in the region, living in conditions of desperate poverty. The SOC representative explained that it is normal for six or seven people to live in a shack with only one of them earning any money. Somehow they have to try and survive together. He warned that the situation is becoming increasingly explosive. The arrival of new migrants can cause resentment and tensions among the more traditional immigrant communities who see their status lowered even further.

In the greenhouses in the Westland region of the Netherlands it is above all Bulgarians who have recently been arriving in large numbers, working mostly without a contract. Many are from the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, a fact that would seem to be linked with the presence of a large Turkish community in the Netherlands. These new migrants have been paid €2 per hour, far lower than the €5 or €6 which was usual for undocumented workers in 1998. An official scheme exists which enables farmers to recruit Polish workers, but this has been taken up by very few producers, no doubt due to the fact that they would have to pay higher wages.

This phenomenon has been made possible by the way in which the European Union is being developed. Due to enlargement, the EU will be made up of a number of very rich and highly developed countries with a growing need for workers prepared to accept low-paid jobs refused by the population and another group of countries whose economy and standard of living are infinitely lower. This is particularly true of Bulgaria, Lithuania and Romania. As a result, there is a large supply of cheap labour within Fortress Europe and it is becoming less necessary to import workers from Africa or Asia. The NAFTA is similar in that it includes Mexico within an otherwise highly developed economic zone.

Combating this form of exploitation is not easy as by definition much is more or less "clandestine" and most of those who are being exploited do not want attention to be drawn to their situation. They rightly fear that the only official response will be to deport them, rather than condemning the practices of their employers. The situation in agriculture is even more hidden from the public eye than that of construction, domestic work or textile sweatshops which are principally urban phenomena.

In most countries there are, however, small organisations or unions which have been attempting to work with the migrants and help them denounce their working and living conditions. I have already mentioned the Collective in southern France and ZAPO in Berlin. Another example is the SOC in Andalusia which is the only trade union in the region to genuinely seek to defend the rights of migrant workers. Its representative in El Ejido, a Senegalese former greenhouse worker, says that his union has helped many immigrants to take their employers to court. The SOC has to work with almost no means or support, while most of the larger well-established unions and humanitarian organisations receive large grants from the authorities to carry out various training and awareness-raising programmes, whose efficiency is highly doubtful. Any organisation that denounces the exploitation of migrants and takes steps on their behalf will almost certainly lose its grants.

This has caused a very unhealthy situation with serious divisions and tensions between organi-sations. Among other things, this greatly diminished the chance of success of the big occupation carried out by migrants in summer 2002 in Sevilla.

Another phenomenon which makes it very difficult to organise resistance and legal actions against abuses is the increasingly fragmented organisation of the labour market. This can best be seen in the Netherlands where migrants are now often hired for a few hours or at the most a few days. They are recruited by agencies often run by members of ethnic communities living in the country. Anybody can form such an agency. Since the decision to put an end to the licensing system in 1998, the number of agencies has rocketed from a few dozen to 2000.

Perhaps we should turn to the United States for inspiration. There a major campaign has been launched by migrant workers, mostly from Central America, picking tomatoes in appalling conditions in Florida. They formed the Coalition of Immokalee Workers back in 1997 (Immokalee is a town in the centre of the biggest tomato growing area in the United States). They discovered that the largest buyer of these tomatoes is Taco Bell, one of the biggest fast-food restaurant chains in the US. They have organised nation-wide information and demonstration tours with the slogan “End sweatshops in the fields!” and have called for a boycott of Taco Bell .

It is well worth following their example by making supermarket and fast-food restaurant chains the main subject of campaigns, rather than individual farmers who are subjected to fierce pressure with ever lower prices being paid for their produce. In the Bouches-du-Rhône region of France, for example, 40% of fruit and vegetable producers have gone bankrupt in the last ten years. The real problem is a highly intensified, industrial and ferociously competitive form of agriculture producing unhealthy food for consumers seeking the lowest prices and unaware of the social and environmental conditions in which the production takes place.

Nicholas Bell, European Civic Forum
email: nicholas.bell@gmx.net
Tel. +33.492 73 00 64
Fax. +33.492 73 18 18